The Conquest Of Cool Common Perception Of The...

The Conquest of Cool examines the common perception of the Sixties counterculture. It questions the idea that the revolution and rebellion of the subculture of the 1960s in America against the consumer driven culture of the 1950s were actually a consumer driven rebellion in and of itself. The book s primary message is to describe how Advertisers and other big business in corporate America such as soda pop bottlers and clothing companies welcomed the counterculture and perhaps were responsible for creating it. Consumer driven industry realized that instant gratification would make this new generation better consumers than their frugal post world war 2 parents. The book hints that the art and creative self-expression of the counterculture in 1960s America was reflected in, and driven by the advertising of the time, suggesting that life imitates art or that advertising imitates the culture. However, the author also suggests that advertisers anticipated the revolution and in part precipi tated the counterculture, creating the culture that it marketed freedom to. We see that the 1950s advertising was characterized by an entity known as, Organization Man.† A fabricated mold that would fit easily in the capitalist machine. During the 1950s ad agencies and advertising companies marketed a lifestyle to fit this most common mold. They tailor-made advertisements to the desires of the subculture as well as corporations. Corporations wanted a safe scientific advertising, yet theShow MoreRelatedOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagesacross the Sahara Desert and the Indian Ocean.11 The movement of Chinese and South Asians before 1820 was generally freer, dominated by traders and short-term debt arrangements. But slave raiding was still common in the waters of Southeast Asia and, like African slavery, grew increasingly common over the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries along with the growth in global commerce.12 Long-distance migration after the middle of the nineteenth century, by contrast, was mostly free. The transatlantic