Ad women : how they impact what we need, want, and buy / Juliann Sivulka.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sivulka, Juliann.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women in the advertising industry--United States--History.

Women in the advertising industry.

Women in marketing--United States--History.

Women in marketing.

Businesswomen--United States--History.

Businesswomen.

Advertising--United States--History.

Advertising.

Social change.

History.

Consumers.

United States.

Consumers--United States--History.

Social change--United States--History.

Physical Description:

415 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2009.

Summary:

Today, most advertising, media, retail, and fashion professionals are women. From the chic agencies of Los Angeles to the world's summit of fashion and merchandising, Madison Avenue, women hold key marketing and advertising positions and shape the basic promotional appeal of almost every consumer product in America. Thousands of products that impact our lives and our mass-consumer culture are conceived, finessed, and marketed by ad women, who are able to infuse the desires of the buying public with the needs of modern life.

Yet, just over a hundred years ago, American advertising was dominated by ad men pitching everything from toxic "cure-all" elixirs to Mr. Ford's Model T. The Industrial Revolution brought new and exciting products from assembly lines to store shelves like never before, and a new economic order was created. Americans browsed department store showrooms, flipped through mail-order catalogs, and bought mass-produced goods on credit. In turn, the ad profession evolved from modest solicitations in newspapers and magazines to full scale, multimillion-dollar ad campaigns. In this period, the lives of American women also began changing: they became workers and voters as well as targets of advertising firms anxious to attract buyers. It is with these changes that a few pioneering women entered the profession, keenly aware that since women bought the majority of household products, it would take a woman to sell a woman.

From stories of early female copywriters, designers, editors, and marketers to the ascent of women to boardrooms as heads of multibillion-dollar firms, this lavishly illustrated, thoroughly researched, and engagingly written history chronicles their life and times in advertising like never before, from their ambitious beginnings in the ad houses of New York to their domination of the business.

Contents:

Introduction: Women, the body and soul of advertising

Customers become consumers : the evolution of marketing, advertising, and American consumer culture

The entering wedge : the women's viewpoint and advertising

It takes a woman to sell a woman : designing Mrs. Consumer

The business of femininity : selling Mrs. Consumer

The Depression and war years : retail, radio, and yellow writing

The fabulous fifties : redesigning Mr. and Mrs. Consumer

The fabulous fifties : selling Mr. and Mrs. Consumer

The second wave of ad women : the forces of feminism

The womanists : alternative visions in the twentieth century

The third wave of ad women

Epilogue: Ad women on top.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781591026723

1591026725

OCLC:

223918663