Original Family Values: Sex, Drugs, Bigotry, Fear, Lies
Advertising reflects popular culture, ideas, prejudices. It also helps define and validate them. The rules are still pretty much the same. Identify a fad or a need, position your product to support it. Then sell it with sex, greed, fear or loathing.
It apparently started in biblical times.
The marketplace is so crowded and varied now that branding is key. Today's ads rely just as heavily on tapping into subliminal, primal emotions. And they still insult every targeted group they seek to capture. Oh, the things people believed. Swallowed. Ingested. Bought. In the early 20th Century, they thought you could tame women, children and the elderly with hard drugs. (Maybe they were onto something). The 1950's and 60's brought sex, self-consciousness and subjugation to the mix. And the advent of Big Business Means Business. Tobacco. Liquor. Cars. Throw in some guns and unapologetic racism along the way. Add plenty of deliberate misdirects, innuendo and outright lies. There it is. A pictoral history of American culture in a nutshell. And I do mean NUTshell. Subliminal Sex Sells They might as well say, "Buy a Corvette and you're guaranted pussy." The oh-so-clever message, "Wear Levis and get a girl between your legs." Not in those ugly pants, bub. Lefty loosy, righty tightie. With your mouth. Can you say 'phallic'? 
I have got to know. Are Moses and Jesus selling us laxatives? 
Unsightly Un-American Fat
Seriously? You call that girl fat? Seriously? I wore Chubby sizes. I am scarred for life. Pass me a beer and a smoke but Not a jar. (See below).
Diet, schmiet, this is so gross it literally makes the next ad seem palatable.
Who remembers the other meaning for LSMFT?
For Babies, Kids, Teens
Forget formula, just chug a brewski with Mom and you'll both have a mellow day.
Oh yeah, Mom, suck in some calming smoke before dealing with that little sucker.
Of course I'm no expert :::ahem::: but I seem to remember hearing in the 1980's that coke made your gums numb. Why didn't my mom give it to meee?
Still the world's greatest babysitter. With benefits.
Drugs, Drugs, Drugs
Bayer sold this. Bayer. Holy crap.
Now we're talkin'. And look, only 5 dollars for that big happy bottle.
Ok, I'm pretty much speechless here.
This makes my head hurt. Such disrespect for the old and ill.
Lies, Misdirects and Just Plain Stupidity
Wow. Major flaw here. (Not HER, the logic!) All those Coppertone users must look so young and lovely today. Oy. 
High School Success, spelled S U G A R. Jeez.
Olympic athletes and other top achievers smoke "To Relieve Fatigue"? Go, Team Camel!
Racial Stereotypes That'll Make You Squirm
No. Freakin. Comment. Well, wait. No, I can't say anything.
I am humiliated that anyone in my family ever used the word "schvartza." Or bought a Del Monte product.
Oh sure, every man from Puerto Rico can be identified by his big black mustache. Arizona lawmakers will be happy to know that.
Marketing style: targeted or segregated? You decide.
Miscelaneous Madness
Yep. Little Suzie with her dollie and her gunnie. Can you read her nightie? "Papa says it won't hurt us." Did Sarah Palin pose for this ad?
So many captions, so little time.
Warning. This ad is very creepy...
A real ad for Pakistan International Airlines, March, 1979.
You know what they say ... art imitates life. And often vice versa. Let's see Mad Men top that.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Max Rivlin-Nadler
drlaura2
Kristina Lakes
mhold
L in the Southeast
Jane Brogan
Salon.com
Comments
:::cough cough::: ::: cough cough cough COUGH COUGH :::
Television advertising, especially, is now reliant on plot and tv shows are such blatant ads that sometimes it gets blurry. Thank goodness for TIVO.
It's weird how certain older ads bring back such clear memories - remember those cigarettes that were about two feet long and had flowers on the filters? We thought those were the bomb!
This is amazingly well put together - funny and trenchant and scary. Thank you for bringing it to us.
The oh-so-clever message, "Wear Levis and get a girl between your legs." Not in those ugly pants, bub.
The message I got was "We're so gay, even that buxom beauty can't entice us as we look into each other's eyes and into the distance."
My ex used to be a suntanning freak, and yes, she payed the price.
Cappy, what, no craving for ketchup too?
sixty, just have a brew and a smoke...
Bonnie, you're right, political advertising is the worst. Think of our attention spans when we were hittin the heroin and PCP.
Bob, that PIA ad is... well, I almost didn't put it up.
