Advertising’s Influence on Culture

Discussing the influence of advertising on culture raises a long-standing debate. One opinion postulates that advertising reflects the trends inherent in a culture, while the other claims advertising takes an active role in shaping culture. Both ideas have merit and reflect the truth to varying degrees.

Advertising and the Rise of Consumer Culture

George Babbitt, the protagonist of Sinclair Lewis’s 1922 novel Babbitt, truly believed in the growing American consumer culture:

Just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief, so did the national advertisers shape the surface of his life, altering what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares—toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters—were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, and then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom (Lewis, 1922).

Although Lewis’s fictional representation of a 1920s-era consumer may not be entirely accurate, it reflects the national consumer culture that emerged during that era. As it had always done, advertising sought to attach products to larger ideas and symbols of worth and cultural values. However, the rise of mass media and the advertising models that these media embraced made advertising take on an increasingly influential cultural role.

Automobile ads of the 1920s portrayed cars as a new, free way of life rather than simply a means of transportation. Advertisers utilized new ideas about personal hygiene to sell products, ultimately breaking taboos about public discussion of the body. The newly acknowledged epidemics of halitosis and body odor led to the development of products such as mouthwash and deodorant. A Listerine campaign of the era transformed bad breath from a nuisance into the mark of a sociopath (Ashenburg, 2008). Women’s underwear and menstruation went from unsuitable topics for most family conversations to fodder for the pages of national magazines.

Creating the Modern World

World War I bond campaigns had made it clear that advertising could be used to influence public beliefs and values. Advertising that focuses on the new, creating new products and ideas, seems more effective than promoting older ones. This sentiment ushered in a motivation to achieve modernity. In an address to the American Association of Advertising Agencies in 1926, President Coolidge went as far as to hold advertisers responsible for the “regeneration and redemption of mankind (Marchand, 1985).”

Throughout the 1960s, affluent White men owned and staffed most advertising agencies, and the portrayals of typical American families in advertising reflected this status quo. Mainstream culture as propagated by magazine, radio, and newspaper advertising principally catered to middle- or upper-class White suburban families (Marchand, 1985). This sanitized image of the suburban family, popularized in TV programs like Leave It to Beaver, became mercilessly satirized since the onset of the 1960s cultural backlash.

A significant portion of that era’s cultural criticism targeted the image of the advertiser as a manipulator and promoter of superficial consumerism. When advertisers for Volkswagen picked up on this criticism, turned it to their advantage, and created a new set of consumer symbols that would come to represent an age of rebellion, they neatly co-opted the arguments against advertising for their purposes. In many instances, advertising has served as a codifier of its ideals by transforming new cultural values into symbols of a new phase of consumerism. Effective advertising achieves this goal.

Apple’s 1984 campaign provides one of the most well-known examples of defining a product in terms of new cultural trends. A fledgling company compared to computer giants IBM and Xerox, Apple spent nearly $2 million on a commercial directed by Ridley Scott, which they would pay to air only once (McAloney, 1984). During the third quarter of the 1984 Super Bowl, viewers across the United States watched in amazement as an ad unlike any other at the time appeared on their TV screens. The commercial showed a drab gray auditorium where identical individuals sat in front of a large screen. The man projected on the screen addressed the audience with an eerily captivating voice. “We are one people, with one will,” he droned. “Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their confusion. We shall prevail (McAloney, 1984)!” While the audience sat motionlessly, one woman ran forward with a sledgehammer and hurled it at the screen, causing it to explode in a flash of light and smoke. As the scene faded out, a narrator announced the product. “On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984 (Friedman, 1984).” With this commercial, Apple defined itself as a pioneer of the new generation. Instead of marketing its products as utilitarian tools, it advertised them as devices for combating conformity (Friedman, 1984). Over the next few decades, other companies imitated this approach, presenting their products as symbols of cultural values.

