by david allan van nostrand | Aug 21, 2023 | Human Behavior, Marketing, Social archaelogy, The world around us
The Guardian tells of a visiting British minister who presented a pocket watch to a Taiwanese official. When asked to comment on the gift, the official said he might sell it to a scrap dealer for some money. The stunned minister sniffed that in the UK a watch is...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 4, 2022 | Americana, Marketing, The Wayback Machine
This is the third of a three-part series about advertising characters in the United States. The first told the stories of the four greatest fictional characters to personify a brand and the second related the histories of the four greatest real-life television...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 27, 2022 | Americana, Anthropology, Marketing, The Wayback Machine
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, advertisers hired lots of second- and third-tier actors to play fictitious characters in their TV commercials. Jesse White was the lonely Maytag Repairman, Jan Miner played Madge the Manicurist for Palmolive dishwashing liquid, Nancy Walker...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 20, 2022 | Americana, Anthropology, Marketing, The Wayback Machine
The Chicago World’s Fair was opened to the first of 27 million visitors when U.S. president Grover Cleveland pushed a button and the newfangled electric lighting dazzled goggle-eyed fairgoers who only knew lanterns and candles. PBS tells us “Visitors gawked at...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 12, 2020 | Artificial Intelligence, Fads, Marketing
In a shell game, three walnut shells are moved about swiftly and onlookers bet on which one the pea is under when they come to rest. It’s not actually a game at all – it’s a swindle con artists control through sleight of hand and illusion to fleece the mark (the...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 4, 2019 | Marketing
We have to make an effort to get the full picture, especially when marketers don’t want us to have it. Most of us have seen the NordicTrack ads on TV where Jane lost 20 pounds and we can, too. Few of us have read the fine print in the footnotes. The information there...
