Few have traced the path of the development of advertising from the late nineteenth century to 1930. In Russel Johnston’s Selling themselves: the emergence of Canadian advertising his aim is to uncover this path. There are three themes covered throughout Johnson’s synthetic approach to advertising that appear within the chapters, professionalization, the transformation of the industry and the Canadian adworkers relationship to Americans. In Johnston’s work, while he effectively illustrates the development of advertising in Canada through factual evidence and analysis, there are various shortcomings that should have been acknowledged that could efficiently contribute to this field of study.
The Canadian context in Chapter one is established …show more content…
However, he only touches upon specific places, such as Toronto. He agreeably notes that Toronto was the capital of advertising within this time period, but it would have been sufficient if he addressed other areas, as the aim of the book was to uncover the development of Canada as a country, not just specific areas in Canada. It is difficult for a reader to be able to generalize this development to the whole of Canada when only certain cities were touched upon. However, when drawing upon specific demographics, Johnston does an effective job of illustrating the parallels of the advertising industry between Canada’s “fortunate neighbours of a pioneering nation of businessmen” (Johnston, 2012, p. 15). Illustrating these parallels is an important part of the development of advertising as the United States, in both the past and present, have had a working business relationship with Canada. Here, Johnston could have revealed the ways in which Canada separated themselves from the United developed into an industry independent of …show more content…
In Chapter two, he touches briefly upon the limited opportunities for women in this industry, however, he could have gone into further depth throughout the chapter as the time period he was covering correlated to the starting of feminism. Most of his focus in this chapter was on men’s experiences within the workforce, but it would have been interesting for further analysis to be conducted throughout the rest of the book.
Lastly, the structural organization within Johnston’s book could have been improved. Rather than organizing his sections into an effective timeline, he understandably decided to focus on three emerging themes and how they were relative to each development in advertising. However, this made following the timeline of this development difficult to fully capture. As a reader, trying to gather appropriate information involving the years passing the change of this industry was difficult as Johnston jumped between decades throughout each chapter.
Overall Johnston’s Selling themselves: the emergence of Canadian advertising put forth key ideas and information, especially with what limited sources he had to choose from. Advertising is an underdeveloped research topic and Johnston paved the way for other scholars to draw upon his ideas and further expand in the areas that were
The Canadian context in Chapter one is established …show more content…
However, he only touches upon specific places, such as Toronto. He agreeably notes that Toronto was the capital of advertising within this time period, but it would have been sufficient if he addressed other areas, as the aim of the book was to uncover the development of Canada as a country, not just specific areas in Canada. It is difficult for a reader to be able to generalize this development to the whole of Canada when only certain cities were touched upon. However, when drawing upon specific demographics, Johnston does an effective job of illustrating the parallels of the advertising industry between Canada’s “fortunate neighbours of a pioneering nation of businessmen” (Johnston, 2012, p. 15). Illustrating these parallels is an important part of the development of advertising as the United States, in both the past and present, have had a working business relationship with Canada. Here, Johnston could have revealed the ways in which Canada separated themselves from the United developed into an industry independent of …show more content…
In Chapter two, he touches briefly upon the limited opportunities for women in this industry, however, he could have gone into further depth throughout the chapter as the time period he was covering correlated to the starting of feminism. Most of his focus in this chapter was on men’s experiences within the workforce, but it would have been interesting for further analysis to be conducted throughout the rest of the book.
Lastly, the structural organization within Johnston’s book could have been improved. Rather than organizing his sections into an effective timeline, he understandably decided to focus on three emerging themes and how they were relative to each development in advertising. However, this made following the timeline of this development difficult to fully capture. As a reader, trying to gather appropriate information involving the years passing the change of this industry was difficult as Johnston jumped between decades throughout each chapter.
Overall Johnston’s Selling themselves: the emergence of Canadian advertising put forth key ideas and information, especially with what limited sources he had to choose from. Advertising is an underdeveloped research topic and Johnston paved the way for other scholars to draw upon his ideas and further expand in the areas that were