In his study of advertising’s cultural impact, The Conquest of Cool, Thomas Franks compares the advertising of the 1960s with that of the early 1990s:

How [advertisers] must have rejoiced when the leading minds of the culture industry announced the discovery of an all-new angry generation, the “Twenty-Somethings,” complete with a panoply of musical styles, hairdos, and verbal signifiers ready-made to rejuvenate advertising’s sagging credibility…. The strangest aspect of what followed wasn’t the immediate onslaught of even hipper advertising, but that the entire “Generation X” discourse repeated…the discussions of youth culture that had appeared in Advertising Age, Madison Avenue, and on all those youth-market panel discussions back in the sixties.

Advertisers have not set out to consciously manipulate the public in the name of consumer culture. Instead, advertisers perform their job, one that has had an enormous influence on culture.

Advertising Stereotypes

The Predominantly White, middle-class composition of ad agencies contributed to the rarity of advertisements depicting minority populations. DDB—the agency responsible for the Volkswagen ads of the 1960s—did things differently in this regard. For instance, it ran popular ads for Levy’s rye bread. Most conventional advertisers would have likely ignored the ethnic aspects of this product and marketed it to a mainstream White audience. Instead, the innovative agency created an ad campaign that made ethnic diversity a selling point, featuring spots with individuals from various racial backgrounds enjoying the bread, accompanied by the headline “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s.”

During the 1950s, stereotypical images of African Americans promulgated by advertisers began to draw criticism from civil rights leaders. Icons such as Aunt Jemima, the Cream of Wheat chef, and the Hiram Walker butler represented some of the most recognizable black figures in U.S. culture. Unlike the African Americans who had gained fame through their artistry, scholarship, and athleticism, however, these advertising characters became famous for depicting domestic servants.

During the 1960s, meetings of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) hosted civil rights leaders, and agencies began to respond to the criticisms of bias. A 1960s survey in New York discovered that people of color were underrepresented at advertising agencies. Many agencies responded by hiring new African American employees, and several Black-owned agencies started in the 1970s.

Early advertising often targeted women because they made approximately 80 percent of all consumer purchases. Thus, women had strong representation in advertising. However, those depictions presented women in extremely narrow roles. Throughout the 1960s, advertisements targeting women typically depicted them performing domestic duties, such as cooking or cleaning. In contrast, ads targeting men often placed women in a submissive sexual role, even if the product lacked any overt sexual connotation. A National Car Rental ad from the early 1970s featured a disheveled female employee in a chair with the headline “Go Ahead, Take Advantage of Us.” Another advertisement from the 1970s pictured a man with new Dacron slacks standing on top of a woman, proclaiming, “It’s nice to have a girl around the house (Frauenfelder, 2008).”

An advertising profile printed in Advertising Age magazine gave a typical advertiser’s understanding of the housewife at the time:

She enjoys watching TV but doesn’t read much. She is most easily reached through TV and the simple, down-to-earth magazines…. Mental activity is arduous for her…. She is a person who wants to have things she can believe in rather than things she can think about (Rodnitzky, 1999).

The National Organization for Women (NOW) launched a campaign in the early 1970s aimed at addressing the portrayal of women in advertisements. Participants complained to networks and companies about the ads and even spray-painted slogans on offensive billboards in protest.

The representation of various demographic groups in advertising has seen some improvements since the 1960s and 1970s, yet significant challenges and disparities persist. While there’s a growing recognition of the economic and social benefits of diverse marketing, the industry continues to navigate a complex landscape of representation.

Looking at the broader advertising and marketing industry workforce, ethnic diversity declined from 32.3% in 2022 to 30.8% in 2023, according to a report by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). This figure remains below the 42.2% diversity makeup of the total U.S. population as per the 2020 U.S. Census. Specifically, in 2023, the industry’s ethnic composition was roughly 10.3% Asian, 9.5% Hispanic/Latino, and 7.2% African American/Black. When compared to the U.S. population figures (5.92% Asian, 18.73% Hispanic/Latino, and 12.05% African American/Black), it indicates that Hispanic/Latino and African American/Black individuals remain underrepresented within the marketing and advertising profession itself. Conversely, female representation in the industry is strong, with women comprising the majority of the workforce at 67.2% and holding 57.7% of senior leadership positions, which has reached its highest levels in recent years.

