Success Quote by Jerry Della Femina

"Thank you for making me nouveau riche" lands like a champagne toast with a needle in the stem. Della Femina, an advertising legend who sold desire for a living, isn’t just expressing gratitude; he’s performing a class confession with a smirk. "Nouveau riche" is an insult disguised as a label: it suggests money without pedigree, status without the right accent, success that still gets side-eyed at the country club. By choosing the term himself, he preempts the sneer and turns it into branding. If they’re going to mock you for arriving late to the aristocracy, you might as well print it on the invitation.

The intent is double. On the surface, it’s appreciation directed at an industry, a market, maybe even clients and consumers: you bought the story, and I got rich selling it. Underneath, it’s a jab at the old-money myth that wealth is noble when inherited and tacky when earned. In advertising, taste is manufactured, aspiration is monetized, and class is a costume with a price tag. Della Femina’s line admits the game and celebrates winning it.

Context matters: mid-to-late 20th-century American business culture, where the ad man becomes a minor celebrity and commerce becomes culture. The phrase compresses that era’s uneasy bargain: capitalism can make you powerful, but it may never quite make you "belong". The thanks, then, is real and sarcastic at once - a salute to the machine and a reminder that the machine still keeps score.