Testimonial Advertising in the American Marketplace Testimonial Advertising in the American Marketplace Emulation, Identity, Community E DITED BY M S ARLIS CHWEITZER AND M M ARINA OSKOWITZ TESTIMONIAL ADVERTISING IN THE AMERICAN MARKETPLACE Copyright © Marlis Schweitzer and Marina Moskowitz, 2009. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-37929-3 ISBN 978-0-230-10171-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-10171-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Testimonial advertising in the American marketplace : emulation, identity, community / edited by Marina Moskowitz and Marlis Schweitzer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-230-61560-1 1. Advertising—United States—History. 2. Advertising—United States—Psychological aspects. I. Moskowitz, Marina, 1968– II. Schweitzer, Marlis. HF5823.T37 2009 659.1—dc22 2009021748 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Previous publications: By Marina Moskowitz Standard of Living: The Measure of the Middle-Class in Modern America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Cultures of Commerce: Representation and American Business Culture, 1877–1960. Edited with Elspeth Brown and Catherine Gudis. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. By Marlis Schweitzer When Broadway Was the Runway: Theater, Fashion, and American Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: “The Spirit of Emulation” 1 Marina Moskowitz and Marlis Schweitzer 1 Testimonials in Silk: Juba and the Legitimization of American Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain 23 Stephen Johnson 2 T he Testifying Subject: Reliability in Marketing, Science, and Law at the End of the Age of Barnum 51 Michael Pettit 3 “After a Season of War”: Sharing Horticultural Success in the Reconstruction-Era Landscape 79 Marina Moskowitz 4 “The Ten Year Club”: Artificial Limbs and Testimonials at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 95 Edward Slavishak 5 “ The Mad Search for Beauty”: Actresses, Cosmetics, and the Middle-Class Market 123 Marlis Schweitzer 6 “ I am Kay and I Prefer Modern”: Bridal Testimonials and the Rise of Consumer Rites, 1920s–1950s 151 Vicki Howard 7 “Dear Friend”: Charles Atlas, American Masculinity, and the Bodybuilding Testimonial, 1894–1944 173 Dominique Padurano vi Contents 8 “ For Us, By Us”: Hip-Hop Fashion, Commodity Blackness and the Culture of Emulation 207 Mary Rizzo Notes on Contributors 231 Index 233 Acknowledgments This book has been many years in the making. It began in the summer of 2002 while the two of us, along with our colleague Elysa Engelman, were Fellows at the National Museum of American History. Over a series of coffee meetings we discovered our mutual interest in testimonial advertis- ing and began to dream about the possibility of putting together a collec- tion examining the subject. Now, seven years later, we are thrilled to see that what was once a far-off dream has become a reality. A number of people have been instrumental in bringing us to this point. First and foremost, the authors who joined this project not only shared their intellectual gifts, but have been professional, patient, and very gra- cious during the lengthy process; it has been a true pleasure to work with them. Many thanks to our earliest supporter, Charles McGovern, who mentored us at the NMAH with his encyclopedic knowledge of American advertising practices and offered helpful comments on individual essays at the Organization of American History conference in 2003. Thanks as well to Jean-Christophe Agnew and Sara Alpern who made thoughtful and insightful suggestions at various conferences along the way; Pamela Walker Laird offered her support and profound insights from the early days to the very end of this project, for which we are extremely grateful. We would like to extend a special thank you to Elysa Engelman, who was unable to stay with us on the lengthy journey from seed idea to publication, but who nevertheless played an important role in the early planning of this book. A special thank you also to Elspeth H. Brown for reading our introduction and making helpful recommendations for improvement, and to York University graduate student Pola Tumarkin for research assistance. At Palgrave Macmillan, Chris Chappell, our editor, and Samantha Hasey, our editorial assistant, have helped shepherd this project along; Rachel Tekula at Palgrave and Maran Elancheran at Newgen oversaw its production. We are grateful for their encouragement and support. Thanks viii Acknowledgments as well to Palgrave’s readers, who offered incredibly helpful comments to all of our authors. Their generosity has made this a much stronger volume. Finally, many thanks to our families and loved ones (especially Simon, Dan, Marcus, and Isaac), who have lived with this project almost as long as we have, and have remained faithful cheerleaders to the end. We could not have done it without you. Introduction: “The Spirit of Emulation” Marina Moskowitz and