This past Friday marked the annual Duke Library party. The theme was “Mad Men and Mad Women: Party like it’s 1965,” inspired by the AMC drama Mad Men. The show follows men and women working in the competitive world of advertising during the 1960s in New York. Fittingly, the Duke Marketing Club hosted the party and the library was decked out in 1960s era ads.
With the party still fresh in my mind, I set out to find the Chronicle Archive from 1965 for this week’s column. I expected to be defeated by the, let’s call it sporadic, shelving system in the office. Right as I’d convinced myself that any archive from that decade would be better than my incessant wandering, I spotted it! Well actually I found the 1965-1966 archive, so technically this week is from 1966, but I think I still deserve some credit for my super sleuth skills.
I was curious about how advertising in the paper has changed over time. I’ve heard that certain archives featured outrageous ads—we’re talking barely clothed models and things that might be controversial if they appeared today. But the ads from 1966 could only be described as tame, most featured wholesome characters—with the possible exception of Mr. Wrangler—and lacked any racial diversity. As I flipped the pages I began to expect certain advertisers, “Oh there’s Volkswagen again, and look another shoe ad.”
Any paper will have its loyal following of advertisers, that I wasn’t surprised by, what intrigued me was the types of companies placing ads. In 1966 it seems that most ads fell into three categories: cars, clothing and personal accessories. Granted they are ads from potential employers every so often and smaller notices from local companies and for events. But the ads that cost the big bucks and that are thus larger and more likely to be seen, are all selling similar products. Why is this interesting? Because it tells me a lot about the students back then, the type of items they were interested in and possibly their lifestyles. Why continuously advertise here if you’re not drawing a profit afterwards?
Today advertisements are much more diverse in content; still each issue includes ads for restaurants, for off-campus housing and for campus activities and lectures.
Another thing that jumped out at me was the style of the ads; most of them featured drawings instead of pictures. Flip through an issue of The Chronicle from this year and you’ll notice that almost every single advertisement features text and photographs. Granted several contain icons that were probably created in programs like Photoshop or Illustrator, but I cannot recall a single instance where I thought an ad was drawn by hand like many comics are.
Take for example, these ads for Robbins, a clothing store in Durham, and for Mr. Wrangler, a clothing brand. Whereas today clothing stores take pictures of outfits on models or on mannequins, this advertisement uses a drawing of the suit they’re selling.
I imagine that as photography became less expensive and easier to edit, it made more sense for advertisers to move away from drawings. Still, this may just be the preferred style of the time.
Going through this archive, I can’t help but feel that advertising has gotten more interesting since 1965/66. I look at the Old Spice ad in the 1966 paper and I can’t help thinking about the crazy Old Spice man commercials now. Everything, even print ads, are interconnected with all the other media we are exposed to. Even now, some of the ads from the 1966 paper seem to fade into obscurity, but maybe that’s just because I’m a product of my constantly over-stimulated generation.
I leave you with ads for The Young Men’s Shop, they made me chuckle, so they can stay in my good graces.
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