Advertising – Old Magazine Articles

Modern Political Advertising (Pageant Magazine, 1970)

The Selling of the President is about the role of television in the Republican efforts to elect Richard Nixon president in the 1968 election. Written over forty years ago by Joe McGinnis (1942 – 2014), the book was an instant classic as it addressed the matter of packaging a candidate for a political contest in the same manner products are promoted for the marketplace:

McGinnis concludes that ‘On television, it matters less that [the candidate] does not have ideas. His personality is what the viewers want to share…’

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Why Do Detergents Have Such Wacky Names (Pathfinder Magazine, 1952)

This column praises those brainiacs of Madison Ave who obsess over single syllable words (and sounds) in an effort to propel their client’s product to the tip-top of the profit-pantheon.

The right name can zoom a product into a commercial success. The wrong one can wreck its sales and waste the advertising dollars spent promoting it… If one day you hear of a product called ‘Heck’ or ‘Gosh’, don’t be surprised. Slang is more popular than the king’s English in product naming. Again, it’s because you use it more naturally. Newest proof of this came after the phrase ‘poof – there goes perspiration’ (a TV commercial for Stopette spray deodorant) made ‘poof’ a new American slang word.

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A Most Memorable Jingle (PM Tabloid, 1940)

Coca-Cola may be the real thing, but in 1940 Pepsi had launched the ad that made Madison Avenue sit up and realize the true power of radio advertising. It was the famous radio jingle that we still hear today in every play, movie and TV show wishing to create the perfect Forties atmosphere – you know the one: Pepsi Cola hits the spot, etc., etc., etc. A real toe-tapper. The attached article will clue you-in to it’s significance.

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U.S. Advertising During W.W. II (Yank Magazine, 1944)

If advertising is defined as the craft of convincing people they want something that they actually don’t care for, then World War II proved to have been the perfect challenge to the ad men of the 1940s. The wordsmith who penned this article regarding home front advertising chortled loudly when he saw the manner in which the bloodiest brawl in history was being marketed to the American consumers.

Advertising has gone to war… and the advertising profession not only knows what we are fighting for; it knows down to the last uplift bra, what we want when we come home…It is the copywriters of advertising who nurse the carefully guarded secret that this war is, in reality, a luxury cruise.

Articles about the importance of fashion models in 1940s advertising can be read here.

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Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948)

American advertising struck pay dirt when it discovered the super salesgirls whose irresistible allure will sell anything from a bar of soap to a seagoing yacht…Always there was the secret whisper of sex. For women it was, ‘Be lovely, be loved, don’t grow old, be exciting’… For men it was, ‘Be successful, make everyone know that your successful, how can you get women if your not successful?’

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Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948)

Beautiful Girls Wanted (Coronet Magazine, 1948) Read More »

‘Art Finds A Patron” (Our Times, 1936)

[As the 19th Century was coming to an end] salesmanship evolved a technique more refined than pulpit or platform oratory; advertising became more subtle in method, more concrete in results than any form of proselyting argument. The art which Milton put into selecting words which should make man think about God was excelled by the care with which American writers of advertisements assembled words designed to persuade man to consume more chewing gum. The man, or advertising agency, who wrote an effective selling slogan, such as ‘It Floats’, received far greater compensation than Milton for Paradise Lost.

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Elmer Wheeler, Word Chemist (Literary Digest, 1938)

For ten years it has been Elmer Wheeler’s profession to find out for his clients what words, spoken across the counter, will sell merchandise. It is shrewd psychology applied to a neglected link in the chain of business…:

Don’t ask if, ask which. Don’t ever give the customer the choice between something and nothing.

Wheeler knows he alone is not the gate keeper of successful sales pitches – he recalled seeing a blindman with a sign reading, It’s spring, and I am blind.

Elmer Wheeler, Word Chemist (Literary Digest, 1938) Read More »

Mocking Ad Practices in the Early 20th Century (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1914)

In the attached Vanity Fair article, James Montgomery Flagg (1877 – 1960) had a good laugh at the hand that fed him: the New York advertising establishment.

Better remembered in our own time as the creator of the iconic I Want You for the U.S. Army poster (1917), Flagg was a prolific artist and one of the highest paid magazine and advertising illustrators of his day. As the era of mass-media advertising developed, Flagg didn’t just have a good seat on the fifty-yard line; he was a player on the field and he saw his work reproduced in all sorts of unlikely venues.

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Winners in the 1920s Ad Game (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

This article is composed of 15 thumbnail biographies that serve to profile the most victorious men (and one woman) to have ever plied their craft in the world of American advertising during the Twenties and early Thirties. The fact that many of the clients listed herein are still around today will indicate how thoroughly these innovators had succeeded in making their names household words. Some of the the brainiacs profiled are Stanley Resor of J. Walter Thompson, Raymond Rubicam of Young & Rubicam, Gerard Lambert of Lambert & Feasley, Bruce Barton of BBDO and copywriter Lillian Eichler.

Winners in the 1920s Ad Game (New Outlook Magazine, 1934) Read More »