The 21st century remember the 1970s as a “pivot of change” in world history focusing especially on the economic upheavals, following the end of the postwar economic boom. In the Western world, social progressive values that began in the 1960s, such as increasing political awareness and economic liberty of women continued to grow and so did the advertising industry… Sort of.

For much of the decades advertisers and agencies suffered along with the rest of the economy. After the creative revolution of the 1960s, the pendulum swung back to more serious (and sometimes sexist), hard-sell advertising. Advertisers wanted efficient, and effective campaigns, based on computer-generated research, this was the start of market research the way we understand it today.

The 1970s began in the midst of a minor recession. Ad billings were flat in the first year of the decade, it only started growing in larger increments after 1976. That year J. Walter Thompson Co. became the first agency in history to break the $1 billion mark in worldwide volume. By 1979, total U.S. billings had nearly tripled over those for the beginning of the decade, reaching $27.9 billion!

By the beginning of the 1970s, TV viewing had emerged as a core experience of American culture. The growing trend toward the use of TV as a preferred ad medium continued throughout the decade. It was important for advertising companies to be away that each consumer on average was exposed to 1,600 ads per day, with fewer than 80 ads being consciously noticed, and only 12 provoked some type of reaction. The practice of comparative advertising flourished. 7UP’s “Un-Cola” campaign took aim at Coca-Cola and doubled 7UP sales, Pepsi and Coca-Cola went head-to-head in Coke’s “It’s the Real Thing” campaign and Pepsi’s hidden cameras that recorded blind taste tests against Coke, boosting Pepsi’s market share in a year.

The use of computer technology grew throughout the advertising industry, reflecting a rediscovery of and growing emphasis on “empirical advertising”, research and fact based marketing. This practice was a reaction to the “creative revolution” of the 1960s and indicated a shift to a preference for discipline and accountability, this may have been due to the political scandals that plagued the decade.

With the growth of Electronics in the 70s, especially in radio, TV and cassettes advertising agencies in the U.S. began looking overseas for new markets and growth. This growth came with heavy government regulation and began to trigger concerns that advertising was capitalising on the inability of children to make a distinction between commercials and programs. These regulations and concerns lead into the 1980s…

We will do a blog post specifically on Australia’s “golden age of ads” (60s-80s) that will include this countries very own, very Australian response to this times troubling trends – it includes Dame Edna so stay tuned!