Government Support of Advertising

Most people see advertising as an inevitable growth of capitalism. Smulyan is skeptical of this, and offers instead the idea that advertising was a component of culture believed unnecessary by capitalists, and pushed forward only by government support.

World War I - Committee on Public Information

 * Worked to help win the war
 * Helped Ad Industry become cemented as part of consumer economy

Before WWI

 * Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1916
 * Ran on slogans about his commitment to peace and isolationism
 * Espoused rationality (part of Progressivism) so there was little desire to enter combat.


 * Wilson needed a way to curry public opinion
 * an Ideological Mustering


 * Pervasive idea in the US that Americans had to be off a same national mind


 * "To see is to know, to know is to act" -> Progressive Slogan
 * Suggested


 * Woodrow hired an investigative reporter -> George Creel
 * Creel headed up a new committee -> Committee on Public Information
 * CPI had a major influence/focus on advertising
 * Ad Men had wanted to be hired by the government as a state commission -> legitimizing advertising
 * But the opposite worked out -> Ad men ("dollar a year men") ended up working virtually for free


 * "Dollar a year men" became heroes (volunteers) who were either paid by their firms to help out
 * Or made no money and were genuine volunteers

Posters

 * Big bold visuals
 * Used patriotic themes and allegories
 * Incited such unchecked uncontrollable emotion -> when the war ended early, there was all this emotion to overcome
 * Creel eventually came to believe that the power and prestige of advertising after WWI was dramatically increased.
 * Created new emphasis on persuasion and emotionality.







World War II: Fighting the American Way

 * Only WWII saved the US from the great depression
 * It also saved advertising which had become highly distrusted as a possible cause for the depression
 * Civic groups distrusted advertising as 'out of sync' with needs of people and American state


 * Advertisers were under fire -> but were saved by a change in law and attitude
 * Government made it a part of tax law that advertising was exempt from taxing as a business cost
 * This incentivized companies to continue to advertised


 * What if advertising had been banned during the war? -> Would have been a different approach
 * Seemed unnecessary to advertise during the war
 * because there were not any objects to buy
 * So advertisers used the ads to continue to circulate their brand in the sphere of public consciousness


 * WWII
 * Again offered Advertisers a chance to escape the reputation as manipulators and charlatans

Themes

 * War defended the American Way
 * 1) "Cradle of Conflict"
 * 2) "Fifth Freedom"
 * 3) "Peter, You Can Never be President"
 * 4) "Old Joe said to Young Joe"
 * 5) "Gee Dad- I'd hate to be a Jap Kid"
 * 6) "Will You Ever Have another Car?"


 * American Consumerism -> made to be a participant, a combatant in the war that was impossible to neglect
 * Even became the deciding factor in saving us from evil


 * Our goods not our morality were the reasons for victory.