The Roaring 20’s!

Here is when the consumer economy that had started at the turn of the century was really flourishing! By 1925 around 40% of the U.S. workforce was earning over $2,000 a year (I know – a lot has changed in 100 years) and the typical six-day working week had become five, people had more free time and could afford to take vacations, there was money to spend and ads were popping up everywhere to tell you what to buy and where to but it!

With ads printed mostly in newspapers and magazines there was a rise in print. In 1923 Henry Luce and Briton Hadden founded Time, the first weekly news magazine in the U.S.
Luce and Hadden were the first publishers after WWI to no longer use the previous templates of general interest magazines and offer something completely new; News and Information. Brevity was key in making the publication from other weekly publications, Time focused on news rather than commentary.

How Did Design Change?

The War had created a pleasure-seeking generation of middle-class Americans eager to spend their money on a more luxurious lifestyle. WWI brought the new advertising technique in the form of propaganda which was aimed at audiences of women on the home front and patriotic young men. In the ’20s products were more tailored to specific markets they were intended for – starting the practice of targeted marketing.

With a more targeted approach to advertising there was a more obvious change in design style; the ads for women were made to be more elegant and subtle whereas the ads targeted at mothers for their kids where brighter and direct.
It was found that products got the best response when they are marketed as something the consumer may need rather than just simply promoting a new product.

In the ’20s both print and radio were used to tempt people with vehicles, ready-made clothing, furniture and appliances, this opened advertising to a whole new world of opportunities. Advertisers were able to use both media as a way to get consumers to purchase their products.

Advertising companies quickly learned what audiences to target and unfortunately (or fortunately) for the ladies, they were the large percentage of the target market. With marketing-focused mostly on women there was a growth in advertising for household appliances and the availability of ready-made clothing for themselves and family in order to make the woman’s life easier.

In short, we can thank the roaring 20’s for the change in the mentality of advertising from simply informing us of new products to capturing the imagination and blurring the lines between wants and needs.