Would it be fair to call all these as the heart of "American culture", then? Advertising-generated slogans, jingles, friendly characters, etc? We have all been so propagandized that many of us look back nostalgically to our childhoods by remembering these ads. It's so dispiriting to think so. The excess materialism and consumerism that America via Hollywood and TV sold to the rest of the world.
Besides the "warm selling" of products for profit, let's not forget the principle of "planned obsolescence" that Vance Packard wrote about in "The Hidden Persuaders" in 1957. (That might have been my first wake-up call as a teen that clued me into the manipulation and deception of the ad and sales industries). Products were intentionally made to break down in a few years. Car models continually "updated" every year so people would feel they had to keep up with the Joneses. I was appalled back then at the utter wastefulness and production of junk from all this propaganda - way before the "left" emphasized the issue of "environmentalism" (another thing manipulated with virtue signalling to induce guilt in consumers, yet nothing really improved in the excess garbage problem - only 17% of materials are ever recycled).
That Marboro Man TV ad from the '60s remains embedded in my memory to this day. I still remember clearly the MAD Magazine spoof back then in which they posted on their back cover a second panel depicting a freshly dug grave and the Marlboro Man's boots stuck upside down into the earth. (MAD Magazine no longer relevant today since reality has outstripped satire in unbelievable ridiculousness and lies.)
In his book "Consumed - How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole" author Benjamin Barber does a great job describing how the US became a consumerist society - well worth a read.
But reading Sharyl Attkisson's "Follow the Science", another outstanding read, one realizes that when the feds allowed big pharma to advertise it was the beginning of the end. Seems nowadays pharmaceutical ads account for70+% of the networks' ad revenues - which gives them the power to have stories that paint them in a bad light quashed. Not so much in Europe, where they are not allowed to advertise on TV.
Would it be fair to call all these as the heart of "American culture", then? Advertising-generated slogans, jingles, friendly characters, etc? We have all been so propagandized that many of us look back nostalgically to our childhoods by remembering these ads. It's so dispiriting to think so. The excess materialism and consumerism that America via Hollywood and TV sold to the rest of the world.
Besides the "warm selling" of products for profit, let's not forget the principle of "planned obsolescence" that Vance Packard wrote about in "The Hidden Persuaders" in 1957. (That might have been my first wake-up call as a teen that clued me into the manipulation and deception of the ad and sales industries). Products were intentionally made to break down in a few years. Car models continually "updated" every year so people would feel they had to keep up with the Joneses. I was appalled back then at the utter wastefulness and production of junk from all this propaganda - way before the "left" emphasized the issue of "environmentalism" (another thing manipulated with virtue signalling to induce guilt in consumers, yet nothing really improved in the excess garbage problem - only 17% of materials are ever recycled).
That Marboro Man TV ad from the '60s remains embedded in my memory to this day. I still remember clearly the MAD Magazine spoof back then in which they posted on their back cover a second panel depicting a freshly dug grave and the Marlboro Man's boots stuck upside down into the earth. (MAD Magazine no longer relevant today since reality has outstripped satire in unbelievable ridiculousness and lies.)
In his book "Consumed - How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole" author Benjamin Barber does a great job describing how the US became a consumerist society - well worth a read.
But reading Sharyl Attkisson's "Follow the Science", another outstanding read, one realizes that when the feds allowed big pharma to advertise it was the beginning of the end. Seems nowadays pharmaceutical ads account for70+% of the networks' ad revenues - which gives them the power to have stories that paint them in a bad light quashed. Not so much in Europe, where they are not allowed to advertise on TV.