Recently, I was sitting at my optometrist’s office, and noticed that their office had laid out issues of ‘Life’ magazines dating to the 1950’s for patients in the waiting room. How cool is that? As I was reading through them, it struck me as ironic that many of the same issues people were concerned about back then are the same issues we’re concerned about today such as; the military, health care and government (I’m generalizing, as my point isn’t about politics).
But what also struck me as different was the advertising, and how different it is from what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. The tone in which “brands” spoke to customers was very direct. You should smoke these cigarettes so you’ll be as cool as Arnold Palmer. Or, “this car company” is a brand you can trust because we supply the most aftermarket parts. There are other examples, but the main thing I took away is that these brands were spending a lot of time, effort and money telling consumers why they should trust them, much as brands these days do.
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