The ’50s was a time of astounding growth for the advertising business. But when Lassie first hit the airwaves, popular culture was for grownups, and pitching products directly to children was unexplored territory. We are today resigned to a mass-marketed youth culture based on the proposition that growing up is the only truly unforgivable sin. (Photo ©Stars & Stripes, courtesy to AKC Gazette) Here, the world’s favorite Collie meets the Tokyo press during a 1979 tour of Japan. Immediately following World War II, several developments-TV, rock ’n’ roll, the baby boom, a revved-up postwar economy-combined to give kids unprecedented buying power. In fact, Lucas, a child of the 1950s, might have been thinking of his Lassie lunchbox the day he licensed his first Darth Vader mask in the late ’70s. Long before George Lucas built his Star Wars empire on the sales of “ancillary products,” the producers of the Lassie TV series (1954–1974) were blazing the trail. In other words, it’s all about the merchandise. The website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications tells us, “Lassie helped to demonstrate the potential development of ancillary products associated with television programs, appearing in everything from comic books and Big Little Books to Viewmaster slides, watches, and Halloween costumes.” The marketing and advertising industries experienced unprecedented growth in the 1950s, and a gorgeous rough coat Collie led the way.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |