Postwar ads co-opted counterculture authenticity to sell conformity

Evidence

With the unabated growth of advertising post–World War II, many creators sought to use seemingly “real people” in their ads in an effort to imbue their pitches with credibility and authenticity. Indeed, Dove began using “real women testimonials” in their ads in the 1960s, an era which saw the emergence of authenticity appeals within and across the commercial media industries. As Thomas Frank explains of the ad industry more broadly, pervasive fears of conformity and the “faceless cogs in the great machine” led advertisers of the postwar years to integrate counterculture themes of individuality and autonomy into their campaigns. Word-of-mouth advertising, then, can be understood as an outgrowth of a consumer sphere that prizes expressions of “authenticity” and “credibility.” — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, 376

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Social media’s democratizing tools coincided with an emphasis on authentic self-expression — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 268; Capitalism absorbed the 1960s counterculture as a marketing resource — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 593; Countercultural rebellion was co-opted as a selling tool by advertisers — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 549 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Countercultural rebellion was co-opted as a selling tool by advertisers #corroborates (0.95) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 549
• Capitalism absorbed the 1960s counterculture as a marketing resource #corroborates (0.92) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 593
• Culture that is fully commodified becomes unusable and merges with advertising #complicates (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 120