I love old adverts. I enjoy the nostalgia appeal and the window into the past they offer.
People tend to think of advertising as being manipulative, sneaky somehow. It's a truism that everybody likes to buy, but few people like
being sold to, so adverts get a bad rep. But advertising is one of the purest and most honest forms of mass communication in modern society. The humble advert exists to sell you something, and it can only do so by convincing you that the product or service it features is worth you voluntarily exchanging your hard-earned money for.
Unlike, say, political communications or claims made by religious organisations, charities and lobby groups, commercial advertising is heavily regulated by law and the marketplace. So it's rare for adverts to
lie, they have to
persuade. The means by which they seek to persuade - the images, the humour, the aspirational lifestyles they highlight - can tell us a lot about the time and place they were made in.
I especially love 'sexist' adverts.
What do they tell us about the terrible patriarchal olden times they were made in?
One thing they tell us is that men were the head of their household, and expected respect from their wives. (And a good tie only cost 2 dollars!)
Another is that women were perfectly happy with this situation. Take the advert above: the modern college-trained feminist, indoctrinated into seeing "patriarchy" and "oppression" everywhere, would assume this ad is making fun of domestic violence.
But it isn't. It's an ad
aimed at women. It isn't telling women "buy our coffee or risk a beating" - that hasn't been a good sales pitch at any time in history. No, it's playfully referencing what we might now call a "red pill" truth - women
like being submissive to, and pleasing, manly men.
Take a look at the woman's face - does she look unhappy?
The modern feminist sees a housewife over her husband's knee and thinks "sexism!". The 1960's housewife saw the advert above and thought "my panties just got moist!". It's the oldest trick in the book - using sex to sell.
And on the subject of sex, everybody knows people in the Bad Old Days were sexually repressed puritans, right? Before "sex positive" and whatnot was invented...
Nah. Our parents and grandparents loved shagging. Which is a good thing, because we wouldn't be here otherwise. It's the modern day which is sexually repressed - full of people constantly looking for reasons to be offended by male desire.
Old adverts show us a world in which men and women were at ease with themselves.
Where masculinity wasn't derided as "toxic".
And where "gender roles" hadn't yet turned into a battlefield.
And maybe that's one of the reasons why "Mad Men" became so popular.