By Julia Badders
Nowadays, advertising is everywhere. From radio ads, branded T-shirts and your takeout coffee cup to the advertisements that support this publication. In a modern world that prioritizes profit and growth, advertising can at times be inescapable and the sheer volume of advertisements can be overwhelming.
In a 2017 Forbes article, digital marketing experts estimated the number of ads Americans see daily to be 4,000 to 10,000. And marketing professionals are getting creative — finding ways to inconspicuously incorporate advertising through strategic product placements or creator marketing on social media. As advertising increases, they seem to intrude further and further into our daily life.
But what can we do? Advertising isn’t going anywhere, and it’s ingrained in our daily life. When you want a break from the ads (insert Spotify break ad here), the answer is analog entertainment. The only true way to avoid them is to eschew from where those advertisements are found — social media and music and TV streaming services being the greatest culprits.
Recently, I needed a mental break, and I picked up a book I bought from the Keene Public Library’s recent book sale: “The Great Brain Robbery” (1970) by Robert P. Fisher. It’s a flimsy, fantasy paperback; I’m not usually drawn to the fantasy genre, but I’m a sucker for older books.
As someone who was not around in the 1970s, I was unpleasantly surprised to see an advertisement right there in the middle of my novel — Kent Cigarettes. From an initial internet search, it seems many of these ads were for tobacco, but book ads have more innocent origins.
According to an NPR interview with Paul Collins, “The Art of Advertising Tobacco Products in Books,” these ads were the brainchild of adman Roy Benjamin in the 1950s, but momentum for them picked up with Dr. Spock’s popular book “Baby and Child Care” which incorporated baby-related product ads. In accordance with Collins, a one-page book ad could cost around $7,000.
Upon bringing the book to market, Spock experienced criticism for his apparent endorsement of these products and took his publisher (Pocket Books) to court in 1965, ultimately losing. The decisions made around book advertisements were left to the publishers, profiting off the backs of their authors.
But why all the tobacco ads?
Some time later in 1969, Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, signed into law by President Nixon in 1970 and enacted in 1971 — an outcome of Surgeon General Luther Terry’s 1964 report connecting cigarette smoking to lung cancer, among other health issues. The law required greater health warnings on packaging and banned tobacco advertisements on radio and television. By regulating advertising, the court hoped to lessen the popularity of cigarette smoking.
Now with more money in the budget and less advertising opportunity, cigarette companies turned their focus back to print. According to Collins, there were around 540 million cigarette ads over the course of four years, a bombardment of advertising for readers. It seems the ads tended to appear in pulpier paperbacks, often in science fiction (somewhat problematic for children interested in the genre).
In line with Dr. Spock, authors and agents were not pleased with the advertisements found in their books, often not discovered until after the book was published. This disapproval prompted the Authors Guild to make a statement condemning its use and asking publishers to include clauses in their contracts allowing authors to give permission for advertising. This request fell on deaf ears — the “ka-ching” of their bank accounts too loud.
However, the popularity of book advertising would soon plummet post 1970s. Over time the resistance of authors and agents began to make a difference to publishers, but more predominantly, industry and consumer changes influenced shifts in advertising strategies. In 1983, R.J. Reynolds conducted a study for their Salem cigarettes campaign and found that cigarette smokers were not frequently reading, making book advertising ineffective for tobacco companies.
Today you’re unlikely to find advertisements in novels, aside from a page or two highlighting the author’s other books. The world has gone digital and an ad in the middle of your paperback just won’t pack the same punch as a repetitive YouTube ad or even the billboard on your daily commute.
Julia Badders is the editor of ELF Magazine and the specialty publications editor at the Keene Sentinel. Reach her at jbadders@keenesentinel.com.
