---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 18:20:01 -0600 To: •••@••.••• From: Mark Douglas Whitaker <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: expanding Cienfuego's comments about consumerism: Silva on Laird, _Advertising Progress_ H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by •••@••.••• (January, 1999) Pamela Walker Laird. _Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing_. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. xiv + 479 pp. Notes, bibliographic essay, and index. $35.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8018-5841-0. Reviewed for H-Business by Jonathan Silva <•••@••.•••>, Department of History, The Ohio State University. The Other Side of Roland Marchand In _Advertising Progress_ Pamela Laird tells the story of advertising from the Civil War to 1920, exploring how it became an essential tool for business success. During the period under investigation she clearly illustrates how advertising changed from a rather simple instrument with a less-than-admirable reputation acquired from snake-oil salesmen and the likes of P.T. Barnum, to a business tool increasingly regarded as necessary and legitimate. Linked with this change in attitude was the professionalization of advertising by advertising agencies. The evolution of advertising's form and function during the period, from notifying customers to creating consumers, was direct influence on its professionalization. The increasing ranks of professional advertising creators, employing new communications technologies and an ever-increasing number of publications, redefined advertising copy and art to persuade people that they needed things which they otherwise would not have purchased--thereby creating consumers out of customers. The author argues that professional advertising people redefined advertising in this way for two reasons. First, the intense competition in an expanding national market required manufacturers to rely more on advertising. Second, as advertising professionals sought legitimacy for themselves and their product, they did so by linking "progress" to material acquisition, and hence, had to convince traditional customers to become consumers. This transformation, according to Laird, brought to the advertising professionals "cultural authority." The transformation of America to a consumer-oriented society in the early twentieth century, therefore, can be traced to the transformation of advertising messages directed by a new cultural elite--the professional advertising agent. Laird outlines how advertising changed from its earlier form of hucksterism to a powerful new business tool. Her work shines as she explains how and why professional advertising people removed the stain of earlier advertising excesses and sought legitimacy for their craft. There are a few problems, however, and one exists in the subtitle of the book. Laird asserts that _Advertising Progress_ leads to the _Rise of Consumer Marketing_. As one reads through the book, however, "marketing" becomes more difficult to understand. In some instances it seems to mean sales, while in others she equates it with advertising. Very often, the author simply notes the existence of some firm's "marketing problems" with little explanation of what they are. In her struggle with marketing, Laird is not alone. The work on marketing history is extremely thin, and therefore, Laird had very little to rely on as a guide. A second difficulty comes from Laird's assertion that professional advertising people sought "cultural authority." Laird argues that the rise of the consumer culture is a "top-down" phenomenon by which professionals, seeking cultural authority, endeavored to change the behavior of the American population. Advertising professionals, as well as other businesspeople, were surely part of the transformation of consumer America. In Laird's analysis these people all have the same goal in mind--cultural authority. This argument dovetails quite nicely with the work on the consumer culture by such historians as Jackson Lears and Stuart Ewen, both of whom suggest a hegemonic role for American businesspeople--particularly the creators of advertising. This theme in Laird's work, however, challenges what Roland Marchand had argued in his book _Advertising the American Dream_--that businesses and advertising agents took advantage of the changes they recognized occurring in American society. Businesspeople boosted the transformation, but did not initiate it or guide it. While the book has some weaknesses according to this reviewer, those weaknesses point directly to the important role this book serves for those interested in advertising history. Until Laird's book, historians relied almost completely on Marchand's work to understand advertising history. Laird offers us the other side of Marchand, where advertising agents direct American customers toward consumption, as opposed to Marchand's earlier interpretation which suggests a secondary role for businesspeople. In addition to offering those interested in advertising history a chance to explore a new interpretation, Laird's work would useful to people looking for an introduction to the history of advertising. Copyright (c) 1999 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact •••@••.•••. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 From: Richard Clark <•••@••.•••> Newsgroups: alt.politics.economics,alt.journalism CC: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••> Subject: Propaganda: essential to the political-economic status quo? "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element of democratic society. Intelligent minorities must make use of propaganda continuously and systematically," because they alone "understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses" -- and can (and should) "pull the wires that control the public mind." Therefore our "society has consented to permit free competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda," to achieve "consent," "without (actual) consent." Propaganda is the mechanism by which the leadership can essentially "mold the minds of the masses," so that "they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction." Those in charge of this operation can "regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers." And so it is that the process of "engineering consent" is the very "essence of the democratic process." -- So wrote Edward Bernays, shortly before he was honored for his contributions by the American Psychological Association in 1949. The intelligent few must recognize "the ignorance and stupidity of the masses" and not succumb to "democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests." In fact they are not the best judges; we are. The masses must, therefore, be controlled for their own good, and in the more democratic societies, where force is unavailable, social managers must turn to "a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda." -- These are the words of Harold Lasswell, one of the founders of modern political science. These words appear in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ a political discussion forum - •••@••.••• To subscribe, send any message to •••@••.••• A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance (mailto:•••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org) Non-commercial reposting is hereby approved, but please include the sig up through this paragraph and retain any internal credits and copyright notices. To see the index of the cj archives, send any message to: •••@••.••• To subscribe to our activists list, send any message to: •••@••.••• Help create the Movement for a Democratic Rensaissance crafted in Ireland by rkm A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon
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