Marlis Schweitzer In the premiere episode of the acclaimed AMC series Mad Men, a glamor- ous look at postwar Madison Avenue, senior advertising executive Donald Draper faces a crisis with one of his most lucrative accounts. For years he has relied on reassuring testimonials from doctors to promote Lucky Strike ciga- rettes and quell public concerns about the risks of tobacco addiction. Now pesky questions from the Federal Trade Commission and damning reports from Reader’s Digest on the relationship between smoking and cancer have effectively nullified the campaign. A continued reliance on these medical testimonials, Draper realizes, would be tantamount to professional suicide.1 That testimonial advertising should drive the plot in the opening moments of a twenty-first-century representation of American commerce is itself a testament to the historical importance of this marketing practice. Testimonial advertisements insert into the negotiation between buyer and seller the words of a third party, presented as disinterested in the commer- cial transaction but in some way knowledgeable about the product at hand and willing to share that knowledge. Testimonials for consumer goods and services are given all the time, in the form of informal recommendations or advice, but testimonial advertising places these personal views into the pub- lic realm by disseminating them through a variety of contemporary media. Though the writer or speaker of the testimony is not involved in the actual commercial exchange, his or her words are packaged and publicized by the producer, retailer, or service provider and used as part of a marketing cam- paign. Testimonials might come from people with a specialized knowledge that grants authority in a particular sector of the market—such as the doctors Draper had previously called upon—or people considered typical consumers whose experience will be widely recognized and shared. As developments in 2 Marina Moskowitz and Marlis Schweitzer print technology and subsequent forms of media, such as television, allowed for greater reliance on visual imagery, the verbal basis of testimonials was sometimes eclipsed by pictorial associations. Endorsements, the close cousin of testimonials in the realm of commerce, might suggest a particular per- son’s use of a particular product through one powerful photograph or illus- tration of the product in use, without any explanatory text or narrative; the testimonial is implicit. Draper’s experience with the Lucky Strike campaign highlights both the greatest strengths and the greatest weaknesses of testimonial advertising as a marketing strategy. In the right situation, a well-worded testimonial from highly respected experts can help to sway consumer opinion, boost product sales, and establish a strong brand identity; but if those experts are some- how disgraced or proven wrong, the company with whom they are associ- ated stands to lose much more than consumer trust. Yet despite these risks, testimonial advertising has remained a prominent and popular marketing strategy, even today as consumers become increasingly savvy about the industry’s manipulative practices. Why? For 1920s ad man Stanley Resor, the answer was fairly simple: “People like to read about other people.” In his view, the testimonial’s human element was its greatest selling point “because people understand other people. Before printing was invented, even before language was evolved, people were thrown in contact with other people. People understood personalities before there was any social structure or code of laws.”2 Speaking to agency executives in March 1929 in his capacity as President of the J. Walter Thompson Company, Resor went on to identify three additional reasons for the testimonial’s success. First, he explained, people were drawn to testimonials out of sheer “curiosity—love of gossip— desire to know ‘how the other half lives.’ ” Second, testimonials played into the “spirit of emulation,” arousing consumer desires “to copy those whom we deem superior in taste or knowledge or experience” and thereby enact some form of self-transformation. Finally, testimonials work because “p eople are eternally searching for authority. Democracy, even in name, is new. Royalty, aristocracy, feudalism, dominated the world for scores of centuries, instilling in the masses a sense of inferiority and an instinctive veneration for ‘their betters.’ ”3 While Resor’s pop psychology assessment of consumer behavior may raise eyebrows today, his general observations remain compelling. Testimonials offer consumers an opportunity to learn about what other people are doing, to put their trust in experts, or to emulate the appearance and practice of suc- cess. Although they bear striking similarities to brand names and trademarks in that they help to bestow distinction upon advertised goods and promise consumers that their purchases will not be in vain, testimonials are a unique advertising phenomenon. Whereas brand names and trademarks—the names