Class Year
2014
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
5-2014
Department 1
Environmental Studies
Abstract
The automobile is one of the most important products in American consumer culture. Throughout the history of the automobile industry in America, advertising has been an important strategy for marketing automobiles and their features to consumers on a mass scale. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how print (magazine) automobile advertisements have changed through time (1960-2013) and across different genres of magazines: general (National Geographic, New Yorker), male-oriented (Esquire), female-oriented (Cosmopolitan), and ethnic (Ebony). The trends that we examined included: numbers and proportions of car advertisements, relative numbers of domestic and foreign car advertisements, and the mix of automobile features. We found that the total number of car advertisements per magazine peaked in the late 1990s overall, with differences among the magazine genres. The number of advertisements for cars produced by American manufacturers peaked in the mid-1990s. The number of foreign car advertisements significantly increased after 1975, with Japanese cars leading this group. We discuss the trends in advertising parameters over time and across magazine genres in light of changes in buyer attitudes, including attitudes towards the environment.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Bajracharya, Asnika; Morin, Lukwesa K.; and Radovich, Kendall H., "Analysis of Automobile Advertisements in American Magazines" (2014). Student Publications. 225.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/225
Included in
Advertising and Promotion Management Commons, American Popular Culture Commons, Environmental Sciences Commons, Tourism and Travel Commons
Comments
Environmental Studies Thesis