Say That Again?

Reviews by Mike Gange

All American Ads: 40′s
Ed. Jim Heimann
Taschen, $60, 768 pages

All American Ads: 50′s
Ed. Jim Heimann
Taschen, $60, 928 pages

Great advertising is an emotional persuader, a romantic story teller. Advertising works if it gets our attention and moves us to action. But who would have thought ads might serve to help us reflect on our society today and show us where we have been.

In the past four or five decades, print advertising has changed. In its evolution, it has become slicker, less wordy, more image oriented. Companies that place ads in print media today know they have only a second or two to make an impression on the reader, before he or she turns the page. In the 1940′s and 50′s readers took a longer look at ads, reading the lengthy copy as both a source of entertainment and news. Los Angeles author Jim Heimann has collected literally thousands of advertisements from those two decades that will be sure to make readers take a second look at ads, both for their retrospective aesthetic appeal and for how they reflect where we have been.

Heimann is a graphic artist, illustrator, educator and author. He has written such books as Car Hops and Curb Service: A History of the American Drive In Restaurant; May I Serve you? American Menu Design, 1920-1960; California Crazy and Beyond. He writes on popular culture, regional history and architecture for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone.

All American Ads: 40′s and All American Ads: 50′s are the first two volumes of a projected series that will eventually cover all of the 20^th century, looking at advertising from a variety of print media.  

These volumes are huge because of their size: All American Ads: 40′s has more than 1000 ads, while All American Ads: 50′s has more than 1400 ads. And they are huge for what they tell us about ourselves. They are a nostalgic look at capitalism, before brand names meant consumer branding, before demographic studies showed which segment of society was for sale. Often the ads were flirtatious without being overtly sexual. The ads from that time were generally about the values and life styles centering on the nuclear family, domestic bliss and stereotypical role models. To be sure, the ads were also racist, sexist, intolerant and misguided. Today, they stand as an accurate reflection of how the culture of those two decades was interpreted in its day.

Heimann has organized the books into sections: Alcohol and Tobacco, Automobiles, Consumer Products, Entertainment, Fashion and Beauty, Food and Beverages, Industry, Interiors, and Travel. He has pulled his ads from the popular magazines of the day: Look, The Billboard, Post, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, Fortune, Saturday Evening Post, Liberty, and Dime Detective, to name but a few.

In 1941, with a war raging in Europe, ads urged consumers to do their patriotic duty: cigarette ads urged those at home to send their soldiers a Christmas package of Camels or a can of Prince Albert tobacco. The US Brewers Foundation reminded readers that a “refreshing glass of beer, cool, sparkling, friendly beer” was a reminder of home to all of us. In 1941, a Cadillac sold for $1345 and its ads bragged about the gas efficiency in a time of rationing, saying the cars got 14 to 17 miles to the gallon. The ads for military goods and services were pointedly anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese.

After the war, the theme of many of the print ads revolved around the returning soldiers. Texaco had a man in a freshly pressed service station uniform while his adoring boy and girl said how great he looked in that uniform, too. The Community Silverware Company said that since he was home for keeps, the woman of the house would want to keep her Community knives and forks for a lifetime of loving care.

By 1948, television was the hot topic and the hot product. G.E., Motorola and Zenith pitched their products with spokesmen like Edgar Bergen and Charlie. Ironically, the developing world of photography and printing had not caught up with the need for endorsements, and many of the ads used artists representations of those radio, film and later in the decade, television stars.

Some of the ads from that decade were politically incorrect as well as misleading. In an ad for Camel cigarettes, the copy reads “More Doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” Chesterfields ran their A-B-C campaign (Always Buy Chesterfields) with three radio and television stars: Arthur Godfrey, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, each with a cigarette stuck rakishly in the corner of his mouth. Going head to head, Old Gold cigarette ads said their share of the alphabet spelled P-L-E-A-S-U-R-E.

Of course some of the ads from the 1940′s are classics: Rosie the Riveter doing her job for the war effort, the Coca Cola “Sprite” showing Santa where to find the cokes in the fridge, and Ovaltine ads that urge us to “Wake up Gay in the Morning.”

All American Ads: 50′s shows us how the world had become a bit slicker in that decade. Printing technology had made some advances of its own, and many of the ads in the 1950′s featured photos of stars or actors rather than an artist’s conception. The pitch was more about selling the sizzle not the steak. An ad for Imperial cars said “By Imperial decree, heads will turn.” Oldsmobile said “Lucky you, enjoying the luxury of a Starfire 98.” Celebrity endorsements increasingly appeared in ads in the 1950′s. Liberace pitched “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer. I’m from Milwaukee, I ought to know.” Band leader and clarinetist Benny Goodman said of Smirnoff “It leaves you breathless.” John Wayne and Rock Hudson endorsed Camels, while Arlene Dahl shilled “I love to see a man smoke a Cigarillo.” Even children’s TV show puppets Kukla and Ollie got in on the act, as they endorsed Sealtest ice cream.

Ads in the 1950′s became more standardized too, with a picture or a photo in the top half or top two-thirds of the ad and copy writing filling the bottom portion. If the underlying theme of the 1940′s was patriotism and getting back to life after the war, then the 1950′s theme was about using science in a powerful new way. Monsanto bragged about its plastics, General Electric advertised its luxury kitchen items, Kawneer Company touted its new aluminum doors as “unequaled in handsome, modern appearance.” By the end of the decade, Texaco ads were saying the company had made “space age” progress in its gasoline development.

As disposable income grew, so did ads for travel in buses, trains and air planes. Tourist destinations became hot spots for attracting the increasingly affluent American. Exotic locales included Hawaii, Caracas, South Africa, Florida, and Scandinavia. Surprisingly, ads for Las Vegas used the photo of a nuclear blast to tell visitors they might watch these tests from the centre of town.

Jim Heimann has done a great job of collecting these ads, representing a time past and some values we should be embarrassed to remember. Heimann does not include much editorial text. He prefers to let the ads speak for themselves.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism courses  at Fredericton High.