I write and speak about the advertising industry in the history of radio and television, particularly the role of ad agencies in creating radio and television programs and how the ad industry helped shape commercial broadcasting and American culture from the 1920s through the 1960s. I also comment on current issues in the advertising and media industries.
I am the author of the book A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (2014), winner of the 2016 Broadcast Historian Award from the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation. Using archival documents, I analyze how ad agencies developed, produced, scripted, directed, and cast top network radio programs in the 1930s-40s. For example, Blackett-Sample-Hummert used "reason-why" advertising strategies in their radio soap operas; J. Walter Thompson employed celebrity endorsements in variety shows; Young & Rubicam used irony and humor to integrate brand names into comedy shows like Jack Benny's; and BBDO produced docudramas about American history and technology for DuPont.
I have published articles in Journal of American History, Business History Review, Cinema Journal, American Journalism, Advertising & Society Quarterly, and other journals. I have published chapters in book collections, including Films that Sell and Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method.
My current book project, tentatively titled Sell-e-vision: Madison Avenue and 1950s-60s Television, is under contract at the University of Georgia Press. Using archival documents, I analyze how the advertising industry worked to transform television into the largest advertising medium. Chapter topics include the transition from radio to television, early concepts of television as ad medium, corporate image sponsors, how broadcast blacklisting was managed by ad agencies, the shift away from sponsor control over programming, the rise of the magazine concept, the critics of overcommercialized television, the crisis over deceptive television commercials, the rise of the Creative Revolution, and the impact of television revenues on the advertising industry.
My PhD is in Radio-Television-Film, from the University of Texas at Austin.
Areas of expertise include 1950s-60s television; "old time radio" (1930s-40s); 20th c advertising; ad agencies (JWT, BBDO, B&B, Y&R, FCB, Ted Bates, McCann-Erickson); 1940s-50s broadcast blacklisting; the Creative Revolution; LSD and drugs in 1960s advertising agencies; docudramas; news dramatizations; anthology dramas; soap operas; family vloggers; sponsorship; influencers; tv commercials; streaming television; the Kardashians; Ozzie Nelson & family; integrated advertising; and branded entertainment.
I research the advertising of companies such as Kodak, Kraft, Wrigley, Time, DuPont, General Motors, General Electric, Armstrong Cork, US Steel, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and AT&T.
I post old ads at wordfromoursponsor on Tumblr.
I am the author of the book A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio (2014), winner of the 2016 Broadcast Historian Award from the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation. Using archival documents, I analyze how ad agencies developed, produced, scripted, directed, and cast top network radio programs in the 1930s-40s. For example, Blackett-Sample-Hummert used "reason-why" advertising strategies in their radio soap operas; J. Walter Thompson employed celebrity endorsements in variety shows; Young & Rubicam used irony and humor to integrate brand names into comedy shows like Jack Benny's; and BBDO produced docudramas about American history and technology for DuPont.
I have published articles in Journal of American History, Business History Review, Cinema Journal, American Journalism, Advertising & Society Quarterly, and other journals. I have published chapters in book collections, including Films that Sell and Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method.
My current book project, tentatively titled Sell-e-vision: Madison Avenue and 1950s-60s Television, is under contract at the University of Georgia Press. Using archival documents, I analyze how the advertising industry worked to transform television into the largest advertising medium. Chapter topics include the transition from radio to television, early concepts of television as ad medium, corporate image sponsors, how broadcast blacklisting was managed by ad agencies, the shift away from sponsor control over programming, the rise of the magazine concept, the critics of overcommercialized television, the crisis over deceptive television commercials, the rise of the Creative Revolution, and the impact of television revenues on the advertising industry.
My PhD is in Radio-Television-Film, from the University of Texas at Austin.
Areas of expertise include 1950s-60s television; "old time radio" (1930s-40s); 20th c advertising; ad agencies (JWT, BBDO, B&B, Y&R, FCB, Ted Bates, McCann-Erickson); 1940s-50s broadcast blacklisting; the Creative Revolution; LSD and drugs in 1960s advertising agencies; docudramas; news dramatizations; anthology dramas; soap operas; family vloggers; sponsorship; influencers; tv commercials; streaming television; the Kardashians; Ozzie Nelson & family; integrated advertising; and branded entertainment.
I research the advertising of companies such as Kodak, Kraft, Wrigley, Time, DuPont, General Motors, General Electric, Armstrong Cork, US Steel, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and AT&T.
I post old ads at wordfromoursponsor on Tumblr.
