Since the development of systematic mass advertising early in this century, advertising has been both a reflection and a shaper of the American social world. The goal of advertisers is to sell products, but the more sophisticated advertisers seek to create an image with which the viewer of the ad will identify, and with which the product being sold is also identified. Successful ads tap into viewer's sense of themselves, and the most successful help to create that sense.
In surveying the advertising of the 1980s, it may be useful to begin with examples in which the social undertones are most distinct. Some of the most memorable ad campaigns of the decade were devised for political campaigns, and the 1980s were also a time when advertising came into its own as the primary medium of campaigning. As older party and political structures declined, advertising became central to campaigns by the 1980s, and the decade saw two particularly effective campaigns, both by Republicans; one positive and one negative.
The positive campaign, for the 1984 Reagan re-election campaign, had the theme "Morning in America." The specific images were forgettable enough--family picnics and the like, shot in a soft-focus flavor if not literally with soft focus, but the campaign achieved its enormous effectiveness from its background. The decade of the 1970s had been a dismal one for the United States, beginning with the Vietnam War and civil disorder, and ending with oil crises and the Iranian embassy hostage crisis. The central theme of the 1984 ad campaign was that Reagan, almost through sheer force of personality, had halted this national decline; we had passed through the dark night and under Reagan it was indeed Morning in America again.
By 1988, however, when Reagan's vice-president, George Bush, was running to replace him, Morning in America was no longer enough. Bush lacked Reagan's folksy appeal, and the troubled 1970s were far en...