Advertisers weaponized social shame and judgment to sell products to women in the 1920s

Evidence

Demand engineering, too, found itself refitted for women consumers, as the “whisper” or “scare” campaigns, which warned of a social disgrace or judgment, from which the product at hand offered deliverance. Consider J. Walter Thompson’s 1922 advertisement for P&G’s laundry detergent targeting mothers. The copy reads, “If little Molly should be in an accident, what would the neighbors think of those ‘clean’ underclothes? Molly’s underclothes are supposedly clean, but actually they are gray and untidy.” Targeting the unwed, Listerine would retrofit its wildly successful “halitosis” campaign. In the “poor Edna” series, it is Edna’s stale breath, which of course no friend would tell her about, that has left her lovelorn, or in the enduring expression coined for the campaign, “often a bridesmaid but never a bride.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 217

Categorization

• SEED: The ‘often a bridesmaid but never a bride’ origin makes a vivid hook for an essay on how manufactured shame creates consumer demand.
• XREF: connects to: Advertising research deliberately cultivated female discontent to expand women’s consumption — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 530; Advertising exploited women’s insecurities about inadequacy to sell products — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 226; Advertising manipulates consumer fears by 1926, as Time magazine observed. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 194 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Cigarette advertising sold smoking as youthful freedom and women’s liberation #exemplifies (0.72) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1694
• Paid celebrity endorsements were pioneered and normalized for women’s products in the 1920s #expands (0.70) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 220