Paid celebrity endorsements were pioneered and normalized for women’s products in the 1920s

Evidence

The Women’s Editorial Department at J. Walter Thompson was also responsible for pioneering a final technique that made its way into all advertising by the end of the 1920s. Both Helen Lansdowne and Stanley Resor believed that women were in particular likely to notice and imitate the behavior of the rich, high-born, and famous. And so, over the 1920s, they took a rarely used practice—the paid endorsement—and turned it into a mainstay for women’s products, from which it later spread to all products. Resor explained the strategy this way at an executive meeting. “The desire to emulate is stronger in women than in men,” he said. “Lombroso, the celebrated psychologist, explains it in terms of woman’s ability to excite her imagination with external objects. It enables her to become princess or movie queen by using the cold cream or toilet soap they recommended.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 220

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to modern influencer marketing; the endorsement mechanism originated here for women’s goods. — connects to: Advertisers weaponized social shame and judgment to sell products to women in the 1920s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 217; Advertising techniques originated in the 1800s but matured institutionally in the 1920s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1219; Celebrities once hid endorsements but now openly become entrepreneurs — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 655

Broader Connections

• Advertising techniques originated in the 1800s but matured institutionally in the 1920s #expands (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1219
• Celebrities once hid endorsements but now openly become entrepreneurs #expands (0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 655