Thursday, June 4, 2009

Ads from the Past and Future

A friend forwarded me an email I've seen before, but I still love. It has old ads from the past, including advertising Lysol as an, er, feminine cleansing aid (this is a family blog after all), and another advocating buying sanitized tapeworms to help you keep weight off. The email also contains the usual collection of ads featuring doctors endorsing cigarettes and the ad featuring the happy family that eats lard. (maybe they were happy. No one had ever heard of cholesterol.).

Just think of the ads our grand kids will look at and wonder why those companies are no longer here.

"Enron-Ask Why"
"See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet" (Oops, not quite yet.)
"Welcome to Circuit City, Where Service Is State of the Art"
"TWA-Up Up and Away" *
"Eastern Airlines-The Wings of Man".

*this was a merger with American Airlines but still, the name no longer exists.

I have told my 19 year old son time and again, that although I may not live to see it, that he may well live to see Wal-Mart or Microsoft file for bankruptcy. Sounds inconceivable now but think of the large corporations of our youth (for those of us in our 50's I mean!) and how many of them are still around. So why shouldn't we be surprised to see what passed as state of the art or common wisdom 50 years ago.

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