Focusing on on-screen representation, particularly in high-profile events like the Super Bowl, data reveals a mixed picture. While the 2010 Super Bowl showed limited diversity, recent years indicate some shifts. In 2022, men still outnumbered women in Super Bowl ads (58% male characters versus 42% female characters). By 2023, females accounted for 39% of performers in these commercials, while males accounted for 61%. In terms of racial representation in 2023 Super Bowl ads, Black performers were notably more present (27%) compared to the overall industry average (14% in 2022). Additionally, Asian performers saw higher representation (12% in Super Bowl ads versus an 8% industry average in 2022). However, Hispanic/Latino representation remained consistently low, at just 4% in 2023 Super Bowl ads, significantly below their 19% share of the U.S. population. Beyond race and gender, the representation of other diverse groups is also gaining attention. For instance, in Super Bowl LVIII (2024), 10 ads explicitly featured LGBTQ+ individuals, an increase from 4 ads in 2023, though most featured white LGBTQ+ representation and lacked visibility for transgender and nonbinary people. Depictions of characters with disabilities also remain rare, often overwhelmingly featuring white individuals.

Despite these ongoing disparities, the economic benefits of inclusive advertising are increasingly well-documented. Recent global studies, such as those by the Unstereotype Alliance in collaboration with UN Women and Oxford University, have empirically demonstrated that inclusive advertising (content that authentically and positively portrays a full range of people and is devoid of stereotypes) yields significant business advantages. Such campaigns have been shown to deliver 3.5% higher short-term sales and a substantial 16% higher longer-term sales. They also result in a 62% higher likelihood of the brand being a consumer’s first choice and a 15% increase in customer loyalty. Research also indicates that diverse representation in ads can positively impact purchase intent across various consumer groups, including white consumers, suggesting that authenticity and broad appeal resonate widely among diverse audiences.

Brands are increasingly responding to these insights. Recent examples of inclusive advertising include Mattel’s initiative to make its games colorblind-accessible, Amped Fitness creating “Babe Cave” women-only gym spaces, and Dove’s “The Code” campaign, which highlighted the damaging impact of AI-generated images on female confidence. Nike’s black-and-white spot during Super Bowl LIX, featuring diverse female athletes, also aimed to defy stereotypes and resonate with a broader audience. These efforts reflect a growing understanding that authentic and diverse representation is not just a social imperative but a strategic business advantage that fosters deeper connections with consumers and drives growth.

The Impact of Adobe Photoshop

The advent of Adobe Photoshop has had a truly transformative and profound impact on the advertising industry, revolutionizing how images are conceived, manipulated, and presented to the public. Before its widespread adoption, image manipulation was a painstaking, labor-intensive process, confined mainly to darkrooms and requiring specialized analog techniques like airbrushing, dodging, and burning, or physical cutting and pasting of photographic elements. Photoshop, launched in 1990, digitized this entire workflow, democratizing complex image editing and placing powerful tools for retouching, compositing, and creative visual effects directly into the hands of designers and advertisers. This software allowed for unprecedented levels of control, enabling the seamless blending of multiple images, the removal of imperfections, the alteration of colors and lighting, and even the complete reimagining of scenes that never existed in reality.

This technological leap fundamentally reshaped advertising aesthetics and possibilities. Advertisers gained the ability to create visually perfect, often hyper-idealized, representations of products and people. For instance, models can be digitally “flawless” with smoothed skin, enhanced features, and altered body proportions, while products can be shown in pristine, impossible settings with perfect lighting. This capability has fueled intense debate about realism versus aspiration in advertising, contributing to discussions around body image and consumer expectations. Beyond mere retouching, Photoshop facilitates the creation of entirely new realities for campaigns, such as a car seamlessly placed on an alien landscape, or a beverage bottle appearing to glow with an ethereal light. Its impact extends to virtually every visual aspect of advertising, from print ads and billboards to digital banners and social media content, making it an indispensable tool that continues to shape the visual language of persuasion in the modern era.

