How do they see us? A short history of advertising in audio - Rudy van Stratum

When Rudy van Stratum decided to clean his attic and decided to remove stacks of decades-old audio journals, he couldn’t resist to go through them one last time. And then, he noticed some interesting things regarding the audio advertisements in those journals. Being the investigative type, he sorted the adverts in groups depending on which ‘buttons’ they seemed to push with the reader. The result is a nice overview of vintage audio advertising which reveals not only how marketeers think but also our own vulnerabilities. Surely L|A readers will recognize situations where their purchase decision-making was not as logical and ‘scientific’ as they would have wanted. Although based on a selection of vintage ads, there’s no reason to expect that the principles are different today. You have been warned!