COUNTER COUTURE: Michael Fogarty: Counter-Culture of the 1960’s and the Creative Revolution of Advertising

Abstract

There exists a peculiar relationship between the counter-culture of the 1960’s and the cooptation movement employed by the advertising industry of the same time. That, contrary to notions of the cooptation movement as a purely capitalist endeavor, the cooptation movement was itself just an extension of the counter-culture movement. That counter-culture goes beyond our commonly accepted definition, reflected in the “hippie” or “flower-child” ideals of the time, and can be extended to any aspect of society. Of course this can only accomplished by first accepting “counter-culture” as anything that subverts the traditions of a previous generation in favor of new ones. It is then the goal of counter-culture to create a new world, through its rejection of the old.

Now if one was to examine the advertising industry of the 1960’s, in this same view of the counter-culture, one will see the cooptation movement as nothing more than an extension of the counter-culture. However, this may not seem readily apparent when viewing cooptation alone but must also be viewed in context of the Creative revolution, which rocked the foundations of the advertising world, in the 1960’s. Therefore, the cooptation movement and creative revolution should be seen as much as part of the counter culture as we do with the “back to the land” movement or the “Craft” movement. That, although cooptation had its capitalist uses, cooptation, buoyed by the creative revolution, fundamentally challenged and opposed the modes of advertising employed by its predecessors. That, advertising of the 1960’s rejected the hierarchal structure and scientism of the 1950’s and instead held the creative mind of the artist above all, in the same way that the counter-culture of the 1960’s rejected the imposition of structure and conformity of the 1950’s. For the counter-culture movement and the advertising world of the 1960’s, to be different was, above all else, the lifeblood of its movement.