Duane, your social conscience is Not showing... heh
greenheron, BJ's sell ketchup, everyone knows that!
femme, I'm surprised more people aren't :::coughing:::
sophieh, the ad biz is literally history.
aim, product placement is out of control, another whole (disgraceful) subject. I think you're remembering Virginia Slims? Or, somebody, anybody know what those long flowery cigs were called?
ladyslipper, thank you. It was harder to leave things out, so many truly offensive examples.
jimmy, I can't believe I never heard "Loose Straps Mean Floppy T**s" ... I love it! The one I remember is (don't shoot the messenger!) Let's Stop My Finger's Tired. [or, sub Screw for Stop]
What fun that was, loved your comments. That just made my Friday.
Rated
Outstanding examples, en masse but while fear and greed lead the pack you left out the old Biblical stand-by, shame: Choosy Mothers Choose Jif ... are YOU choosy? or just a bad Mom?
AUWE
rated.
BTW - I'll take my coke with a cannabis chaser.
Have you seen the ad for AT&T which shows the marathon spelling bee which goes on for weeks because of super-intelligent kids who are all incapable of misspelling anything because they had the internet to teach them???
Yeah right -- all of us teachers know the score there. When you read a term-paper which uses I.M. chatspeak, i.e. "u" for "you" and 4 for "for", you are aware just how absurd the notion that the wireless world breeds smarter kids is.
Rated.
Mimetalker, I thought mimes don't scream...
Derek, I have to go back and look for the Del Monte ad, I'll let you know. (Will add sources for all, mostly same archive).
Bob, round, firm and fully packed... that sounds sexist to me. heh
Chuck, always happy to make somebody's Friday.
Oahusurfer, guess what, I'm a white girl and I'm PO'd about Ah-ree-zone-a too! I said so specifically about the Hispanic Mustache Rum.
I wonder why nobody asked me How Are Your Bowels?
-R-
Of course "buyer beware" and "if it seems to good to be true, it's not" was the rule of the day so people took more personal responsibility for what they believed. When TV came along it was so new it had an almost built in credibility that people believed what they saw regardless of the claim. If it was on TV it had to be true.
There is a case of Xerox TV ad showing a child making a copy for their dad at the office. AB Dick sued for false advertising claiming a child could not operate a complicated machine like that. The next Xerox TV ad had a monkey making a copy.
John, I don't get it that you guys see gay in that Levis ad. I totally saw sexual innuendo. It was aimed at guys though, but not such high consciousness back then I guess.
Lea, I was thinking the same thing as I chose this sampling. Many of us already know that many of today's ads are just as cringe-worthy. I'll stick with the E-Trade talking babies, they'll stand the test of time.
I Joe, I've seen that spelling bee ad and thought it ridiculous. I didn't even realize it was flogging AT&T, duh. Not. Good.
Dave, you missed the rest. "It's Toasted. No throat irritation. No cough." Yuck. :::hack:::
Where to begin?
Sally, this is fantastic._r
Does anyone remember the New Leaf ads that came out just before tobacco advertising was banned on t.v.?
Lezlie
Lady, I want that bottle too. Imagine the joy of not having to smoke it... not that I do. Smoke it, I mean.
Maureen, what a concept, buying opium at Rite Aid. Walmart would probably sell it cheaper.
Judy, repeat after me... we are no longer chubby. And we don't shoot coke. Biblical bowels, that's another story.
M Todd, you got me good with the monkey story. All you say is all too true. And now, think of all the drug commercials forced to list every horrendous side effect in their commercials.
Joan, you just listed most of my favorite things. Only have to add Pepsi and chocolate.
jp1954, New Leaf is new to me. Will see if I can find an ad.
Lezlie dear, we were referring not to Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco, but to the underground version... Let's Screw My Finger's Tired. (Oh, I'm going to hell for sure).
Deborah, what a thought! Future generations will think we were a bunch of suicidal maniacs. Hmmm....
Scribblenerd, I don't know, why not add some beer to the baby's bottle? Nap time.
Frank, my dear... ditto!
Awesome post! I love the thorazine ad. The zombie drug.
r
"Accidental discharge impossible." That's what he said.
I'm going back to my corner now.
I see Dave beat me to the punch on Lucky Strike. Those were some STRONG cigarettes.
Poppi, 7Up had lithium??? Wow, think how many bi-polars could be helped by that now. Seriously.
Mrs Em, OMG, I just realized "Accidental discharge impossible." is right there! Don't go back to your corner without some SUGAR.
lemonpulp, I remember the big commotion when they pulled cigarette ads from tv, and the Coppertone kid with her tush showing, the rest are (bizarre) news to me.
incandescent, that's what bothers me the most... how insidious advertising is and has always been.
Timmy, wow, I honestly don't know what to say... except, well Thank You!
Dr Susanne, it's like the lawn jockeys all over Philadelphia's Main Line in front of homes where I wasn't welcome... as a Jew. I couldn't handle Lucky's, my first was, I think, Kent.
