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summersartythoughts · 3 years ago

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The Evolution of Automobile Marketing in America

Automobiles are one of the largest and most important items that an individual can own, often prioritised beside owning a house and can become a crucial part of an every-day routine. Therefore, advertising alongside automobile sales is critical for car companies to successfully adhere to society. The first noted vehicle advertisement came to the public’s attention on 30th July 1898, (Wired., 2009), with the marketing of ‘Dispense with a Horse’, showcasing The Winton Motor Carriage in the Scientific American, which is known for detailing the works of Einstein and Fermi.

1898 July issue of Scientific American.

The advertisement encouraged an idea of ‘save the expense, care and anxiety of keeping a horse’ and was on the market for $1000, which in modern transaction would be around $26,800. Alexander Winston, of The Winton Motor Carriage was a Scottish-immigrant bicycle maker who switched to building cars in 1896 and had managed to create the world’s largest auto factory by 1900. The advertisement was published in a magazine targeting the typical educated man of the time, and was received by the likes of such, as the first person to buy the car was Robert Allison, a mechanical engineer from Port Carbon, Pennsylvania. The payment for the car took longer than one week to receive in Cleveland, Ohio, where Winton Motor Carriage was based, and right after receiving the money, the vehicle was promptly shipped to Allison (Coal Region Canary., 2019).

In comparison to early advertising methods, the modern car is seen everywhere. Billboards, television, magazines, newspapers, social media, and so on… However, is the impact still as severe as the days of posters and magazine articles? The bold colours, statements, and sought-after sex appeal, is car marketing more than hiring a Hollywood actor to fake drive a car around a mythical place? This article will explore the evolution of car marketing and how advertising became inclusive to all genders, classes, and ages.

Black and White to Bold and Beautiful

Simple black and white adverts for the invention of automobiles were a sign of the times and symbolized a certain wealth and luxury. They were not an art piece or a dramatized scenario for the people’s entertainment, but rather a means to sell, their only purpose was to demonstrate an acceleration in mass production, affordability, and technology. In 1912, Henry Ford said, “Ford advertising never attempts to be clever”, but as time passed into a new decade, the 1920’s proved to be a step in the right direction for eye catching detail, with snappy and savvy punchlines that were hard to miss. However, this did not come without its share of past advertisements. In October of 1908, a full-page advertisement announcing the introduction of the Ford Model T, the full A4 page is covered with rich text and technical detail - the text in summary furthers Ford’s motto - which is still enforced to this day - ‘Ford: High Priced Quality in a Low-Priced Car’, and the advert was posted in Life and Saturday Evening Post magazine, (The Henry Ford., 2015). Ford was introduced in 1908 with the rise of interest within the automobile market, and marketed itself on the promise of affordability, efficiency, and reliability, which many other car companies decided to use as their standard to follow. By 1918, half the cars in America were Model T’s and by 1927 when the Model Ts were discontinued, more than 15 million Model Ts had been produced. From 1911 to 1915, Ford moved onto using quarter page advertisements, they continued using text for much of the advert over art and emphasised the price as this was the most attractive attribute of their invention. There were bold borders containing the advert and the use of empty space around the text disassociated these ads from all others on the same page. This ad ran on June 12, 1912, in the Horseless Age magazine. Henry Ford did not believe in paid advertising being worth it, and so during the 19 years that Ford Motor Company produced Model T, the company routinely discontinued national advertisements when the demand for the car stripped the company’s production capacity. As Model T sales declined in the 1920’s, Ford reinvented their national advertising department and caused the shift from the previous types of advertising characteristics and began featuring coloured illustrations to appear attractive to the public who were desiring fashionable goods and social standing. As well as being advertised as an affordable alternative for transportation, the Ford Model T was now offering practicality and style - ‘Among those women who are recognised in their communities as arbiters in matter of taste, the Ford Four-door Sedan enjoys unusually high favor.’

Published in national magazines in January 1924.

Furthering into the 1920’s, 1925 saw Ford beginning to use women and children as a selling point and portrayed the Model T as a ‘key’ charm to the outdoor activities families would take part in, this advert appeared in the July 1925 issue of the Ladies Home Journal.

