Cautionary Tales From The Marketing Time Capsule
James Poulos ·
Jun 11, 2010 at 5:47am
I look at these -- some are just victims of their time, but others: wow -- and I wonder: what ads will we be mocking in twenty years? What reigning orthodoxies will look as hopeless as those of the late twentieth century look to us now?
It's not just a matter of mocking now-stupid fads. It's that our ads capture the sacred cows of their age. So in a generation, I'm hoping we all shake our heads at the way every TV commercial in 2010 cut quickly and irregularly among a series of diverse-as-possible good-looking people reading lines from a single script. What were they thinking?
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May '10
Re: Cautionary Tales From The Marketing Time Capsule
Just as we marvel at the depiction of women in old ads, I hope that future generations will marvel at the depiction of men in the ads of our age. Overwhelmingly a husband, father, or just any random male is depicted as a bumbling idiot. Homer Simpson really is the model man of the age. I sure hope that changes, and we again can be comfortable with capable and authoritative men.
I suspect the sheer number of pharmaceutical and medical tech ads will stand out too. To get the full effect viewers in 2030 will need to watch a complete commercial break, with a half-dozen mini-documentaries on conditions you've not suspected you might have, with smiling people shrugging off a terrifying list of side-effects ("...if you experience heart-failure and death, please call your doctor"). It looks pretty bizarre today for that matter.
May '10
Re: Cautionary Tales From The Marketing Time Capsule
Call me crazy, but I think #2 looks pretty good!