Consuming the Counterculture: The Evolution of Products and Advertisements in 1960s America

Abstract

Consumer-culture in 1960s America changed dramatically from previous decades. As highlighted by scholars such as Thomas Frank, a Creative Revolution occurred within advertising and consumer-culture during the decade. Concurrently, organizations filled with America’s youth, such as the New Left and the counterculture, sought social and cultural change. The emergence of the hippies from within this young generation also caused a shift within American advertising strategies. This thesis analyzes advertisements from a variety of mainstream and underground print media publications from 1960 to 1973, to understand how, and how often, themes of hippiedom were co-opted in order to both sell products, and to bring hippies back into mainstream American culture. The influx of hippie advertisements in the 1960s created what we can now observe as a consumer counterculture. The consequences of this consumer counterculture are still visible today, through the many enduring ideals of the counterculture that have continued past the long 1960s: such as, free love, free speech, anti-authoritarianism, among others. As well, attempts by advertisers to co-opt similar ideals to sell products continues into contemporary consumer-culture.