Advertising Industry in America

Raymond Williams in his article "Advertising: the magic system" explains the development of the advertising industry in America and the nature of the message that industry has been creating over the years. He begins by noting the issues facing the historian of advertising:

To trace the development from processes of specific attention and information to an institutionalized system of commercial information and persuasion; to relate this to changes in society and in the economy; and to trace changes in method in the context of changing organizations and intentions (Williams 321).

Advertising involves the spreading of information, and this process began with word-of-mouth, the dissemination of handwritten and printed broadsheets, and similar means of reaching the public. With the development of new technologies and new means of communication, these as well were enlisted in the service of advertising. Williams traces the formation of modern advertising to certain characteristics of the new "monopoly" capitalism in the last century:

Modern advertising. . . belongs to the system of market-control which, at its full development, includes the growth of tariffs and privileged areas, cartel-quotas, trade campaigns, price-fixing by manufacturers, and that form of economic imperialism which assured certain markets overseas by political control of their territories (Williams 326).

Williams says that advertising has developed from a simple dissemination of information to a major

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s with children messing up the house, and one of the fantasies suggested is that this mop is so much fun to use that the children will help clean. Patriotism is another key value that is offered as part of the fantasy--the mop is "proudly made in the U.S.A," as the woman says. Each of the elements in this ad has been designed to contribute to the fantasy of a product that alleviates work, heals family problems, makes children more productive, reduces unemployment in America, and so on. To prove this, the same two women appear for a second product supposedly invented by the same woman, a box that unfolds into a series of compartments. In this ad, the precise same fantasy is created, with many of the same specific references to motherhood, patriotism, and a better life. Television has clearly become the advertising medium of choice because it reaches millions of people at one time, and the techniques developed are very effective at creating images and at selling a fantasy along with a product. Many products advertised on television are almost entirely image-oriented, often to the point where it may be difficult to remember what the product was while you can easily remember the image. The prevailing images in advertising toda

Category: Business - A