Old Ads

First, I would like to say that from what I browsed, alcohol and cigarettes are the vast majority of "food" advertisements in national magazines. Coca-cola and cereal make an appearance, but you're not going to find an old equivalent of your Haggen's ad in Life magazine. But your weekly grocery ads usually come in the daily newspaper, not national magazines. It could be interesting to see what ads are in old Bellingham Heralds from before the 1960s.

It struck me, flipping through magazines from the 1920s, 30s, 40s and 50s: first, there is very little color in the magazines, and they have considerably more text. There were more drawings and fewer photographs. This makes sense, given the change in technology, but they were much more newspaper-like than magazines. It's a lot harder to imagine cutting out the pictures of people to use as paper dolls from the old magazines; they wouldn't be colorful enough.

Of course the type of magazine changes what type of ads are in it; I found plenty of alcohol, cigarette ads, but only one Coca-Cola ad in 1930s and 40s Newsweeks. But when I switched to looking at Life magazine, a magazine for the whole family, not just whoever reads the news (and probably doesn't cook), there were more food ads. This holds true to modern magazines: InStyle mostly had ads for perfume, jewlery and other fashion items. Woman's Day will have a lot more Campell's Soup ads and other household-oriented items.

A lot of the older ads have a lot more text than ads now; there will be a descriptive paragraph, or a housewife's testimony, or a recipe. Now, ads are usually a noticeable photo and a few words. And there's no longer any need to explain how much time convenience foods will save you; it's a given now, they're not new products. Of course velveeta will make cooking quicker, why else would you buy it? But in the older ads, they sometimes explain how their product works, and what it substitutes for; these were new foods pre-1960.

For example, I found a Dole canned pineapple ad in Life magazine for September 11, 1939. Firstly, they talk about "a delicious new treat from Hawaii." Several times, they emphasize how new canned pineapple is. There's a picture of a lady vacationing in Hawaii and writing to her friend back home. At home, her friend goes to the grocer, a man in a suit and white doctor's jacket, who shows here a can of pineapple, and explains when the new product is used ("Lots of folks eat them at breakfast.") Then the lady is shown smiling in the kitchen, while her children take pieces of canned pineapple from a bowl behind her back. The add even has a pineapple cartoon, complete with face and hands in a chef's hat pointing out the recipe for canned pineapple.

Some of this ad seems very cheesy (What about her Hawaiian vacation did Mary write to Jane? Why the canned pineapple, of course!). However, ads today still include smiling mothers watching their kids devour whatever fabulous, delicious and time-saving new food is being advertised. The ad now just might say how cool the mom is for feeding her children the product.

Citation:

• Bower, John A. and Nicola Mateer. "'The White Stuff?': An Investigation into Consumer Evaluation of the Scottish Celebrity Milk Marketing Campaign." Nutrition and Science. 38.2 (2008): 164-174.

EDITED 6/9/08 for spelling and formatting.