However, the immense power of Photoshop has also ushered in significant negative consequences, particularly concerning the perpetuation of unrealistic beauty standards and their impact on mental health. By enabling the routine creation of “perfect” bodies and faces, advertising often presents an unattainable ideal, leading to increased body dissatisfaction, lower self-esteem, and even contributing to eating disorders, especially among younger demographics. Consumers are constantly bombarded with images of models whose skin is impossibly smooth, waists are unnaturally cinched, and features are digitally sculpted to an idealized perfection that few, if any, can achieve naturally. This widespread digital alteration can blur the lines between reality and fantasy, fostering a sense of inadequacy in individuals who compare themselves to these fabricated images. Furthermore, the ease with which Photoshop can manipulate images has also raised ethical concerns about truthfulness in advertising, with some critics arguing that excessive manipulation borders on deception, as it presents a misleading representation of the product or the people promoting it. This has prompted calls in various countries, such as France and Norway, for advertisements to disclose when images have been digitally altered, aiming to promote greater transparency and mitigate the adverse psychological effects on consumers.

Advertising to Children

The landscape of advertising to children has undergone a significant transformation, yet core challenges persist. Traditionally, the majority of advertisements targeting children featured either toys or junk food. A fundamental concern, still relevant today, is that children under the age of eight often struggle to distinguish between fantasy and reality, a vulnerability that some advertisers have historically exploited. Studies continue to show that a high percentage of food advertisements aimed at children promote high-calorie, low-nutritional value foods, such as sugary cereals, contributing to concerns about childhood obesity.

While governments and self-regulatory bodies have long sought to regulate advertising to children, the proliferation of digital media, particularly since 2008, has introduced new and often more subtle means of marketing to young people. Online video games, widely known as advergames, remain a prominent example. These games seamlessly integrate famous child-oriented products, offering children a significantly extended and immersive period of product exposure compared to a typical 30-second TV commercial. Beyond advergames, other digital tactics include:

• In-app advertising: Many free mobile phone applications include advertisements to offset service costs. While some apps offer “Pro” versions for a fee to remove ads, many preschooler apps have been found to contain various forms of advertising.
• Location-based advertising: Apps can access a user’s geographic location (with parental consent) to offer ads for businesses within walking distance, blurring the lines between content and commerce.
• Influencer marketing: Children are increasingly exposed to product endorsements by child influencers on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, raising questions about whether young audiences can distinguish the commercial intent behind such content.
• “Dark patterns”: These are manipulative design practices within digital interfaces that can subtly trick children into engaging with ads, making in-app purchases, or prolonging their engagement with content, often without transparent disclosure.
• AI-driven personalization: The increasing use of artificial intelligence enables highly individualized and continuously fine-tuned ads to be delivered to children based on their online behaviors and preferences, making it challenging to track the full extent of their exposure.

In response to these evolving tactics and persistent concerns, child advocacy groups have intensified their calls for increased regulation. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) remains the cornerstone of federal regulation in the U.S., prohibiting companies from collecting personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. However, COPPA has been subject to updates and ongoing debate. For instance, recent FTC updates to COPPA (with a final rule published in early 2025, taking effect in June 2025) now require separate parental opt-in consent for targeted advertising to children and impose limits on data retention, preventing operators from holding children’s personal information longer than necessary. The definition of “personal information” has also been expanded to include biometric identifiers.

Self-regulatory bodies, such as the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the BBB National Programs, continue to play a crucial role in monitoring child-directed media across all platforms for compliance with their Advertising and Privacy Guidelines. CARU has issued compliance warnings regarding advertising practices in the Metaverse and the application of AI in child-directed advertising, emphasizing the need for clear distinctions between advertising and content, as well as age-appropriate messaging.

Despite these efforts, challenges remain. Studies indicate that while children’s exposure to food and beverage ads on traditional children’s television programming has declined substantially due to self-regulatory pledges, overall exposure to unhealthy food ads remains high because children are watching more general programming and engaging with digital platforms. Furthermore, concerns persist regarding the ease with which children can circumvent age-verification measures on platforms that may expose them to mature content, such as alcohol-related virtual worlds. The debate over how to effectively balance a child’s online experience with robust privacy protections and ethical advertising practices remains a critical area of focus for policymakers, industry, and child advocates.

