When you come home after a hard day’s work, you’ll surely jump straight to your living room couch (if not directly to your bed). The cushion makes you feel at home, really comfortable. The cover fabric feels so soft. The hand frames are not too high; they can be your pillow. You might even spend your good night’s sleep in it. Certainly beats a night in a suite, right?
So, in the 60s, advertisers played a different game when they sell their suites. Take for example this Rest Assure furniture ad. They are referring to the perfect curves of their new couch model. Do you see it? Obviously, they mean another thing with “curves.” Why else would they let a woman wear a sexy dress with a cocktail in hand? Rest Assured Furniture is definitely selling another thing aside from their couch and suite. One more thing, would you even buy that unattractive couch?
A Different Kind of “Sweet”
Women have been subjected to criticism about their appearances and figures for centuries. With the rise of magazine advertisements, this targeted criticism became even more commonplace. Although weight loss and diet ads are still pretty commonplace, one thing we don’t see anymore is cigarette ads like this one from 1939.
Most of us know that the nicotine in cigarettes acts as a hunger suppressant. Back in the day, cigarette companies were able to shamelessly use this as a highlight in their marketing. If women smoked Lucky Strikes, they could lose weight. It’s that easy! Shaming a woman into grabbing a cigarette instead of “a sweet” for dessert seems like a weird and unhealthy approach to weight loss, right?
Color your Hair!
(but not with PolyGlow)
Dyeing the hair is actually a fun pastime. Girls mainly do it to feel more beautiful for themselves. That needs more emphasis not to be misunderstood. Girls pretty up for themselves, not for others, especially not for men. Sometimes though, girls need to pick the best hair color brand to make their hair look softer and shinier.
PolyGlow claims to make a “beautiful change” for women’s hair. It has six shades that can make your hair more vibrant and look healthier. Wait, there’s something wrong about this. PolyGlow says that you should color your hair to catch the guys’ attention. That’s really a turn-off. Might as well find a better hair dye brand, choose one that’s not sexist.
Television…for Women!
Looking back on these vintage ads, it’s pretty easy to see exactly who they were advertising to and what they wanted customers to buy. The 1950s marked the beginning of highly visible ads and marketing as we know it today. It was a “Wild West” decade, where pretty much any tactic was acceptable for selling products.
This 1951 ad ran in “Country Life” magazine, which is pretty obvious based on the drawing of the happy housewife peacefully trimming flowers. What does this lady have to do with a G.E.C.-brand radio and television? Nothing, but she looks nice. Vintage ads might look clunky to our content-saturated eyes, but they must have done the trick back then.
Everyone’s Refrigerator Dreams are About to Come True
Aspirational advertising has always been around in some form or another. Honestly, we don’t really have anything critiques about this gorgeous ad for a top-of-the-line 1950s refrigerator. In fact, we’re kind of jealous of that little girl who’s getting away with eating dessert before dinner. They sure don’t make fridges like this anymore!
We don’t know about you, but we’re falling for the advertising tricks in this vintage magazine ad. All of the scrumptious foods and drinks stuffed into that fridge almost make us believe that this, too, can be our reality if only we buy this specific product. Ignore the fact that a fully cooked turkey AND two frozen hams are physically impossible to fit in any kind of refrigerator.