How to Get Ahead in Advertising
According to the book glamour is an ideal it is the absolute goal use in advertising. It is less about the product and more about the lifestyle or thoughts that go along with it. It produces envy of a lifestyle which produces a need. The movie cultivates this idea of glamour in several ways. It starts out with Bagley describing how to sell everyday fattening food to the mother on a diet. He gives the illusion that these products are actually good for them and explains how he knows they will fall for it. It is the glamourous idea of a thinner figure. This is continued in his attempt to sell the boil cream. Every idea uses a beautiful woman or a clear skinned doctor all trying to get consumers to buy into their ideas. It is Bagley’s realization of the power he has creating this glamour and how quickly people buy into these embelish ideas that causes him to go mad.
