Class reunion with old stars
Advertising history Dirk Schindelbeck's German consumer history is as funny as it is instructive. Because it shows us how we became the cult shoppers we are today.
Advertising history Dirk Schindelbeck's German consumer history is as funny as it is instructive. Because it shows us how we became the cult shoppers we are today.
Take a break" is the advice of a well-known German advertising slogan from the 1950s. The Coca-Cola Company's appeal to relax, which was limited in small print to a "hearty sip" of the "deliciously cool" refreshment, brought just the right dose of indulgence to the hustle and bustle of the reconstruction society. Just a decade later, the sparkling break-time happiness that people were content with in the early years of catch-up consumption had given way to a thoroughgoing hedonism. "Afri-Cola works immediately", Charles Wilp's legendary nuns coquettishly proclaimed "in an Afri-Cola frenzy". The advertising campaign from 1968, which promotes the alcohol-free party drink as a "stimulant" and "mood elixir", cleverly transforms elements of protest culture into a blasphemous and erotic invitation to consume.Advertising is a mirror of social sensitivities: based on this basic assumption, cultural researcher and advertising historian Dirk Schindelbeck has compiled an "illustrated German history of consumption". The lavishly illustrated book makes no claim to completeness or scholarship; it reads best as an entertaining collection of pictures and anecdotes.
With sketchy period overviews, exemplary campaign descriptions and amusing aperçus, the author traces the broad lines of German consumer development, from the staid catch-up consumption of the post-war years to the cult and adventure consumption of the affluent late capitalism. A particularly informative and well-documented chapter is devoted to "Forty years of consumption in the East". Here you can gain an insight into the world of goods in the planned economy, from shop window theories and consumption control campaigns to the "Speechless" cigarillos, a prime example of emotionless GDR product design.
"Advertising is the communication of goods or services or business in a form that moves the will": as early as 1910, Hans Weidenmüller from Leipzig recognized that effectiveness is not a question of volume. The self-proclaimed advertising lawyer countered the puffery of old advertising with his basic rules for the uniform and consistent use of all advertising media. Schindelbeck also counts Hans Domizlaff, the advertising consultant for the Reemtsma cigarette company, as one of the founders of modern brand technology. With R6 or Ernte 23, Domizlaff created the first cigarette brands in the 1920s and coined the original pattern of modern advertising slogans with the formula "Double fermented!".
Accomplice of the zeitgeist
Initially, advertising texts were often written by amateurs; the professional brand designs were sometimes accompanied by rather home-made purchase recommendations. In the 1950s, these still argued eloquently for "pleasure with reason" or "smoking with understanding". It was only later that advertising agencies introduced the first lifestyle products, most notably the Stuyvesant cigarette brand, which as early as 1962 focused on mobile cosmopolitanism and promised the "scent of the big, wide world".
However, advertising not only reflects the belief in progress and the future of the economic miracle. Its innovative adaptability also makes it a dazzling accomplice of the zeitgeist. The advertising industry reacted to the criticism of consumerism in the 1970s with experimental youthfulness or politically-inspired consumption. And ten or fifteen years later, it invented a new type of aesthetic of abundance that is still constantly being differentiated today, which was and is expressed in light products or the creation of disposable carts, for example.
Rapture: Charles Wilp caused a sensation and heated tempers with his rebellious campaign for Afri-Cola in 1968.
Take a break" is the advice of a well-known German advertising slogan from the 1950s. The Coca-Cola Company's appeal to relax, which was limited in small print to a "hearty sip" of the "deliciously cool" refreshment, brought just the right dose of indulgence to the hustle and bustle of the reconstruction society. Just a decade later, the sparkling break-time happiness that people were content with in the early years of catch-up consumption had given way to a thoroughgoing hedonism. "Afri-Cola works immediately", Charles Wilp's legendary nuns coquettishly proclaimed "in an Afri-Cola frenzy". The advertising campaign from 1968, which promotes the alcohol-free party drink as a "stimulant" and "mood elixir", cleverly transforms elements of protest culture into a blasphemous and erotic invitation to consume.Advertising is a mirror of social sensitivities: based on this basic assumption, cultural researcher and advertising historian Dirk Schindelbeck has compiled an "illustrated German history of consumption". The lavishly illustrated book makes no claim to completeness or scholarship; it reads best as an entertaining collection of pictures and anecdotes.
With sketchy period overviews, exemplary campaign descriptions and amusing aperçus, the author traces the broad lines of German consumer development, from the staid catch-up consumption of the post-war years to the cult and adventure consumption of the affluent late capitalism. A particularly informative and well-documented chapter is devoted to "Forty years of consumption in the East". Here you can gain an insight into the world of goods in the planned economy, from shop window theories and consumption control campaigns to the "Speechless" cigarillos, a prime example of emotionless GDR product design.
"Advertising is the communication of goods or services or business in a form that moves the will": as early as 1910, Hans Weidenmüller from Leipzig recognized that effectiveness is not a question of volume. The self-proclaimed advertising lawyer countered the puffery of old advertising with his basic rules for the uniform and consistent use of all advertising media. Schindelbeck also counts Hans Domizlaff, the advertising consultant for the Reemtsma cigarette company, as one of the founders of modern brand technology. With R6 or Ernte 23, Domizlaff created the first cigarette brands in the 1920s and coined the original pattern of modern advertising slogans with the formula "Double fermented!".
Accomplice of the zeitgeist
Initially, advertising texts were often written by amateurs; the professional brand designs were sometimes accompanied by rather home-made purchase recommendations. In the 1950s, these still argued eloquently for "pleasure with reason" or "smoking with understanding". It was only later that advertising agencies introduced the first lifestyle products, most notably the Stuyvesant cigarette brand, which as early as 1962 focused on mobile cosmopolitanism and promised the "scent of the big, wide world".
However, advertising not only reflects the belief in progress and the future of the economic miracle. Its innovative adaptability also makes it a dazzling accomplice of the zeitgeist. The advertising industry reacted to the criticism of consumerism in the 1970s with experimental youthfulness or politically-inspired consumption. And ten or fifteen years later, it invented a new type of aesthetic of abundance that is still constantly being differentiated today, which was and is expressed in light products or the creation of disposable carts, for example.
Rapture: Charles Wilp caused a sensation and heated tempers with his rebellious campaign for Afri-Cola in 1968.
> Brands, fashions and campaigns. Illustrated German consumer history by Dirk Schindelbeck. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2003. 144 pages, 58.60 Fr.
Monika Burri
