Institutional advertising, that artful device for infiltrating the subconscious, is capable of assuming a myriad of forms. A firm may use it to keep its name frequently before the public — the American Telephone and Telegraph Company is an example of first magnitude — or a segment of an industry, the nation's privately owned utility companies, for instance, may seek to promote their mutual interests. Sometimes the appeal may be purposefully direct: in 1905, N. W. Ayer & Son undertook the specific task of reëstablishing public confidence in the New York Mutual Life Insurance Company after the devastating investigation of the Armstrong committee.