July 1925 issue of the Ladies Home Journal

Heimann and Patton (2009, p.107) noted that ad agencies were brought in during this time for marketing campaigns to drive sales and continue being eye-catching as well as unproblematic and the public were sold the idea of action car chases from the Hollywood big screen. Moving into the 1930’s, America even though struggling with The Depression, car adverts sliced open the darkness enveloping the nation.

Surviving The Depression and Racism

1929 onwards was a particularly tough time for the American automobile industry due to the Wall Street crash which took place in October 1929, triggering the economic depression. The following years of 1931 and 1932 were especially difficult for the automobile industry to rebegin their business success, (Supercars., 2021). Due to this downfall of profit and sales, car companies soon realised they needed to design their cars to become more attractive to new buyers. This was no different for the advertising at that time. Much like Ford’s later advertising for Model T, the thirties revealed a love for vibrant colouring and sleek illustrations, (Rear View Prints., 2021). In 1930’s America, the cars stealing the attention of the public were the likes of the Cadillac and the Chevrolet. The Cadillac brand became a distinguished and luxury car brand that automotive historians and consumers have enjoyed for a very long time, (Motor Cities., 2015). Enthusiasts of the brand have always been keen to share the history of Cadillac designs, and the ads for the company never disappointed. From the 1930’s to 1970’s, the Cadillac was promoted to consumers in a series of ads that inspired hope and modernity within a down and depressed community. The first ad to appear for a Cadillac was in 1903 and was the first automobile advertisement to be published in The Saturday Evening Post. This ad from 1904 boasted about a Cadillac owner having driven a 93-mile journey without a single breakdown, emphasising the average speed of 13 miles per hour, (Saturday Evening Post., 2015).

February 6, 1904.

Up until 1927, Cadillac ads were the norm for the time, with its black and white illustrations with a lot of text to support the selling of the item, however, as a new decade dawned closer, colour became a prominent selling feature. Due to Cadillac being rather unattainable for the time, the company began building a less expensive alternative named, La Salle, which remained in production until 1940.

September 10, 1927

The inclusion of detailed drawings being the centre of the ad successfully attracted new consumers and appealed to a wider audience, instead of just gaining traction from higher class rich folk. By 1921 Cadillac was the most expensive car at a price of $5190, which would be $61,670 in 2009 dollars. However, by 1930, the luxury of the golden age automobiles virtually collapsed, in 1928, General Motors manufactured 1,709,763 vehicles in the US, 41,172 of them were Cadillacs, but by 1933 there was a decline of more than 54% in production. 779,029 vehicles were made, with only 6736 of them being the sales for Cadillac, an 84% decline, (Forbes., 2009). This all changed when Nicholas Dreystadt, the head of Cadillac’s service division, crashed a General Motors executive committee meeting, and put forward his ideas to increase profit in the following 18 months, with or without the great depression. Cadillac, known as a luxury car division, strategized to not have any black customers to keep their image with the higher public. The blatant racism was of the norm for the time and did not distress the public whatsoever and was practised by most other companies, but Dreystadt became curious as to why he saw so many black customers waiting for their cars to be serviced in the dealerships he would visit. He came to learn that these black customers had purchased their Cadillacs by hiring white men to act as the face of the customer. This caused him to realise without this barbaric rule of not selling to people of colour Cadillac would sell more cars as these people were willing to pay a middleman’s fee to invest in the vehicle, (Hagerty., 2019). The went on to brand themselves as, ‘The Worlds Standard.’

Although Cadillac were a step in the right direction to ease discrimination in the world of marketing, racist and discriminatory marketing campaigns did not end altogether. Volkswagen, founded by the Nazi government in the 1930’s, built the ‘people’s car’ and used slave labour from concentration camps in its manufacturing processes, (Medium., 2015). Aside from the terrible origins of the Volkswagen, the advertising for this company became knows as the marketing that changed advertising forever.

The Golden Era

The 1950s -1960s saw a change in advertising and the advertiser’s reliance on photography and artwork to impress the consumer and educate them on what they are going to be buying, (Rear View Prints., 2021). The ads depended on their audiences being somewhat familiar with the products without any nudging, they also began to depict upscale living that meets a feeling of ‘white picket fences’ and 1950’s modern living. The station wagon became more sought after and was often depicted in scenarios of familial activities such as days out, sports and the families themselves. Specifically, the Chevrolet Nomad and Pontiac Safari which the adventure of travel, from road trips to running the basic daily errand.

