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<\/figure>Over the years, with consumerist mindsets rapidly growing and the advertising market constantly evolving, we have seen a consistent theme of advertisements that promote or even promise a certain kind of life. It started as early as the 1890s, with the \u201cKodak Girl\u201d being used to promote an independent and free lifestyle for the new domestic woman if she were to purchase the camera. The Kodak Girl often appears alone, wearing the latest fashion and carrying her own purse, presumably with her own money. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, realized that it is less about advertising the product and more about advertising the image and life that one could be living. People saw the Kodak Girl and thought they could achieve her lifestyle by buying that camera and traveling the world. This tactic has stuck around for decades, evolving into more obscure representations, but the basis staying the same: advertise and emphasize the life that comes from the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We see this prominently in Life<\/em>, stretching across a wide variety of products and experiences that people could spend their money on. Outside of this, lifestyles were still advertised in Life<\/em> without a specific product being shown. In this example, we see people of seemingly high society enjoying a dance show. Everyone featured in the room is white, with the people seated all portrayed as heterosexual, a safe assumption since each man is paired with a woman. This illustration was made by Russell Patterson, an American cartoonist who helped establish the flapper style of the 20s and 30s, and published in Life<\/em> in 1928. The reason that I chose to focus on this in relation to some advertisements that Life<\/em> put out years after this is because of the lifestyle it is promoting without tying it to a specific product. This portrayal is the kind of image that people have in their minds for successful and wealthy lives. In many instances, this is what people strive for. When we tie in the consumer market and mindset, it becomes more attainable \u2013 people are given a path to this kind of lifestyle. In this image, the first thing that came to mind was trying to imagine what someone would think. From a consumer standpoint, one could ponder if one of the women portrayed here uses a certain kind of high end product. For example, someone could think, while aimlessly flipping through Life<\/em>, \u201cShe\u2019s so fabulous. I bet she uses Product<\/em> by XYBrand. A woman like her would.\u201d Then, people are seemingly able to be just as fabulous as this \u201cwoman\u201d by obtaining the product. This image, Good Will To Men<\/em>, serves as the basis for the kind of life that people can imagine. It is up to the advertisers to find out how to use this image to sell a product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the next set of advertisements, we see, again, how the portrayal of a lifestyle is used to sell an experience or product. With the rise in popularity of Florida as an up-and-coming location to have a vacation home, advertisements for housing communities and development projects became more widely publicized. In this advertisement, we see a white family or families, with young children playing on the beach and grandparents sitting in the background. It caters to the middle class audience, showing a very normal beach outing, with items these people likely brought and set up themselves. Further, it appeals to a multi-generational audience, showcasing children, middle aged, and older people enjoying themselves. This advertisement was published in 1958, thirteen years after World War II ended and three years after the Vietnam War began. With war being recent in everyone\u2019s memory, a relaxing vacation housing development is incredibly appealing. People realized that war is much more of a possibility than originally conceived and that it can hit closer to home than ever expected. They overemphasize how little the payment is, even if it could be a large amount for some. The advertisement also includes a cutout that you can send your payment in with, making it incredibly easy for people to invest in these communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walter Benjamin discusses important ideas surrounding image reproduction and the consumer mindset. At first, photography was created as something that was pretty unattainable. It was a process that involved dangerous chemicals and was only accessible to wealthier populations. Over time, photography started to become more widely available and the commodification of photography and the photograph exploded. In A Short History of Photography (1931<\/em>) by Walter Benjamin, he writes, \u201cEvery day the need grows more urgent to possess an object in the closest proximity, through a picture or, better, a reproduction\u201d (20). This quote is particularly interesting in the context of this advertisement. This photograph and exact advertisement was reproduced thousands of times to a very wide audience. With its target audience, this was likely torn out and pasted somewhere, shown to others, and maybe even had the bottom right cut out to send in a payment. The scene portrayed of the multi-generational friends and families became the object that people wanted to possess. The need to possess something from a photograph was used by advertisers and marketers in order to sell products and experiences. In Benjamin\u2019s piece, he is likely discussing what is being portrayed in the photograph itself, and advertisers have taken this a step forward by manipulating what is portrayed and how wanted it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vanessa Schwartz writes in \u201cDisneyland and the Art of People-Moving,\u201d <\/em>in Jet Age Aesthetic: The Glamour of Media in Motion<\/em>, \u201ca ruse intended to make visitors and natives alike believe that the rest of America was real \u2018when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real\u2019\u201d (4). While this piece was originally written with Disneyland in mind, I find an interesting connection to this and other images that advertised housing developments in Florida. The way that these housing units were advertised made the surrounding areas of Florida seem unreal and even irrelevant. The article attached to the image briefly mentions a town next to the homes, mentioning the churches and other amenities offered. This point comes from the image of a map of Florida that was attached to the bottom left corner of the advertisement. St. Petersburg, Port Charlotte, Fort Myers, and Miami are the only things included on the map. In reality, Florida is surrounded by towns and other places, yet this advertisement is giving its audience the illusion that nothing else in Florida is \u201creal\u201d or exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These advertisements were made to advertise a lifestyle that was attainable to a large group of people. It offered people a new kind of \u201cproduct\u201d that could be bought and would bring happiness. From the iconic Kodak Girl to the advertisements seen in Life Magazine<\/em>, the pull of a certain kind of life has remained a successful marketing tool. Through reading Benjamin and Schwartz, we understand how these portrayals shape our perceptions and wants, often blurring the lines between reality and illusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_8439-789x1024.jpg\")
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