The first thing that I noticed as I leaf through the pages of December 1949 – February 1950 New Yorker is the name brands that I recognize. From many of the liquors (which I know we are not commenting on, but still) to the airlines company TWA, Norelco razors, and Rolex watches. Although I am not sure if TWA went bankrupt recently or not, I am fairly certain the rest of these companies are still in business today. Even Abercrombie and Fitch had an ad! With few exceptions, the people featured in the advertisements have big bright smiles, looking absolutely thrilled with whatever the product is they are attempting to sell. The people are mostly cartooned figures usually positioned towards the product (very lifelike) with great interest and/or enjoyment. It looks to me like the typewriter that is being advertised on one page is the greatest thing that has ever to the family and will be life changing. The only food advertisement I found that was food related was Kippered Herring, featuring a mother herring bathing her baby herring in the bathtub to show how well cleaned and packaged in the can this brand of herring is. Wow, does mother herring sure look happy about scrubbing her child for your consumption! The message I that this ad seems to be putting out is how much Crosse & Blackwell care about your health and safety by taking the time to package the herring in such a way. Every other ad is mostly for tobacco, alcohol, and clothing/perfume. I suppose readers of The New Yorker were more concerned with fashion and things of that nature that what kind of herring they were going to eat for dinner that night.
Ameena Batada, Maia Dock Seitz, Margo G Wootan, Mary Story. American Dietetic
Association. Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
3 comments:
I think its funny how you commented on how happy everybody looks. It is a pattern seen today even, but everybody back then was soooo much more animated (at least in my opinion). The cartoon look probabyl really adds to this excited look as well. When you commented on how happy the mother looked to be cleaning her baby for our consumption that was funny too, because ads of the past seem to have a sick humor about them, that still occurs today even. If anything, i would say that advertising trends of the past have stuck with us, and we will probably continue to use them in the future
I think that that is a very interesting way to show how clean the herring is. I know I am not creative and I never would have thought of that. I do find it interesting as well, that a lot of the advertisements look very cartoon like. I found this in a Coca-Cola ad. The woman was very cartoon like and played the typical role of the "house wife." It is interesting to see the changes that our society has made over these past 50+ years. I am interested in seeing the Abercrombie ad (even though it does not relate to food) because Abercrombie today advertises in a very sexual manner. Was it like that back then as well? I am assuming not, but I am very curious!
Abercrombie & Fitch used to market high end sporting equipment (hunting and fishing) and clothing, so that would be my guess as to the ad.
Paul
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