Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market

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With colorful prose and provocative stories, Satisfaction Guaranteed uncovers the roots of America's consumer society, obsession with shopping, and devotion to brands. This sweeping history provides the reader with a better understanding of how clever and manipulative the advertising industry has been in order to beguile us with goods. From Gillette razors and Kodak cameras to Ivory soap and Kellogg cereals, what used to be obscure small brands have become household names and items sold on a previously ...
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More About This Book

Overview

With colorful prose and provocative stories, Satisfaction Guaranteed uncovers the roots of America's consumer society, obsession with shopping, and devotion to brands. This sweeping history provides the reader with a better understanding of how clever and manipulative the advertising industry has been in order to beguile us with goods. From Gillette razors and Kodak cameras to Ivory soap and Kellogg cereals, what used to be obscure small brands have become household names and items sold on a previously unimaginable scale. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "a cautionary tale of how turn-of-the-century American capitalism invented and exploited the mass market," Satisfaction Guaranteed is a ground-breaking classic in social history and social criticism.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
This well-researched and documented history of goods-and-customer interaction since the days of bartering is also a delightful overview of American shopping customs from 19th-century Main Street to today's malls. Early in the 20th century, Strasser shows, advertising of national brandsquotes unnec.?/unnec.gs launched products creating their own demand--safety razors, cameras, fountain pens (with attendant consumption of blades, film, etc.)--thus gradually displacing networks of generic manufacturers whose sales ``drummers'' fanned across America by rail and buggy. The development of department stores such as Macy's, mail-order giants like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, grocery chains foreshadowing supermarkets, ``aids'' like premiums, displays and trading stamps and the skyrocket successes of Coca-Cola and Wrigley's gum are only a fraction of the sweeping story, as the author of Never Done brings into focus major social and economic forces linked to our daily lives. (Nov.)
Library Journal
Strasser, who also has written a history of housework ( Never Done , LJ 5/1/81), explains how advertising techniques developed in the early years of this century, especially the brand-name concept, have shaped the modern American appetite for particular mass-produced goods. Beginning with Crisco in 1912, she describes various campaigns to sell new products, emphasizing how the goal from the outset has been ``to make people want things,'' which puts profits ahead of consumer needs. The legacy has been pernicious: ``a consumer culture that itself breeds constant discontent, depending always on individuals wanting more.'' Free enterprise advocates will take exception, but this thoughtful look at how Americans consume is worth anyone's time.-- Kenneth F. Kister, Poynter Inst. for Media Studies, St. Petersburg, Fla.
Booknews
A history of the marketing campaigns of such brands as Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Wrigley's, and Kodak and an analysis of the creation of a market for mass-produced, trademarked goods. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780679725589
  • Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 8/18/1990
  • Pages: 352

Meet the Author

Susan Strasser teaches history at the University of Delaware. Her books include Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. She lives in Washington, DC.
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Table of Contents

1 American pie 3
2 The name on the label 29
3 The chain of distribution 58
4 New products, new habits 89
5 Designing markets 124
6 Sales and promotions 163
7 The new retailing 203
8 The politics of packaged products 252
9 Epilogue 286
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