1959 Chevrolet Nomad 4 Door Wagon Ad.

The ads took on a whole new purpose of not only selling a vehicle, but the American Dream.

1955 Pontiac Safari Ad.

With the 1950’s being a notable time in history for its glamour, fashion and stars of Hollywood, women became more interested in furthering their interests to the luxurious cars of the time, thus leading the 1950’s to turn a corner with its automobile design and marketing. Cadillac began offering new colours to attract women buyers to the dealerships, these colours being Princess Green, Duchess Green and Mountain Laurel, which was a soft pink colour. They were manufactured in 1956, (Motor Cities., 2015).

Cadillac advertising fashion inspired vehicles, targeting women, 1956.

The years 1953 to 1962, Cadillac advertised more female designers and fashion trends than any other car manufacturer in the United States. 1959 saw Cadillac advertising featuring beautiful women alongside the slogan, ‘take a lovely lady, place her at the wheel of a new Cadillac car and you have a delightful picture indeed.’ The most recognizable Cadillac advertisement for the 1967 Fleetwood Eldorado. The headline stated, ‘only one car can make a Cadillac owner look twice,’ and featured a man looking out of his half rolled down window at a 1967 Eldorado, and thus became the most talked about ad amongst peers of the time and historians to this day.

Think Small Campaign of 1960

The end of the 1950s marked the beginning of Doyle Dane Bernbach and Volkswagen destroying the status quo of style and attractiveness for cars, as in drives the notorious Volkswagen Beetle. 1959 was the peak of automobile sales prioritising fashion statements, speed, style and design, but Volkswagen had other plans as they introduced their legendary ‘Think Small’ campaign, introducing the Beetle to the American audiences. ‘Think Small’ created by Doyle Dane Bernbach steered in an opposite direction to all other advertisements of the time, the typical ad would be brutally honest, bold and colourful - but the Beetle was small, slow and in theory an ugly foreign car created by the Nazi party. However, the admittance to these things appealed to the American consumers and soon became an iconic piece of American pride. The ads were not supposed to be lifestyle ads, but adverts to acknowledge their dependability and durability, making their case to encourage owning small, ugly car to be bold and smart, (4 A’s., 2017.)

Think Small Campaign 1959.

The Volkswagen sold extensively through Europe in the 1950s, but competing manufacturers came to the realisation that small cars were up and coming and the people wanted them. This meant Volkswagen had a looming threat of competing car manufacturers and so sent a man named Carl Hahn to America to advertise their small wonder. Carl Hahn searched and searched for an agency to accompany him on this venture, and eventually found Doyle Dane Bernbach and received a pitch from Bill Bernbach - taking Hahn through DDB’s portfolio of works and Hahn was quickly impressed and believed he had finally found the agency to work with and rely on. Volkswagen and DDB signed a contract agreeing that DDB would get paid $600,000, which was a miniscule amount in comparison to the ad expense other manufacturers would pay, Chevrolet alone was spending $30.4 million on advertising. Joined by colleague Helmut Krone, Bill Bernbach and Carl Hahn travelled to Germany to visit the factory and, the DDB employees were extremely impressed with the work ethic and pride factory workers took in inventing these cars. Julian Koenig, a Jewish man born in New York City, unbothered by Volkswagens ties to the Nazi party, joined the team as a copywriter besides Krone and Bernbach. Soon the line, ‘maybe we got so big because we thought so small’ began making rounds amongst the men and the headline ‘Think Small’ came into play. Art director Krone was not happy with this development, but after much persuasion from Bernbach, they settled on ‘Think Small’ and began creating the advertisement.

The ad itself was traditionally laid out on a traditional ad layout, with an untraditional image. Krone is described as a ‘genius’ with his ability to take something familiar and boring and alter it just enough to make it brand new. There was the headline, the car - placed in the upper left corner, on a slight angle - and was engulfed in white space leading the viewers eye directly to the car. There were no ‘fancy’ illustrations, but just a simple black and white photographed advert. The decision to print in black and white was made mainly because Volkswagen did not have enough money to pay to print in colour, but this turned to work in their favour as the black and white ad struck the viewer and made impact when beside the colourful pages in Life Magazine. The advert was initially received with suspicion by other advertising agencies, but the public adored it. Of all ages, people were talking about it - to the extent that teenagers were ripping the page out of magazines to pin it on their walls - and this began the ad that became more than an ad, but a cultural impact.

