Last Monday it began when I checked my
e-mail and found two bits of spam, one urging Viagra on me and the other, Rolex
watches. I clicked them off.
Next, in a doctor’s office, as I was
leafing through one of the stupid magazines always found in doctors’ offices, I
came upon a plea for a topical solution to treat onychomycosis. Onychomycosis? Had I not been a seasoned skeptic, I might
have been gripped with fear. Small print
explained: toenail fungus.
Then, as I glanced at the New York Times (“All the News That’s Fit
to Print”) over lunch, I was assaulted on every other page:
CHANEL
‘Boy Chanel’ bag with stitched chain detail, $6,100
Brequet
Depuis 1775
Reine de Naples Collection
IN
EVERY WOMAN IS
A QUEEN
WHAT
THE WORLD NEEDS
NOW IS
SIMPLE
Push your enterprise
and move the world.
hp
Make it matter.
COPD Kills One Person Every Ten Seconds
Worldwide.
Learn the Complete Cure Now!
Know-hows of Dr. Seo-Hyo-seok, Author of <Free from
Chemical Medicine>, and His Forty One Years of Eradicating COPD!
And all these in that fortress
of sobriety, the Times!
Throughout the day the phone rang with recorded
messages:
· “Hello, this is Bridget. I want to …”
I hung up.
· “Did you know that sixty-five percent of seniors
…” I hung up.
· “Congratulations!
You have been chosen …” I hung
up.
Yes, we are bombarded every day by
hucksters. They try to frighten us,
entice us, inflate our dreams, prod us into action. God knows, there’s enough to frighten us:
· baldness
· erectile dysfunction
· depression
· the end of democracy as we know it
· constipation
· bad breath
· global warming
· 5 o’clock shadow
· B.O.
But they also promise us
· wealth
· health
· glamor
· sex appeal
· security
· success
And let’s face it, we
wouldn’t mind having all of them, and more.
 |
| Millais, Bubbles, 1886. |
As I know from a trip long ago to Europe,
foreigners blame us for these assaults.
True enough, in many ways, but modern advertising is not the invention
of American advertisers. The man hailed
as “the father of modern advertising” was in fact an Englishman, Thomas J.
Barratt (1841-1914), who as chairman of the soap manufacturer A&F Pears
pioneered what is now known as brand marketing.
“Good morning. Have you used
Pears’ soap?” was his slogan, a catch phrase that was famous well into the
twentieth century. He got a testimonial
praising Pears soap from actress Lillie Langtry, a reigning beauty known for
her matchless complexion, which was the first celebrity testimonial in
advertising history. Ruthlessly
inventive, he turned John Everett Millais’ painting Bubbles, showing an adorable little boy with golden curls blowing a
bubble, into an advertisement by adding a bar of Pears’ soap in the
foreground. Millais is said to have
protested this, but Barratt had bought the painting and therefore owned the
copyright. This was not the last use by
far of the image of an adorable child to market products successfully;
nineteenth-century advertising was big on childhood innocence, the more
sweet-faced the better.
 |
| On the radio you heard bellhop Johnny's resonant call, "Call for Phillip Morris!" Alexisrael |
FRAGRANT
SOZODONT,
FOR
Cleansing, Beautifying and Preserving
THE TEETH
From youth to old age.
SOLD EVERYWHERE.
But this was nothing, compared to posters
and certain pages in the newspapers throughout the century featuring such
products as
Swaim’s
Panacea
Wm
Radam’s Microbe Killer
Holloway’s
Pills and Ointment
Viner’s
Vermifuge
Dr.
Girard’s Ginger Brandy
Dalley’s
Magical Pain Extractor
Dr.
Lin’s Celestial Balm of China
Pastor
Koenig’s Nerve Tonic
Pink
Pills for Pale People
The secret of the success of
some of these nostrums is revealed in the formula of Hofstetter’s Bitters,
advertised as a cure for many ills: 4% herbal oils and extracts, 64% water, 32%
alcohol. That 32% was much in demand in
communities that had embraced temperance by law.
In an age when mainstream medicine had but
few sound remedies – quinine for malaria, a vaccine for smallpox, and little
else – the nostrums of the patent medicine men had wide appeal, all the more so
in the absence of government regulations.
Whatever ills the public suffered from, “certain
delicate diseases” (V.D.) and “self-abuse” included, the advertisers promised
marvelous results. The nostrums were
sold in every conceivable kind of bottle: square, round, drum-shaped,
pig-shaped, fish-shaped, in the likeness of an Indian maiden or even the bust
of Washington. Manufacturers hoped they
would end up as adornments (and perennial ads) on parlor mantels and whatnots,
but many were smashed to pieces by imbibers fearful lest their secret tippling
be discovered.
 |
| Patent medicines on a shelf in a general store today. Wolfgang Sauber |
(Why the name “patent medicines,” by the
way, when they were definitely not patented?
