Page 49 - 1960

"Will you stop cutting up the ice!" they scream.
Winter has its minor compensations. When it is coldest, spring is usually just three months ahead end when people announce that there has not been this much snow for ten years, it stands to reason that for the next ten years the snow will not be as plentiful. Upon reflection, this is often o comforting thought. The sunny south, however, has o way of worming my heart that winter never wi II.
That "is the weather the cuckoo likes, and so do I."
Margaret Christensen XII-A
Modern Advertising
Tha;e of us wl-o hove any connection with television at all cannot help be aware of the plaque of modem advertising as it applies to television. The modern-advertiser has mastered the art of X-raying the publics' mind and as o result, he produces en advertisement which cannot help but foil the gullible public. These advertisements ore generally of three classes: the cartoon type, the housewife type, and. the obstacle course or facts-and figures type. Each class is meant foro different age group and foro different mentality group. The
cartoon type of commercial appeals to the children and the immature adults; the housewife type of commercial deals mainly with those things which would interest o housewife-thriftiness-both with time and money. The obstacle course and facts-and-figures type of odvert.isement ore designed to interest the man who thinks he knows everything about anything mechanical thus, the facts and figures and the rough use when demonstrating o certain product's durobil ity.
The cartoon type of commercial, while its main objective is to sell the manufacturer's product in any way possible, employs such o childish means of getting its message across that the cartoon and its message becomes ridiculous. The use of the cartoon in the first place is based on the principle that o picture is worth o thousand words, and if the cartoon is funny enough, the better the viewers will remember it-with the result that the product sells better. So it is that we see Floyd squirting drops of Lestoil on dirt and Solly being flocked with mole admirers who Iike either her slim figure, her white teeth, or the gum she chews. But the ridiculousness does not end here. The more the advertisers con convince people and it does not toke much convincing-that Lestoil will clean better and that o certain brand of gum will give women o slim figure, bright teeth and o flock of male admirers, then the product seiJs even better.
The hard-working housewife type of commercial which uses such things as birds to promote the sale of products is just as underhanded in its methods as the cartoons. The use of o pitiful pun to advance the sale of Swan detergent is one example of the way in which advertisers gear their com111erciols so as to innoculote the housewife's mind with the fact that Swan is not for the birds. In these commercials, the point which the advertisers ore attempting to stress is thrift. Not satisfied, however, with telling the housewife of the money which she can save by using only two drops of Iiquid detergent instead of the usual three necessary "with other leading brands," and, not
satisfied with telling her of the other things which she con do while the dishes soak, the advertisers go one step further end get o Scotch-accented old lady to do the commercial.
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