Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy [Hardcover]

Juliann Sivulka (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 25, 2008

Most of the workers in advertising, the media, retail, and fashion are women. Holding key marketing and advertising positions, women shape the basic promotional appeal of almost every consumer product in America. How did the advertising business go from a handful of women in a man's world to women working in virtually every mass consumer goods industry in America in the space of the twentieth century? This book tells the story of how women have risen to the top of the advertising profession. Juliann Sivulka, a former marketing communications manager and now an advertising educator, describes how, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the recognition of women as primary consumers resulted in the hiring of more women to promote products aimed at the women's market. At that time manufacturers began to emphasise colour, fashion, and style, while advertising embraced a new language of persuasion aimed at women consumers.Soon agencies were recruiting an ensemble of businesswomen - copywriters, product designers, merchandisers, fashion and beauty experts, home economists, editors, and publicists. Through close collaboration with manufacturers, mass media, and retailers, they participated in developing strategies to convince women to buy goods and wove their selling messages into women's reading, shopping, housework, and leisure activities. Sivulka follows three key periods in the history of American advertising, which represent eras of major social change for women (1880-1920, the 1920s, and the 1970s).She discusses the effect on advertising of such controversial issues as the women's movement, minorities, and consumer activism, and devotes an entire chapter to the contributions to advertising of African American, Hispanic, and Asian American women in the twentieth century. Copiously illustrated with portraits of early ad women and examples of their work, this thoroughly researched and engagingly written survey of women in advertising will fascinate marketing students, women's studies scholars, and everyday consumers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sivulka (Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes) chronicles the rise of women in the world of advertising to demonstrate how women impact the promotional appeal of almost every consumer product in America today. Drawing upon archival sources, the book presents the stories of women who succeeded in traditional feminine occupations as well as those who challenged their limited social roles. Sivulka places these figures in the larger history of business and economic development and the entry of women into the professions. Sivulka divides the book into three key periods that are strongly linked with economics, politics and women's history in modern America (e.g. one era, 1880-1920 marked the rise of the modern consumer, the advertising industry and the suffrage movement). Of particular interest is the story of Mathilde C. Weil, the first known ad woman in America, who established her own general advertising agency in the 1880s. With numerous illustrations and photographs, this thoroughly-researched and well-written history of the evolution of women in advertising will appeal to those in the field and those interested in the women's movement.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This is professor-author (Stronger Than Dirt, 2001, and Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 1997) Sivulka’s latest contribution to advertising literature. It is a serious examination of women’s impact on and careers in the industry. Naming some of advertising’s female pioneers, it also covers the birth of marketing, brand names, trademarks, positioning, line extensions, and other related factors, along with the role of women in creating, for example, the concept of media buying (hats off to Matilde Weil in the late 1800s). It chronicles, for every significant decade or two, the maturation of the business via the discovery of the “hidden persuaders” (sex and symbolism) and targeting/segmentation. Notes follow each chapter; photo-realistic illustrations of ads populate every few pages. But for every citation, every brief synopsis of a career, there’s a missed opportunity to delve behind the scenes, uncover motivations and aspirations, and paint compelling portraits of these legends. Then, AMC’s Mad Men creators would have much to emulate . . . and borrow. --Barbara Jacobs

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 415 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (November 25, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591026725
• ISBN-13: 978-1591026723
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Retelling the History of Advertising, August 3, 2009

By 

ROROTOKO (rorotoko dot com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy (Hardcover)

"Ad Women" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Silvulka's book interview ran here as cover feature on February 17, 2009.