The impact of the Volkswagen ads were continuously furthered through the whole of the 1950s-1961. The appearance of the car never changed which immediately eased pressure off those who could not afford to keep up to date with the newest in style, but impressed people of all kinds with its ability to withstand time, weather and other determing factors.

Continued in next post!...

#cadilac #history #volkswagen #painting #cultures #world history #art history #design history #cars #fast cars #old cars

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handeaux · 5 years ago

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Cincinnati Celebrates(?) A Century Of Traffic Jams

How was your commute today?

Judging by the chatter on social media these days, Cincinnatians hate everything about their trips to and from work each day. Whether you drive, carpool, ride the bus or bicycle something about your daily journey grinds your soul to dust.

It will do little to brighten your mood to know that Cincinnatians have endured rush-hour traffic jams for approximately 100 years. The arrival of mass-produced automobiles, affordable to most wage-earners, certainly precipitated over-crowded roads.

It might surprise you to know that “rush hour” and “traffic jam” both precede the popularity of automobiles in Cincinnati.

Cincinnatians used the term “rush hour” as early as the 1880s to refer to commuters arriving at and departing from work, but they were mostly talking about street car traffic. The Cincinnati Enquirer [1 September 1894] recorded a street car driver complaining about pedestrians during rush hour:

“We don’t run 60 miles an hour, but you can kill a man just as quick at 12 miles an hour, and it shakes you up just as much. There isn’t a gripman but dreads to make the downtown loop during rush hours.”

In 1902, when Cincinnati boasted very few automobiles, W. Kesley Schoepf, president of the Cincinnati Traction Company was called in front of City Council to explain why street cars were so overloaded and behind schedule during rush hour.

Interestingly, the term “traffic jam” also originated in rail transportation – specifically the freight railroads. During World War I, “traffic jam” almost exclusively referred to freight deliveries delayed because of overcrowded lines near shipping depots. Among other factors, weather contributed to a railroad traffic jam, according to the Enquirer [14 January 1918]:

“Little hope of relief from the traffic jam is held out. When the below-zero weather lightens, heavy snowstorms are predicted that will impede the progress of the trains that can be started tomorrow or Tuesday.”

By 1920, however, the traffic that jammed was mostly automotive. In fact, manufacturers advertised cars on their ability to shove through congested roads. Here is a Pierce Arrow advertisement [11 April 1920]:

“Their nicely balanced weight holds them to the road at any speed. The greater power of Dual Valves and twin-spark ignition permits acceleration that takes them through traffic jams unscathed.”

That sentiment was seconded by the Cincinnati Winton Motor Car Company, which boasted in a 1919 advertisement:

“Power – that’s what makes an automobile step out and discount the miles and hills, taking you there and back on your scheduled time – or ahead of it. It is power that gets you quickly out of traffic jams, and makes impassable roads passable.”

At times, police admitted, traffic jams came in handy. In 1926, Leo Schroeder raced down McMicken Street, heading for Vine, pursued by three detectives. A traffic jam brought his automobile up short and Leo surrendered to the detectives, who found him in possession of 50 gallons of moonshine.

But what caused traffic jams? Rush-hour traffic surely contributed, but it appears that major events precipitated the earliest traffic jams in the city. Around 1920, there are several reports of traffic jams around the Latonia race track. Some people believed that downtown retailers encouraged traffic jams to drum up business. So prevalent was this belief that, under a Cincinnati Post headline stating “Traffic Jam Costs” [9 December 1922], the retailers issued a denial:

“’The attitude of the retail merchants downtown toward solution of the traffic congestion problem has been misunderstood in some quarters,’ Robert W. Pogue, president of the Retail Merchants Association, said Saturday. ‘Apparently some persons believe merchants desire congestion downtown. It has been said we are blocking efforts to clear streets. As a matter of fact, retailers are anxious to clear congestion, because it costs us money.”

