Simpler Times – From an Advertising Standpoint –

As I peruse newspapers and magazines from the past in an effort to find interesting tidbits for Minot Memories I have come to this conclusion. Advertising was less complicated and more generic. Clothing ads are a good case in point. Men’s shirts would be advertised at any given store and the picture in the ad was a fairly generic “line” drawing of a man wearing the shirt. If the brand name was not mentioned it would be impossible to tell if the actual shirt you were seeking in the store was actually the one in the ad. To a degree furniture ads were about the same. The picture of the piece of furniture was pretty generic. All merchants advertising purchased many pages of ads, inserts had not come into existence. Now it is the opposite …. Inserts are prevalent and print ads not so much.