I was born in the late 80s, grew up in the 90s and 2000s, and it’s both fascinating and terrifying to me how much of what I thought was just “standard” stuff was influenced by marketing 50-100 years before I was even born. Santa Clause as a jolly old man with rosy cheeks and a snow white beard wasn’t a big thing until Coca-Cola made it part of their advertising in the 30s. The bacon with breakfast thing was the result of a food packaging company in the 1920s hiring a man named Edward Bernays to help them sell more bacon. Bernays was allegedly so good at marketing/manipulation that people like Hitler and Goebbels kept copies of his books. Orange juice became a thing because orange producers in Florida in the early 1900s made too many oranges for the market (in an attempt to beat out California as the country’s orange production state), and juicing them was considered a better alternative to reducing production.
I try not to think about it too much if it’s something that isn’t something that I need to interact with, like orange juice or bacon, both of which I avoid, because, yeah, it is terrifying. Advertisements are real life attempts to shape the behavior of the world.
I was born in the late 80s, grew up in the 90s and 2000s, and it’s both fascinating and terrifying to me how much of what I thought was just “standard” stuff was influenced by marketing 50-100 years before I was even born. Santa Clause as a jolly old man with rosy cheeks and a snow white beard wasn’t a big thing until Coca-Cola made it part of their advertising in the 30s. The bacon with breakfast thing was the result of a food packaging company in the 1920s hiring a man named Edward Bernays to help them sell more bacon. Bernays was allegedly so good at marketing/manipulation that people like Hitler and Goebbels kept copies of his books. Orange juice became a thing because orange producers in Florida in the early 1900s made too many oranges for the market (in an attempt to beat out California as the country’s orange production state), and juicing them was considered a better alternative to reducing production.
Some to add to my time travel hit list
I try not to think about it too much if it’s something that isn’t something that I need to interact with, like orange juice or bacon, both of which I avoid, because, yeah, it is terrifying. Advertisements are real life attempts to shape the behavior of the world.