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stayfree - Stay Free! | 18 December 2001

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  • From: Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>
  • To: stayfree AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Stay Free! | 18 December 2001
  • Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 20:44:52 -0500


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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


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



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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


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  • Stay Free! | 18 December 2001, Carrie McLaren, 12/17/2001

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