Free, promotional email list for Stay Free! print magazine

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PRINT MAGAZINE (just $10!)
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/order

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hello, several items from the last issue have been added to the site:

I.   Selling Advertising: the Industry's Battle Against
     the 1930s Consumer Movement
II.  War Exploitation: A Brief Look at WWII Advertising
III. World View: marketing news and other sick stuff



I. "Selling Advertising: the Ad Industry's Battle Against the 1930s 
Consumer Movement"
An Interview with Inger Stole.
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/inger.html


I was pretty psyched to come across Inger Stole's dissertation, 
Selling Advertising. For the last couple of years, I've been obsessed 
with the history of advertising-specifically, advertising's 
relationship to its critics. A large part of this history deals with 
the industry's long-standing efforts to better its rep, to shape what 
the public thinks when they think of "advertising." In retrospect, 
sixty-plus years later, these efforts sound straight out of Public 
Relations 101: lobbying groups, fake grassroots groups, campaigns to 
advertise advertising, and "charitable" efforts. Unfortunately, the 
history of the ad industry's PR machine is largely unwritten-which is 
what makes Inger Stole's work so important. Selling Advertising is 
one of the first in-depth studies of the ad industry's fight against 
critics. Although not intended for mass consumption, it is rich with 
detail on the 1930s and 1940s, a period that in many ways set the 
stage for what has followed. Inger Stole teaches at the University of 
Illinois, where she is working on a book about the 1930s consumer 
movement. -Carrie McLaren

Stay Free: How did you become interested in the consumer movement? 
What was your point of entry?

Inger Stole: For my master's thesis, I researched the role that 
advertising played in setting up 1950s television, and I started 
thinking, "Why didn't anyone say this stinks?" Television was set up 
to be purely commercial and that was never questioned. I thought 
there must have been a time when people debated these issues, so I 
started going back until I arrived at the consumers movement in the 
late 1920s and 30s. It sought federal regulation of advertising as 
well as the grading and labeling of food.

Stay Free: How was advertising regulated before then?

Inger: There was the FTC Act of 1914, which regulated advertising in 
a business context. If company A's advertising hurt its competitor, 
the FTC could step in. But if a person was hurt by an ad, that was 
out of its jurisdiction.

Stay Free: So if you tried an advertised shampoo and it burned off 
your scalp, you'd be out of luck.

Inger: Right.

Stay Free: When did this change? When did the government make it 
illegal for advertised products to, say, kill people?

Inger: There was a case in the late 1920s involving a diet cure 
called Marmola. It turned out that Marmola contained a chemical that 
burned human tissue.

Continued at:
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/inger.html


- - - - - - - - -


"WAR EXPLOITATION"
A Brief Look at Advertising During WWII
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/war.html



- - - - - -


World View: News from the marketing world and other sick stuff
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/worldview.html


Instead of the traditional dark-colored Western suit, the hot fashion 
among Korean businessmen is the Bill Gates look, complete with Gates 
glasses, the Gates plaid shirt, the Gates wrinkle-free pants and the 
Gates unpolished shoes. Choi Hyun Chul, president of Sun Internet 
Inc., says of his new style, "I don't care if I look geeky. I believe 
this is the way to dress to be successful." Another Gates wannabe, 
Yoo Do Wook, founder of KDB Corp., says that friends have told him 
the new wardrobe makes him "look like a farmer," but he remains 
committed: "I can justify the way I dress by telling them that it's 
the Gates look." To capitalize on the Gates craze, one of Korea's 
major clothing manufacturers, Cheil Industries, is working on a line 
of geek wear that will incorporate both Gates's everyday look and his 
antitrust look; says a Cheil designer, "Bill Gates has been appearing 
in court wearing shoulder-pad-free jackets." (Wall Street Journal, 
1/4/01)



CEO hopefuls are getting a Scared Straight curriculum in the MBA 
program at Pepperdine: students visit prisons to get lectured by 
convicted white-collar criminals. Says James T. Martinoff, the 
finance professor who created the program, many of the inmates "have 
the same drives and ambitions that they [the students] do, but maybe 
went a little too far." After thirteen years of running the program, 
Martinoff calls the program a success because, to his knowledge, no 
participant has ever been arrested. On the other hand, he says that 
in previous years students seeking help raising funds for their 
entrepreneurial efforts have called upon two of his ex-convict guest 
lecturers-Mark Morze, who helped swindle more than $70 million from 
investors in the carpet-cleaning business ZZZZ Best Co.; and Ted 
Wolfram, a former stockbroker from Toledo, Ohio, who served ten years 
for embezzling approximately $50 million. "It's as if they forget 
that these are ex-felons and are won over by their charisma," Prof. 
Martinoff says. "Not everybody gets the message that we want them to 
have." (Wall Street Journal, 10/10/00)



One contestant on Fox's Temptation Island explained his enthusiasm 
for the show: "It's like being able to go down and take part in the 
Pepsi Challenge, but have ladies be the actual soft drink." (USA 
Today, 1/10/01)


Continued at:
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/18/worldview.html


- - - - - - - - - - -

Make someone's holiday a happy one: give a gift subscription to Stay 
Free! magazine... still printed on 100% paper.
http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/order