Thinking About The Text: (pg. 181, Questions #1-4)

1.) Melissa Robin's insight offers speculation on a Coca Cola ad from the 1950s, and what she learned from it. From the ad she provided evidence describing how it related to the era by highlighting certain features in the image, and what specifically is not in the image that would be today. For example she pointed out how there weren't any African Americans in the ad because of racial discrimination, and how barely any women were seen in the ad because they were treated as less of that of a white businessman. However some African Americans were able to get into Coca Cola advertisements, but they were all celebrity musicians like Louis Armstrong, or star athletes like Bill Willis. Robin carefully provides her ideas through analyzes to the reader, and does strike a persuasive point. I almost completely support her. Except for one thing- I don’t like Coca Cola, so other than that I agree with her conclusion.

2.) Melissa Robin incorporated historical context by first introducing how Coca Cola came to be in the late 1880s, and then further providing the success of it during WWII.  She explained things like how during the war the company itself would give every man in uniform, wherever he is, a Coca-Cola for 5 cents.  Then once the war had ended with the United States victorious, Coca-Cola factories spread across other countries because they were inspired that the product was a secret way of winning like Americans. Therefore this goes back to the information contributing her analysis by the cheerful white uniformed men in the front of the 1950s advertisement.

3.) Was this ad meant to be more supportive of the troops of that era, or more aimed just to sell the product? Was it all about the power of merchandise, or was it really for a good case?

4.) To be honest I don’t really watch much TV, so I’m not aware of many advertisements. The only one I can possibly recall is maybe a T-Mobile commercial involving getting connected with people around the world. From that I could say we see more collaboration among races on the same level of equality compared to the only whites in the Coca-Cola ad of the 1950s.