Advertising in the Seventies
More is less; less is more.
As is apparent by both the ad to the right and the ad above, advertisements in the seventies were drastically different to the advertisements that the modern American has accustomed to. For example, the advertisements from the seventies contain more information than most modern advertisements. Both the ad for the Chopper II bike and for the Gremlin car have large paragraphs that tell the viewer of the many features of the products being advertised; modern advertisements have few words, and rely heavily on the visual rhetoric of the ad. This is most likely attributed to the fact that America has grown to be a nation in constant need of immediate gratification; new technologies have brought about new-thinking. The instantaneous connections made possible by the Internet and cellular devices have encouraged short attention spans, and have discouraged the effectiveness of elaborately worded advertisements. People once had time to sit and read the wonderfully articulated ads of the seventies, but it seems that advertising companies rely on the five seconds from the time a billboard comes into a person's view to the time the billboard is out of sight for their advertisement's message to sink in.