Because, in seventeenth-century England, elixirs that found royal favor
received letters patent letting them use the royal endorsement in
marketing. Nostrum makers generally
avoided patenting their products, because to do so would have meant revealing
their ingredients; they no more wanted
to do that than Coca-Cola and Pepsi do today.)
 |
| Here the near forbidden words "venereal diseases" are actually stated. |
Patent medicine almanacs were dispensed
free on the counters of drugstores and general stores between Christmas and New
Year’s, or were distributed to the public by young boys paid a quarter a
day. And the names of the products
appeared in posters on walls and fences and the decks and cabins of steamboats;
on the sides of horsecars; on signs on wagons roaming the busy streets; on
brick piles; on asbestos curtains in theaters; and on mirrors in public waiting
rooms. No flat surface was safe, and the
sidewalks of busy Broadway were enlivened by sandwich men flaunting the names
of remedies fore and aft:
Pocahontas Bitters
Radical Cure Trusses
Philipot’s Infallible Extract
 |
| Yes, back then snake oil really did exist. |
Nor was rural America spared: the names of
nostrums appeared on rocks, trees, fences, barns, and sheds; adorned the
soaring basalt cliffs of the Palisades, visible to passengers on Hudson River steamboats;
and with the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, graced
telegraph poles and even the soaring Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Nevada
range in distant California. And as a
traveler approached San Francisco by train, he was informed that “VINEGAR BITTERS
IS ALL THE
GO FOR LOVE!”
“Ob-scenery!” protested the New
York Tribune, but to no avail. The
ultimate in advertising was achieved when a nostrum maker bought a steamboat,
adorned it with ads for his liniment, cast it adrift on Lake Erie and let it
float to destruction over Niagara Falls.
Most of the patent medicine men were
indeed men, but one notable exception was Lydia Pinkham, a Massachusetts
housewife who, like many women of the day, brewed a home remedy for “female
complaints” and gave it away free to her neighbors. In 1875, with the family’s fortunes at low
ebb, one of her grown sons suggested making a business of the family
remedy. Composed of five herbs and some
alcohol, it was immediately successful, and production was transferred from Lydia’s
stove at home to a factory. Her skill in
marketing to women made Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, with her features
on the label, one of the most popular nostrums of the time, a modified version
of which is still available today. Eager
for relief from menstrual and menopausal symptoms, vast numbers of women wrote
to her, and she dutifully answered them, even after her death, since her staff
filled in for her, until a photo of her tombstone in the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1905 exposed the ruse. The Pinkham company then explained – somewhat
lamely – that they never meant to suggest that Lydia herself was answering the
letters, which were being answered by her daughter. Today Lydia is hailed by feminists as an
early crusader for women’s health at a time when women’s health issues were ill
served by the male-dominated medical establishment. Her descendants operate a clinic bearing her
name in Salem, Massachusetts, to offer health services to young mothers and
their children.
 |
| Circa 1875, but still on the market today. And back then she didn't have to look glamorous. |
Muckraker journalists’ exposés of the
patent medicine industry led to the first Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which
required that ingredients be labeled, and a revised statute of 1936 that banned
alcohol, narcotics, and stimulants altogether, following which the patent
medicine makers shifted their attention to marketing deodorants, toothpastes,
and shampoos. Today herbal concoctions
promoted as nutritional supplements raise similar issues as the earlier
nostrums once did regarding exaggerated claims, even though today’s claims are
carefully phrased to avoid attracting the attention of regulators.
Clearly, the full-page
ad in the Times promoting a complete
cure for COPD, cited earlier, is right in the tradition of nineteenth-century
patent medicines. The techniques of the
nostrum makers are with us to this day.
And what, by the way, is this mysterious COPD that poses such a threat
to our health? Chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, which, according to Dr. Seo Hyo-seok’s ad, is the fourth
leading cause of death in the world, predicted to become the third in
2030. A quick bit of online research
confirms the existence of COPD, which includes both chronic bronchitis and
emphysema. Further research confirms that Dr. Seo Hyo-seok is a Korean doctor who, using only Korean medicine,
claims to have cured thousands of patients.
Whatever their style of advertising, I don’t dismiss unorthodox medical
approaches out of hand, and the conditions he is treating are for real, and
life-threatening as well. So if you have lungs,
watch out!
Coming soon: Advertising: Ads Ridiculous, Annoying, Despicable, and Fun.
©
2014 Clifford Browder
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete