Advertising Media

When my grandmother and I started our interviews back up we began by discussing advertising media that she remembered from her childhood. Growing up in Macon, there were a few staple advertisements that she immediately recalled. Her first thought was Lolli's Sale Barn that had large paintings on the side of the buildings to advertise the auction lot. Lolli's is hard to miss, being right off of 63, and the barn painting was something that not only Linda could recall, but myself and my sister as well. We remembered Lolli's not from driving through recently to go to Kirksville, but from when we were young and drove by on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Macon. The large advertisement has engraved itself and Lolli's into the minds of multiple generations of my family, making the barn painting an effective form of advertisement.

Lolli's Sale Barn from the 1950's
Source: http://www.lollibros.com/about-us/history

The next advertisement she recalled was the large mug of root beer on top of Frost Top in downtown Macon. The mug was an advertisement for A&W Root Beet. However, it was not the only shop with a large advertisement on top. The Western Auto building had a Western Auto sign on the top that mirrored the one in downtown Kansas City, making it a big deal for the small town to have. We then talked about window advertisements. Linda spoke about the movie posters in the windows of the movie theater downtown and the changing decoration in store windows. When she was young, store windows didn't have mannequins or much decoration. As younger people started to own the stores, they moved in more mannequins and started putting more decor in the shop windows. She recalled the flower shop would decorate with seasonal flowers and Ben Franklin, a dime store that "sold everything", would change their store window often. Linda remembers pots and pans always being in the window of Ben Franklin. Many stores would also advertise their sales with posters hanging in the windows. She also spoke about the National Guard posters in windows and on billboards; however, she said there were never negative or protest posters. Any military posters were positive ones that encouraged enlisting. 

We then briefly discussed billboards. She mostly remembers the ones on 63 from Moberly to Macon and some in Bevier. On the way to Bevier, she specifically thought of the grocery store that had a large sign that advertised where it was in the town. She also remembered Burma Shave's billboards that would include the red, white, and blue can. When asked about ads for cigarettes and alcohol, she recalled the ads being in magazines, but also on billboards and TV. 

"I remember the Marlboro Cigarette billboard and advertising on television. On television, they would have an actor and he rode a horse and was a very good looking man, like a Tom Selleck or someone like that."

Ronald Reagan promoting General Electric products
source: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4081302
-general-electric-progress-important-product

As we started talking more about advertising on TV and radio, she remembered the ads being more conservative and there being far fewer. An example she gave was how Alfred Hitchcock would not allow commercials during his show, only before. Additionally, she remembered there being a lot of celebrities in commercials. One person she remembered, in particular, was Ronald Reagan acting in  GE commercials for lightbulbs and other products before he was president. At first, the idea that the former president has commercials that my grandmother remembers was interesting to me because I did not give much thought to Reagan's acting career before he was president. I find it intriguing that a  large portion of people knew Reagan as an actor before he was president because I have only ever known him as a president.

Sears catalog that Linda would use to have 
her grandmother make dresses.
Source: https://www.metv.com/stories/15-
incredibly-fifties-pages-from-1950s-sears-catalogs

Linda then recalled catalogs and magazines that her family would get growing up. She distinctly remembered Sears Roebuck and Spiegal catalogs, which would display different styles and products. Linda enjoyed looking at the different dresses and sometimes her family would order the clothing directly from the catalog. However, when she was young her grandmother would often make the dresses for them.

"We would look at a dress in the catatlogs and my grandmother would cut a pattern from looking at that picture in the catalog and then put it on us and make us that dress. Then, as it went on we bought patterns, but I can remember her cutting them out of newspapers and putting it on us."

Today, Linda thinks that advertisements have gotten more "open" and "scandalous" since her childhood. She feels that ads are more seductive because they allow more revealing clothing and nudity. She also thinks that modern TV commercials are more creative and catchy than those of the past. She talked about how Superbowl commercials are a relatively new phenomenon because growing up people used to only watched for the game. Now she enjoys watching for the funny commercials. However, the cuteness of the commercials does not stop her from skipping ads and fast-forwarding through commercials on TV. She attributes her habits primarily to the fact that commercial breaks are lengthy and stop the show for too long. While interviewing Linda, I found it interesting that she was able to easily recall the advertising that took place such a long time ago. Before conducting the interviews, I thought she would have the hardest time answering and recalling advertisements of the past. However, her sharp memory of past advertisements really shows the effectiveness of the ads that were running.