Brief History Of Cotton Ads

"Clothing generally has one purpose; that purpose is to protect mankind from the world’s elements like sun, rain, wind, snow, etc. Clothing can be made from many fabrics like denim, velvet, silk, tweed and cotton. For years now, many advertisers trying to claim the wellness of their cotton-based clothes try to promote its warmth and natural material. However, people tend to forget that cotton as a symbol and a product has been used, especially in America’s history, to promote and validate horrid, immoral acts that were present throughout the years of slavery, sharecropping and even tenant farming. From the 1970s until the modern era, cotton has been presented and advertised in a way that expresses warmth, ease and comfort while disregarding

While Cotton Incorporated succeeded in getting the baby boomer audience in the 1970s, the demand for cotton was not fully experienced until the 1980s (“Cotton Incorporated”). The “Fabric of Our Lives” advertisements started in 1989 along with the end of the cold war and they continued into the 1990s by trying to connect with the baby boomer mentality “natural and simpler was better” (“Cotton Incorporated”). The 1992 commercial shows many children living and facing adversity. While the children grow from babies to youths, the commercial shows the children playing, working, fighting, studying and growing in cotton clothing with a man singing a song about “the fabric of our lives” (“Cotton – The Fabric of Our Lives Ad from 1992”). The ad tries to use the innocence and simplicity of children to promote its simple, natural, comfortable stance with the baby boomers. The cotton industry loves to promote its product with innocent, natural and peaceful slogans and marketing, however, they still fail to ever mention its negative, historical