Up in smoke
A recently published look back at cigarette advertising from a bygone era has some wonderful examples of claims from a world that seems very distant.
“I’ve been a two pack a day man for fifteen years and I’ve found much milder Chesterfield is best for me”, so said Perry Como. While Lucky Strike went with “Luckies are always kind to your throat” and the great claim that “20,679 physicians say Luckies are less irritating.” I wonder if any of those 20,679 would stand by their claim today?
My personal favourite actually appeared in a different list, published by Times Online which looked at some adverts that had a less than modern attitude to women, including one for Tipalet cigarettes that promised you ‘Blow in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere.”
Our first instinct is probably a combination of chortling mixed with what historian EP Thompson so succinctly called ‘the enormous condescension of posterity.’ Whether it was ignorance or willful manipulation of the truth is neither here nor there in this context, it’s just amazing that they could get away with it.
We are, of course, these days, so much the wiser. But are we? In a week when the world’s highest paid icon, a man who has built his entire brand on a clean cut family man image, has seen his reputation blown apart by realities that don’t quite square with the perception, should we be so complacent?
Perceptions are always there to be challenged and the truth has a healthy habit of surfacing from time to time to bring a much needed dose of reality.
Social and cultural norms that define what is acceptable also change over time. This is driven in part by our ever increasing knowledge and understanding of our world and in part by the influence of individuals and communities whose views become, for a variety of reasons, dominant.
The world of advertising is an interesting barometer and expression of those norms, partly helping to shape them without a doubt, but also heavily driven and influenced by them at the same time.
It will be interesting to see in 20 years time, just how the next generation will view today’s cornucopia of advertisements and to what extent our views as a society will have changed.
What do you think?