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The Democracy of Goods Advertising Strategy

Decent Essays

"Freedom of choice came to be perceived as a freedom more significantly exercised in the marketplace than in the political arena.” (Marchand, 225) The roaring twenties was a time of great prosperity and rapid change, as well as a celebration of new technologies. These changes have had a significant impact in transforming the United States into a consumerist society. The philosophies and foundations of advertising strategies created in the 1920s can still be found on occasion in today’s contemporary advertisements and sometimes can work in tandem to strengthen their sales pitch. The 1920s were a time of booming domestic consumerism to the extent that “even products rarely purchased as separate units began to seek a place in consumer conscience” (Marchand, 5). Marchand goes on to say that as result of the changes in marketing strategies, advertising expenditures “rose from 8 percent in 1914 to 14 percent in 1929” (6). Marchand states that advertising is such a crucial part of our life, that one of the first statements he makes in his book is that through advertisements a “...picture of our time (day-by-day) is recorded completely and vividly” (xv). Two popular advertising strategies that came out of the twenties were the Democracy of Goods and the parable of First Impression, both of which tended to work with one another when marketing goods targeted for middle class consumers. The print advertisement for Mercedes-Benz resembles advertising strategies from the 1920s by

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