Stellaa, there was a time in my misspent very early 20's when virtually nothing was a controlled substance.
Michael! I thought of you as I was researching and posting this. We miss your Friday Funnies! And you.
Renatta, all that and more.
we can see this in operation in the gulf spill. no one is going to jail, because the right people have had their share.
(and yes, thank you for the warning about the last one...)
The Judge, alleviating pain is one thing, promoting cancer-causing products to relieve pain is another. Just sayin...
Nikki, OY, what was I thinking! I meant to write and warn you... where's the heroin when I really need it?
Dear reader, glad you enjoyed. Wow, when I talk to you I sound like Miss Manners. (Oh wait, that was Gentle Reader).
LC Neal, many of these ads would still go over big on college campuses.
Just a comment on the drugs--yes, there was an era when now illegal drugs were legal and marketed to the public.
From the late 19th century to the 1920s, America enjoyed cocaine and many cocaine related products. Coca wine was sold--wine with cocaine mixed into it. Coca Cola was founded as a "safer" product alternative to Coca wine--because it was just cola with cocaine in it instead of alcohol! That was the birth of Coca Cola, my friends.
Opium and all opium related products were legal and marketed through the late 19th century. Surely every home had laudanum in its medicine cabinet--right next to the hair tonic or cough syrup. Something to take the edge off mother's nerves, 19th century Valium! As for heroin, upper class ladies would buy syringes made of gold for their heroin injections and pack them around in fashionable little cases they would take with them to dinner, the theater--wherever they thought they might need a little boost.
And marijuana wasn't illegal--hadn't been from colonial times. Good old George Washington and his hemp crops. Ah, the simplicity and innocence of America's bygone days!
I have a Danish friend who came to America about 12 years ago and said she laughed when she saw our commercials. I don't think that much has changed, they've just got better at yanking our changes subliminally.
Great piece Sally!
Max, I knew something about the legal use of drugs but not the details, wow... gold needles instead of gold spoons. heh I wouldn't mind having lived back then, if only there were indoor toilets.
noah, keep those creepy critters to yourself please. ;)
Sparking, thanks, European commercials have always been more sophisticated or at least more reality-based than ours. I think the one they used on the cover is the most offensive... using "Negro" dialect says something about the universal acceptability of such blatant racism at the time.
Sandra, exactly how I felt... have to see them (and I verified) to believe them.
Fay, that ad you describe is the sickest one yet. What are people thinking???
It is difficult to avoid a sense of "presentism" when viewing ads from the past - projecting current cultural tropes backward onto objects. Neither Spil nor I would offer any defense for the attitudes the ads portray, but an understanding of where American culture was in the early 1900s, 1930s, post-WWII, and 1960s-70s is crucial to interpreting these ads in more than merely a "tut tut, how enlightened we are and how unenlightened they were" manner. For instance, the Budwieser-drinking black men certainly implies segregation but also indicates a burgeoning acceptance of the Civil Rights movement declaration that blacks were just as much a part of the middle class as whites - check out their kitchen, their clothing (see Lizabeth Cohen's "A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America" for an interesting discussion on the intersection of race, consumption, and acceptance into the middle class). The PIA ad is creepy only in the sense of September 11, 2001. In 1979, Pakistan was considered a useful ally in the fight against communism. Landing privileges in NYC would send a powerful message to the USSR/China that Pakistan was clearly in the sphere of Western influence.
All that said, I'm glad you posted these. Ads say as much about the culture as they do about the product. Thanks.
Bongo, thank you for your thoughtful comments adding more perspective. I thought the dates --certainly the decades-- were fairly obvious. I'm not tut-tuting about our enlightenment but about our *lack* of same, then and now.
I must disagree with you on the Black Bud ad, not nearly as harmless as you imply. I did work in advertising and even in the 80's Black consumers were a carefully targeted demographic ... with cynical greed, as are all markets. That Bud ad demonstrates advertising grudgingly admitting a need to appeal to Black consumers while presenting them as Middle Class and non-threatening so as not to turn away its base of white consumers. It was most definitely not reflecting the Black lifestyle at the time.
LSD, I won't blame you for the Civil War if you don't blame me for touting the personal commitment to low-cost quality service for you and your family by Comcast (oh yes I did). The ad game just plain makes you feel dirty after a while, unless you're a misanthrope.
Ablonde, I thought of Nikki first of all, but it's a seriously creepy reminder of how America's allegiances shift over time, always for political/monetary gain. We needed Pakistan to send a strong message to Iran and Russia in 1979 and Pakistan had an okay airline. You can read Bongo's comment above yours for all the details I omitted in pursuit of irony and satire and with respect for my readers' intelligence. It is eerily prescient though, and a chilling image.
Great post