Got Recession? Come on Down!

"Advertising is long on personal insecurity but short on existential fear," says Bob Garfield, the ad critic for Advertising Age. "They want you to believe that prosperity is just around the corner."

Which means?

"They are perfectly willing to tell you that your breath stinks, but they are loath to tell you that you are poor."

Instead they tell you that you are discerning. Campbell's is still M'm M'm Good, says the ad; it's just also really, really cheap.

Instead they tell you that you are thrifty by choice. Look, if multimillionaire Suze Orman still drinks milk . . .

It's a recession tightrope that advertisers have been walking since the Great Depression.

Just curl up with a few rolls of microfilm.

In early 1929, the Frigidaire's main selling point was its high-tech freezing technology. By August of 1932, it was all about the money. "It costs less to have a Frigidaire than be without it," an ad insisted, citing reduction in spoiled food. Be a smart consumer.

Around that same time, the seven-course meal at the Hamilton Hotel at 14th and K streets NW was marked down from $1.50 to $1. "We are doing our bit to aid the reconstruction program and bring back prosperity," the text said. Now do yours. While enjoying a fine meal!

Two-for deals got big, and so did anything that made it seem like you were getting something for nothing -- or that spending would actually help you save.

Listerine's big Depression campaign talked about the things consumers could afford after buying Listerine rather than a more expensive brand -- a sad little list that included shoes, milk and underwear. Buy this . . . and you can buy even MORE stuff!

Though not, it seems, an at-home gym.