Luxury and Utility of Electronics

These images are both advertisements for electronics. The first is for a Sylvania stereo which appeared in the October 10, 1969 issue of Time, and the second, from the January 23, 1984 issue of The New Yorker, is for an IBM personal computer. The shift in marketing exhibited by the two advertisements is indicative of a larger shift in how consumer products were perceived by the American public in the decade and half between when the two advertisements ran. The Sylvania stereo was marketed as a luxury item, while IBM ad implied that the personal computer a necessity for business. The shift is starker given the readerships of the magazines the ads; the IBM ad ran in The New Yorker whose readership is considered more upscale than the readers of Time, where the Sylvania stereo advertisement appeared. An advertisement from The New Yorker would be more likely to emphasize luxury than one appearing in Time, yet the PC was marketed as “A tool for modern times.” In addition to recalling the Chaplin film of the same name, the slogan implies that a businessperson without a computer cannot perform his job properly. The dominant image in the ad is Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, a figure which represents the complete antithesis of luxury. A person without a computer is old-fashioned; buying a computer is a necessity just to stay modern.

In contrast, the Sylvania ad markets the stereo as a luxury item. The advertisement depicts a wealthy couple in well-decorated room listening to the stereo. Although elegant, the stereo’s appearance appears to detract from the décor of the room, but the ad’s slogan, “It sounds a lot better than it looks,” implies the that the stereo’s sound is worthy of the room and the wealthy couple listening to it. The ad’s audience is upscale like the couple in the background. This is a little surprising given the readership of Time and increased ownership of consumer durables over the 1950s and 1960s. The ad indicates that despite this proliferation, a Sylvania stereo was a luxury, not a necessity—in contrast to IBM marketing its PC as a necessity in the modern workplace. The shift to emphasize the utility rather than the luxury of the products indicates a shift in the acceptance of new technology, especially the computer. A decade before the IBM ad, Big Blue was associated with mainframes sold to the government and large corporations; the personal computer was unheard of my most Americans. By 1984, the PC was found in many homes and offices, companies like Digital, Wang, and Apple had become household names, and the PC was named Machine of the Year by Time. This proliferation of ownership of personal computers was a departure from the gradual increased use of products like a home stereo, which like other hi-fi systems existed decades before it was marketed as a luxury good by Sylvania in 1969. Even the size of the product indicated this shift; while the PC can fit on a desk, the stereo was part of an appliance which dominated the room. These rapid changes in the proliferation and marketing of technological advances in the 1980s might be related to larger shifts within American culture and the economy.