Positive Effects of Advertising

Although many people focus on the adverse outcomes of advertising, the medium has provided unique benefits over time. Early newspaper advertising allowed newspapers to become independent of church and government control, encouraging the development of a free press with the ability to criticize powerful interests. When newspapers and magazines transitioned to an advertising model, these publications became accessible to a larger group of people who previously could not afford them. Advertising also contributed to radio’s and TV’s most successful eras. Radio’s golden age in the 1940s and TV’s golden age in the 1950s both occurred when advertisers either created or heavily participated in the production of most programs.

Advertising also makes newer forms of media both practical and accessible. Many Internet services, such as email and smartphone applications, appear free because they are supported by advertising. Advertising enables promoters and service providers to reduce or sometimes eliminate the upfront purchase price, making these services more accessible to a broader audience and allowing lower-income classes to participate in mass culture.

Advertising has promoted the arts throughout its history. During the Renaissance, painters and composers often relied on wealthy patrons or governments to promote their work. Corporate advertising has provided artists with new means to fund their creative endeavors. Additionally, many artists and writers have supported themselves by working with advertisers. The use of music in commercials, particularly in recent years, has given musicians notoriety and increased their income. Indeed, the cultural landscape of the United States without advertising seems unfathomable.

Changing Standards of Advertisements

Advertising standards are far from static; they are dynamic reflections of societal values, cultural norms, and prevailing ethical considerations, evolving significantly over time. What was once considered acceptable, or even groundbreaking, in an advertisement from a bygone era might appear profoundly controversial, offensive, or even illegal by today’s sensibilities. This constant flux necessitates that advertisers remain acutely aware of the shifting landscape of public opinion and regulatory frameworks.

Examining ads from the past offers a stark illustration of these changing standards, revealing how much our collective understanding of gender roles, race, health, and consumer safety has progressed. One prominent category of controversial historical ads often involves blatant sexism and the objectification of women. For instance, a 1950s print ad for Schlitz beer famously depicted a woman proudly serving her husband, with the tagline “Don’t worry darling, you didn’t burn the beer!” This ad, designed to reinforce traditional domestic roles, would be widely criticized today for its demeaning portrayal of women and its outdated gender stereotypes. Similarly, numerous ads from the mid-20th century presented women solely as homemakers or objects of male desire, often in highly sexualized or subservient poses for products entirely unrelated to gender. A famous 1960s Dodge La Femme ad, marketing a car “designed by women, for women,” still leaned heavily into stereotypical feminine colors and features, rather than genuine utility.

Another deeply problematic area in historical advertising is the pervasive use of racist or culturally insensitive tropes. In the early to mid-20th century, it was tragically common to see ads featuring caricatured racial stereotypes, often to promote household products or food items. Brands like Aunt Jemima (now Pearl Milling Company) and Uncle Ben’s (now Ben’s Original) initially used imagery rooted in problematic racial stereotypes. Beyond their branding, actual advertisements for various products sometimes depicted Black individuals in subservient roles or used highly offensive visual gags that would be unequivocally condemned as racist today. These examples highlight a past where mainstream media perpetuated harmful prejudices, a practice now widely recognized as unacceptable and damaging.

Furthermore, past advertisements often made unsubstantiated health claims or promoted dangerous habits. For decades, tobacco companies ran campaigns directly linking smoking to positive attributes like sophistication, vitality, and even good health, with slogans such as “More Doctors Smoke Camels.” Ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes even suggested smoking could help women stay slender. These claims, utterly disproven and now legally prohibited in many contexts, illustrate a complete disregard for public health that would be considered grossly irresponsible and unethical today. Similarly, early ads for patent medicines often promised miraculous cures for all ailments, without any scientific backing, which would now fall under strict consumer protection laws against false advertising. These historical examples serve as crucial reminders of how advertising standards are not merely about aesthetics. Still, they are deeply intertwined with evolving societal values, legal regulations, and a growing commitment to ethical responsibility and consumer well-being.