natashavc: madmenfootnotes: “Get me Bert’s man at the Wall Street Journal” Well, today, that would be me: …Up until the 1960’s, advertising was considered a written medium. The most successful ad campaigns, it was believed, had the most convincing argument… I humbly disagree. See Pernod, Cycles Gladiator, and any number of other famous advertisements from the industrial revolution through World War II, which rely as much on imagery and association as modern advertisements do. Advertising, in its relationship with popular culture, is as much passenger as driver. The postwar thirst for safety and normalcy that spawned suburbs and unaccented, anonymous suits extended even to the ad industry; it didn’t take them long to remember that there are more effective ways to sell a ham. 

natashavc:

madmenfootnotes:

“Get me Bert’s man at the Wall Street Journal”

Well, today, that would be me:

…Up until the 1960’s, advertising was considered a written medium. The most successful ad campaigns, it was believed, had the most convincing argument…

I humbly disagree. See Pernod, Cycles Gladiator, and any number of other famous advertisements from the industrial revolution through World War II, which rely as much on imagery and association as modern advertisements do.

Advertising, in its relationship with popular culture, is as much passenger as driver. The postwar thirst for safety and normalcy that spawned suburbs and unaccented, anonymous suits extended even to the ad industry; it didn’t take them long to remember that there are more effective ways to sell a ham.