Advertising in the 1960s: creativity or cooptation?

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Advertising in the 1960s creativity or
cooptation?
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Thomas Frank Challenging myths about
advertising and the counterculture
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Myth 1 Counterculture as catastrophe
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•  Rebel youth culture remains the cultural mode
  of the corporate moment, used to promote not only
  specific products but the general idea of life in
  the cyber-revolution. Commercial fantasies of
  rebellion, liberation, and outright "revolution"
  against the stultifying demands of mass society
  are commonplace almost to the point of
  invisibility in advertising, movies, and
  television programming. 

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Myth 2 Counterculture as authentic rebellion,
later co-opted

• The revolt of the young against mainstream
  culture was a joyous and even a glorious
  cultural flowering, though it quickly became
  mainstream itself.
• Rick Perlstein "declension hypothesis"
• The story ends with the noble idealism of the New
  Left in ruins and the counterculture sold out to
  Hollywood and the television networks.

The Merry Pranksters and their bus, Further.
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• Both myths assume that the counterculture was
• a fundamental opponent of the capitalist order
• the appropriate symbol.for the big cultural
  shifts that transformed the United States
• constituted a radical break or rupture with
  existing American mores
• All sixties narratives place the stories of the
  groups that are believed to have been so
  transgressive and revolutionary at their center
  American business culture is thought to have been
  peripheral, if it's mentioned at all. (Frank, 6)
• How does Frank complicate this?

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• cultural changes identified as
  counterculture began well before 1960
• the world of business and of middle-class
  moreswas itself changing during the 1960s
• (Frank, 6)

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The counterculture, as a mass movement distinct
from the bohemias that preceded it, was triggered
at least as much by developments in mass culture
(particularly the arrival of The Beatles in 1964)
as changes at the grass roots. Its heroes were
rock stars and rebel celebrities, millionaire
performers and employees of the culture industry
its greatest moments occurred on television, on
the radio, at rock concerts, and in movies.
(Frank, 8)
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• George Hanson You know, this used to be a
  helluva good country. I can't understand what's
  gone wrong with it.
• Billy Man, everybody got chicken, that's what
  happened. Hey, we can't even get into like, a
  second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel,
  you dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat
  or somethin'. They're scared, man.
• George Hanson They're not scared of you. They're
  scared of what you represent to 'em.
• Billy Hey, man. All we represent to them, man,
  is somebody who needs a haircut.
• George Hanson Oh, no. What you represent to them
  is freedom.
• Billy What the hell is wrong with freedom?
  That's what it's all about.
• George Hanson Oh, yeah, that's right. That's
  what's it's all about, all right. But talkin'
  about it and bein' it, that's two different
  things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when
  you are bought and sold in the marketplace.

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Frank vs. Adorno and Horkheimer

• The prosperity of a consumer society depends
  not on a rigid control of people's leisure-time
  behavior, but exactly its opposite unrestraint
  in spending, the willingness to enjoy formerly
  forbidden pleasures, an abandonment of the values
  of thrift and the suspicion of leisure that
  characterized an earlier variety of capitalism. .
  . . (Frank, 19)

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Bill Bernbach

• "I warn you against believing that advertising is
  a science.
• "Rules are what the artist breaks the memorable
  never emerged from a formula.
• "Research can trap you into the past.

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Alka Seltzer, Poached Oysters
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American Tourister, Gorilla, 1970
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Creativity merges with the Counterculture, 1967
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• Mass society was now the target of a generalized
  revolt, but, provided it stayed on its toes and
  embraced the mass society critique, Madison
  Avenue could ride the waves of unrest to new
  heights of prosperity. The counterculture was,
  ultimately, just a branch of the same revolution
  that had swept the critical-creative style to
  prominence and that many believed was demolishing
  Theory X hierarchy everywhere, from Vietnam to
  the boardroom. (Frank, 118)

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The Now Generation

• desire for immediate gratification
• craving for the new
• intolerance for the slow-moving, the penurious,
  the thrifty (Frank, 121)

1964
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1959 ad
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1971 Pepsi commercialYouve got a lot to live
and Pesis got a lot to give. See Frank, 181.
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Coca Cola Company, Id Like To Buy the World a
Coke 1971
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Volkswagon, Volvo, and the Critique of Planned
Obsolescence
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Hip consumerism

• Thus did the consumer revolt against mass
  society, which had begun with the selling of a
  sturdy car that defied obsolescence, come into
  its own as a movement of accelerated
  obsolescence (Frank, 123)

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Advertising feminism
1969
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U.S. Car Companies Change Course The Dodge
Rebellion
Dodge promotional campaign, 1966
Where Volkswagon and Volvo emphasized
authenticity and durability, Detroit stressed
escape, excitement, carnival, nonconformity, and
individualism. (Frank, 157)
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The Youngmobile by Oldsmobile, 1968
Madison Avenue was more interested in speaking
like the rebel young than speaking to them.
(Frank, 121)
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The Cola Wars
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The Peacock Revolutionrapid stylistic
changetransgression of established modes
(Frank, 204)
Two members of British Psychedelic band John's
Children are modeling kaftans designed by John
Stephen in 1967.
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After Six Formals Nehru Jacket Fashion Photo
(1968)
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• Our celebrities are not just glamorous, they are
  insurrectionaries our police and soldiers are
  not just good guys, they break the rules for a
  higher purpose. And through them and our
  imagined participation in whatever is the latest
  permutation of the rebel Pepsi Generation, we
  have not solved, but we have defused the problems
  of mass society. Impervious to criticism of any
  kind, and virtually without historical memory,
  hip has become what Norman Mailer predictedL the
  public philosophy in the age of flexible
  accumulation. (Frank, 233)