Level B2 General English

Lesson 2

The Power Of Advertisements
広告の力

While studying about advertising, I came across these two Barbie commercials, one from the 1960s and one much more recent from the 1990s. It made me aware of just how much advertising has changed over the years, and how it has remained the same. Barbie is a really good example to show this because she has been around for so many years, and while she might have different hairstyles or clothes, she is still pretty much the same.

In the early 1960s commercial there is much more focus on the new features of the doll and how she is better than the older one. The promotion of being able to trade in your old Barbie to get the new Barbie cheaper is something we would never see today. It shows how there was more of a focus on the usefulness of the product and not just collecting more of the product. This 1960s commercial seems to promote the importance of getting the newest model, but newer commercials seem to focus more on collecting all the Barbies.

There are many different dolls advertised in the second commercial, and now they would never promote having only one Barbie because that would completely put the company out of business. It reminded me of how we discussed in class that Americans used to value the longevity of the product they had but now the focus seems to have shifted to getting the newest trend.