{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":187,"pdf_page":195,"physical_index":195,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"0cae177fadf443b6ac081f755722f0fc92ced3a7ce06ffe629b3bbd496d21e4e"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"Richard Pollay’s (1985) quantitative study of 2,000 print advertisements between 1900 and 1980 broadly supports Lears’s contention that ads focused on the material qualities of goods. Pollay’s analysis reveals what he takes to be a perplexing tendency, especially from the 1950s onward, for advertisements to emphasize the attributes of products, as opposed to the benefits that would accrue to the consumer following the consumption of the good. As the emphasis in advertising shifted toward product attributes, Pollay notes that the presence of humans in ads decreased, pushed to the margins by the things themselves.19 Moreover, advertising pitches based on status associations with products were, according to Pollay’s data, less common than might be supposed. Pollay found that by the 1950, only 10 percent of ads appealed to status, while 27 percent emphasized technological prowess and 31 percent focused on newness.20 Even in the earlier part of the century, when the product-anchored utilitarian dimension was more muted, two-thirds of ads used what Pollay describes as a “straight pitch,” presenting “assertions where logical induction and deduction would lead to product preference” (p. 30). Pollay’s findings echo those of other research. A 1935 study of advertising content found that 85 percent of its sample of 2,500 magazine advertisements focused on product quality, as opposed to status or newness (Reid 1938).\n\nThe growth of brands qua signals of consistency of product quality was a response on the part of business to the growing influence of the normative expectation that products should be endowed with stable and predictable amounts of use value. For the brand to work as an incentive to buy a consumer good, it had to indicate, or at least suggest, the presence in the commodity of an acceptable level of quality. From this perspective, modern brands can thus be read as helping stabilize the notional purchasing power of the wage, by indexing definite qualities and durability in wage goods. In this way, brands contributed to the conditions under which labor could be commensurable with its wage.\n\nStandardizing Utility\n\n187","previous_page":186,"next_page":188}