I’m old enough to be vaguely aware of that, I was more just remarking on how differently marketing is done now. It’s like the difference between nationally broadcast and local commercials for your small town whatever. There’s a very perceptibly different approach, level of quality, all of that. It’s just not something that I’m always consciously aware of, the present cognitive behavioral psychology-driven, mirror smooth polish that national/international ad campaigns have now would have been unimaginable to us back in the 80’s, even into the 90’s.
I’m not mourning an aesthetic, or praising either, I’m just remarking on how much things have changed since I was a kid and now. I still feel like the 90’s were modern, and just ten years ago, and things like that give me a more accurate perspective, I suppose.
This commercial takes its place with other “shut the barn door after the horse has escaped” campaigns, notably the late-1940s campaign by the hat industry to convince men to continue wearing hats. Full-page, full-color ads ran in all the slick magazines (the contemporary equivalent of an expensive TV commercial campaign).
Interestingly, at the end they say something like “maybe people won’t remember the game, maybe they’ll remember an ad they saw instead”. Well, that was true but I think this was the ad:
I remember reading about the controversy of that ad later, and originally, there was no food bubble at all. But the genital region was deemed ‘too much’ by marketing studies, and had to be masked.
I still haven’t seen it. It wouldn’t play when I clicked the button. Oh, well…
However, the can opener was not invented until a number of decades later. Think you were supposed to open your cans prior to that by using your bayonet or something.
