Advertising Consumer
Midterm Paper Revised
Fall 2014

Name: Zeina El Zein
Professor: Marilyn Cohen

Advertising is not merely a way of selling goods, it is a true part of the culture of a confused society. - Raymond Williams

Advertisements have shifted drastically from the 1920’s up until now; this change is heavily influenced by psychological advertising and the technological changes that took part during that time. Due to current events happening in the 1920’s advertising began to be geared to consumer fears, needs and desires in order to promote brands and products. In 1921 Listerine the company came up with what was called an American epidemic known as “chronic halitosis;” the goal of this creation was to convince Americans that it was a medical condition and the best solution to it was their newly created product. The company’s marketing campaign was a great success and brought high revenue to them; this was made possible through their advertising team who knew exactly what to tackle: the insecurities of Americans. The advertisements often included images in sexual or romantic settings in order to emphasize the importance of the need of the product in order to be socially acceptable. In this essay I will be looking at two different Listerine advertisements one dated from the 1920’s and another one from 2010, while evaluating the technical as well as psychological changes that occurred.

By the time of the 1920’s the field of advertising experienced a high transformation in terms of persuasion techniques. Advertisements went from being dull to tapping into consumer’s emotions creating this whole idea of directed personality, which in turn created a psychological need for the product. Directed Psychology stemmed from advertisements that depicted the “ideal,” creating this idea of people outside looking in, meaning always having to look good or