Remington Shavers
Men Only / July 1950
Blimey, I honestly can’t find anything to really object to in this advert. This bloke actually seems to *like* his wife…
Tags: health, retail, social history
Capstan
Men Only / July 1950
Always nice to see one of the adverts which inspired this Viz parody many years later.
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, dodgy advice, retail, social history
Secrets of the Frost Programme
Woman's Own / 30 September 1967
The man himself left us a year ago today, of course, so perhaps this is an excellent time to highlight this gem of a feature from 46 years ago. The historical interest of this cleverly written ‘day in the life’ of The Frost Programme (and, by extension, the man himself) is obvious, but it’s interesting that this sort of piece would be unlikely to feature in a woman’s magazine today. I have to admit that this piece is unusual in my collection, so I suspect that this piece appeared in Women’s Own due to the importance of the programme, rather than it being part of a theme. I’m extremely grateful to Janice James for producing such a fascinating piece, although sadly there’s next to nothing of her work online, presumably due to her retiring before the WWW was in wide usage.
Tags: david frost, social history, television
Oh-oh!
Men Only / September 1951
I presume the woman embarrassing this young man is his wife, and that we have an early dandruff remedy being marketed here. After the many adverts humiliating women that I’ve seen for this site, it’s interesting to see an advert doing the same to a man.
Tags: beauty, dodgy advice, retail, social history
Dubonnet
Men Only / September 1951
Dubonnet is a famous French apertif, and, as the Dubonnet Wikipedia entry tells us, most certainly has alcohol present, so the tagline is a massive fib. You may not *think* you’re drinking something strong, but a fortified wine with an ABV of 15% isn’t to be treated lightly, even if you do drink it with a mixer. Dubonnet is a drink very much of this era, as this BBC News article explains. I’m in my mid-30s, and I’d certainly never heard of it. I’ve noticed that there seems to be a general admiration towards France from Brits in the 1950s, which I’d attributed to the British middle & upper classes going to France on their holidays, which the BBC article appears to support, and which would explain the prominent use of French in this advert.
Tags: dodgy advice, retail, social history
Lemon Hart
Men Only / September 1951
Good lord, this advert takes its time getting to the point. Still, at least there’s an acknowledgement in it that women might like to drink something stronger than Babycham.
Tags: retail, social history
ROFL
Men Only / July 1950
What? I mean, what? It’s because of arseholery like this that cleaners have to work stupidly early, so overprivileged nobs in offices can’t actually see the hard work that goes into making their environment clean and tidy. How is this even a fucking joke? How many more questions will I ask that I well know the answer to?
Tags: blatant sexism, social history
Sno-Mist
Men Only / July 1950
Well, it’s not quite as awful as this corker from Amplex, but how fascinating to see men’s grooming as closely scrutinised as women’s, so early on in the development of deodorant. Naturally, the approach is to appeal to men’s ambition, rather than whether their very existence is causing offence to others, but the message is clear; high-ranking men might sweat the same as a spot welder, but they’re not allowed to show it.
Tags: dodgy advice, emotional blackmail, health, retail, social history
Virginia Cigarettes
Men Only / July 1950
I’m not sure where to start with this one. Perhaps the first point is that it’s impossible to kill all the animals featured in one safari, given that you’d have to go to at least two continents to do it.
Tags: adverts totally made of wrong, retail, scary thoughts, social history
Dunlop
Men Only / July 1950
I think this probably wins some sort of prize for the laziest ad copy ever, although it must be said that the ads from these Men Only magazines are all fairly similar. All evidence that the consumer society hadn’t really got going in 1950, and that it would take a few years before advertising was forced to get more imaginative.
Tags: retail, social history