Advertising in American Culture Alicia Barber, Ph.D

Advertising in American Culture

Alicia Barber, Ph.D.

Analyzing Advertisements as Cultural Sources

• Purpose: What is it trying to sell/promote?

• Audience: Who is the target customer?

• Strategies: Text, image, message

What can it tell us about American culture

at the time of its production?

Purpose

• Cultivating brand identity• Convincing consumer to switch brands• Introducing a new product• Lobbying for a political issue

Strategies

• Does the advertisement offer a “reason why” to buy the product?

• Or is it oriented more to emotional appeals? • Does the ad feature the product or does it focus on the

people using it? • Does it address the reader directly with suggestions or

commands? • Does the ad offer a reduced price or a premium? • Does a celebrity provide an endorsement? • Does it play on fear or anxiety or make positive appeals?

Nineteenth-century shop

19th Century Advertisements

Wanamaker’s 1902 Grand Depot

Wanamaker’s 1903 Philadelphia Store

Louis Sullivan: Carson, Pirie, Scott Building, Chicago, 1899.

R.H. Macy’s, 1908

Marshall Fields’ Tiffany dome

Marshall Field, pre-1900.

Women at Marshall Fields, Chicago, 1905

Christmas shoppers, a woman holding a parcel and walking past a covered store window at Marshall Field's department store on State Street, Dec. 1905

Looking into a Marshall Field & Co. department store window in Chicago's Loop, 1910.

The Rise of Mass Culture

• Wave of new mass-marketed consumer goods: washing machines, automobiles, furniture, etc.

• Creation of community through new shared cultural experiences: radio, movies, magazines, tourism, advertising, etc.

• A new focus on the consumer.

Harry Grant Dart, “Picturesque America,” 1909

20

Consumer Credit

• Before 1920, the average consumer could not borrow money.

• Allowed consumers to pay smaller amounts over time.

• Began with large items like cars, pianos, etc.

• Induced a “speculative frenzy” as many bought stocks with only 10% down payment.1924 ad for Ford Runabout with

weekly purchase plan

“Buy now, pay later!”

1924 Advertisement for Work Rite radios

July 6, 1922. J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency Ad

Ivory soap ad, 1929

“Youth demanded simple clothes instead of those fussy, elaborate styles of the 1900’s. Clothes more expressive of youth’s own slim, natural grace—clothes easier to wear in the thousand-and-one activities of modern women!”

The Modern Girl

Pond’s ad from Ladies Home Journal, 1923.

“When girls started on their headlong career of swimming, golfing, riding and motoring, they were warned they would eternally ruin their complexions. But they just did not. After several years of sports and parties, their skin remains soft and fine. The modern girl still has the kind of complexion men bow to, fascinatingly fresh and smooth.”

Dr. West’s toothpaste, 1935

L’Aiglon, 1940s

Luis Sinco AP Photo/Los Angeles Times

Lego Ad, early 1960s

Volkswagen ad, 1963

Volkswagen ad, 1969

Sony Walkman ad, 1981

1969

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VM2eLhvsSM1971

1976

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD6j_7bgrtA1980