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Strollerderby
So safe your baby can shave! Razors for everyone!
Times change, of course, but after viewing some of the ads from throughout the twentieth century featured below it’s hard to imagine what they were thinking even though 100 years was so very long ago.
One thing is for sure: it’s fascinating to see how parenting and the perception of it has changed throughout the years.
What stands out to me the most is how subtle advertising has become. It’s easy to look back and see how they obviously preyed upon mom guilt. Now, advertising is so sneaky sometimes it’s hard to know what’s an advertisement. Or is it? In 100 years are they going to look back on commercials from this decade and laugh at what suckers we were?
That said, I think my favorite slogan is the one that says “Before you scold me, Mom… Maybe you’d better light up a Marlboro.”
Okay, before I give it all away, here are 20 mind-blowing vintage ads from the past century. From a smoking Santa Claus to a baby guzzling “wholesome” soda, it’s all here.
Take a look: Continue reading »
Ever wonder what would happen if your diet consisted of all of the foods you see advertised on TV?
The short answer is: you’d be really unhealthy.
And for the long answer, you’re in luck – a new report published this month in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association addresses this very question.
If you ate only foods you saw in TV commercials, you would consume 25 times the recommended amount of sugar and 20 times the amount of fat, but less than half the dairy, fiber and fruits and vegetables, according to The New York Times. Continue reading »
We’ve all seen the television commercials. A gorgeous model struts down the sidewalk in slow motion, showing off the latest fashion. Heads turn, until finally the model stops in front of a mirror and coos in a generic European accent, “I poo in blue.”
Okay, maybe you haven’t seen that commercial, in which the model, a two-year-old boy, is shilling the new denim diaper by Huggies. The 30-second spot ends with the visual tagline, “The coolest you’ll look pooping your pants.” Or, it does on some networks, anyway. The New York Times reports that ABC, ABC Family and Sprout “objected to screen text at the end of the spot that included the word ‘pooping,’ (so) for those networks, the text was changed to, ‘When you gotta go, go in style.’”
It seems odd to me that those networks, which air programming geared specifically toward families with children in diapers, would get uppity about a reference to poop. What’s even more bothersome, though, is that according to Newsweek, ABC flat-out refused to air a commercial for Lane Bryant featuring a plus-sized model showing “too much cleavage.” With so many female-centric shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Cougar Town and The View, do they just not understand that plus-sized moms are their demographic? Or maybe they just can’t comprehend the idea that a woman might be proud of her body, whatever its size, and willing to laugh at the bodily functions of her child. My guess is networks are afraid that if we’re okay with ourselves and our bodily functions, we might stop buying the stuff that hides all of that raw humanity. Continue reading »
“Advertising is all around you,” says Haze. He’s an animated guide in a new online game sponsored by the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission called Admongo.
Parents often try to shield their young children from commercialism — turning off the TV, limiting licensed characters, and steering kids away from unhealthy processed foods like Barbie Poptarts. But as they grow, kids — like adults — are exposed to advertising everywhere they go.
The economic crisis has forced a lot of us to reevaluate our consumer behavior. Shopping-as-entertainment has been replaced with more cautious spending. Having just survived the birthday-Christmas-birthday gauntlet with my two kids, though, I’m really seeing how much STUFF is getting peddled to kids all the time, and how crappy most of it is. My daughter wanted just about everything she saw in the toy catalogs Target and Toys R Us thoughtfully included in our newspaper, and my attempts to explain to her why she was not getting that many toys were pretty feeble, I admit. Continue reading »
In case you missed the gazillion and one ads for large screen TVs these past few weeks, word has it there’s big doings Sunday night on TV. And if the first thought that came into your mind was Puppy Bowl than stop reading now.
Because Puppy Bowl is an obvious one for keeping the kids IN the room. The Super Bowl, well, that seems to vary by family.
Babysitter finders Sitter City say you NEED to find a sitter this weekend, and although we’re pretty well aware of what’s in it for them, we were intrigued by their reasoning: Continue reading »
Poor E-Trade Baby. Like too many child stars before him, he was replaced, edged out of his job for the simple transgression of growing up. He’s a cute little guy, too. Let’s hope his future doesn’t follow the typical child star trajectory: rehab, desperate attempts to stay in the limelight, and all too soon, the inevitable VH1 reality show.
Yes, late last week came the news that E-Trade has replaced its spokesbaby Continue reading »
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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