Of course, human frailty played a role, as always. Just as we witness today, rubberneckers bring traffic to a standstill. This phenomenon was recognized as early as 7 September 1918, when Enquirer humorist Luke McLuke observed:

“A man can stop on the street and fix his garter and the world rolls right along as if nothing had happened. But if a girl stopped on the street to fix her garter she would cause a traffic jam in ten seconds.”

#traffic jam #rush hour #Cincinnati traffic

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picardonhealth · 6 years ago

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New research concludes there is no safe level of alcohol. But look beyond the alarmist headlines

There is a need to distinguish between population-level statistics and individual risk. The new research provides evidence that moderate drinking poses little serious health risk.

André Picard, The Globe and Mail

Monday, August 27, 2018

“There is no safe level of alcohol consumption.”

That’s the stark, unequivocal conclusion of a massive new study published in the medical journal The Lancet.

It also throws cold water on the much-reported notion that a glass of wine a day is actually good for your health. The new study says that, while that daily drink is good for your heart, the benefit is more than offset by an increased risk of cancer.

But, before you pour that pricey Château Lafite down the drain and embrace temperance, a little context is in order.

There is no question that alcohol use and misuse is a huge public-health issue. Drinking is associated with 2.8 million deaths a year worldwide. Alcohol is known to cause or worsen at least 23 health conditions, from cirrhosis to tuberculosis, as well as several types of cancer, not to mention its role in motor vehicle crashes, sexual assault and suicide.

In Canada, there are an estimated 5,000 alcohol-related deaths and 77,000 hospitalizations annually. And as long ago as 2002, it was estimated drinking cost the economy $14.6-billion a year in health costs and lost productivity.

Those population-level statistics are sobering. But they don’t mean having an occasional drink is going to kill you.

In fact, beyond the alarmist headlines, the new research provides pretty good evidence that moderate drinking poses little serious health risk. The study published in The Lancet is one of the largest conducted and one of the first to directly compare health outcomes of non-drinkers and drinkers.

Worldwide, one in three adults consumes alcohol, but in Western countries it’s in the 80-per-cent to 95-per-cent range. Canada ranks 40th among 195 countries in percentage of drinkers. We are also mid-pack when it comes to consumption.

The statement that there is “no safe level of alcohol consumption” is inarguable. But the important question for individuals is: How much of a risk does drinking pose?

According to the research, 914 in every 100,000 non-drinkers will develop one of the 23 aforementioned health conditions in a given year. Among those who consume the equivalent of one drink a day, that risk increases to 918 in every 100,000. That’s 0.5 per cent more – negligible. At two drinks a day, the risk creeps up to 977 in every 100,000, or 7 per cent more; at five drinks daily, the risk is 1,252 in every 100,000, or 37 per cent higher than a non-drinker.

Let’s return to the risk posed by consuming one drink a day.

David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor for Public Understanding of Risk at the University of Cambridge, noted that the absolute risk to a drinker compared with a non-drinker increases by four in every 100,000 (the four comes from 918-914).

What that means, practically, is that 25,000 people would have to drink one alcoholic drink daily for an entire year – the equivalent of 16 bottles of gin each – for one of them to develop an additional one of those 23 health conditions.

That does not exactly scream unsafe. What all that fancy math does is reinforce the adage that the dose makes the poison.

The new research is important because it reminds us that – given the damage done by alcohol misuse – strong public-health initiatives are necessary.

Taxation, minimum pricing, restrictions on advertising, labelling and public education and guidelines are all important measures to reduce the potential harms caused by alcohol.

Cheap, readily available alcohol and buck-a-beer policies are bad for public health. But so, too, is a prohibitionist mindset.

Where the authors of the new research went astray was with the suggestion that public-health officials should promote abstinence. There is no justification for that recommendation in the data. It is gratuitous moralism.

No one drinks alcohol because they think it’s good for their health (the “red wine is good for you”crowd notwithstanding). They drink because it’s sociable, relaxing and fun. When it interferes with daily living, it stops being fun and starts being a health risk.

Very few things in life, especially things that are fun, are risk-free – sex, drugs (including alcohol), rock ‘n’ roll, food, family holidays, swimming, tobogganing, driving, breathing (especially during forest-fire season).

What we need to do is balance the risks of activities against the benefits/pleasures they provide us, not try to live in a risk-free cocoon. The new research may show that the safest level of drinking is none but, ultimately, it’s up to each of us to know our limits.

#alcohol cancer

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