Consumer culture in 1950's advertisements
During the 1950's the world was recovering from world war two. The way Americans lived especially after the war changed. They were living in a time where consumer values very much dominated the American culture and their economy.
'The good life' was now the way every American wanted to live. To put 'the good life' into economic terms meant that there was more income and more leisure time.
This was because Americans truly believed the good way of living was going to last they wasted no time enjoying flashy cars, television and being able for the first time to be very open about their sex lives and sex in general.
A prime example of consumerism in advertising is in car commercials. The car commercials during the 1950's depicted the good way of life.
For this first time car advertisements began focusing on selling the 'experience'.
Instead of the short snappy visual experiences you see in todays car commercials. Back then they were very different. They were long winded and this was due to the fact the commercials consisted of a narrative describing the car in fine detail.
unlike TV commercials, illustrated advertisements would mainly consist of the image, and the image would alway glamorise how good the 'good way of life' really was. Although there is text shown on the advertisements there is only a snappy slogan and model of the car in large colorful text the rest is shown in small black text.
The idea of being able to drive
After the war more metal to make parts were new available meaning new lines and models of cars were being created. This sent post war America into a new car boom.
People were now either getting rid of old cars they had during the war or were finally able to purchase their own car.
When buying a car the customer wanted to see exactly what the car could do for them and this was exactly what people tried to get across in the adverts instead of just making the car visually appealing. The families in the suburbs were their main focus for these car commercials and advertisements.
This was because people in the suburbs often had to drive to the cities to work. This was also a scenario that was directly used in the advertisements and commercials themselves. At the beginning they were targeting solely the working man, and the women at the time were meant to stay at home and take care of the household, this soon changed.
New commercials and advertisements targeted the whole family not just the men. The aim of these adverts was to say the whole family can have more freedom, that the mother could go out whilst the husband was at work, all they needed was a second car.
An example of this is shown below in the commercial:
Ford car commercial.
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