Selling Media Devices. Advertising and Marketing Consumer Electronics in Germany, France & Luxembourg during the long 1960s

The long 1960s saw a dynamic expansion of mass consumption in Western Europe. Media devices such as transistor radios, record players, television sets, tape and cassette recorders became markedly more common in Germany, France, and Luxembourg, reshaping leisure and media routines. Adopting a transnational, cross-media perspective across these three countries, this thesis examines advertising as both an economic mediator and a cultural phenomenon in that transformation. Focusing on the consumer electronics sector, it analyzes how the production of advertising functioned in multinational firms in the context of marketing and organizational change, and investigates how consumers encountered these communications in media and at the point of sale. Drawing on company archives, press publications, statistical data, and a large corpus of magazine advertisements, it situates the production of advertising within the structures of multinational consumer electronics companies and approximates consumer exposure to advertising and sales measures for media devices. The thesis shows how the organizational setup of companies visibly influenced public advertising, how campaigns for consumer electronics devices, product groups, and target audiences were precisely attuned to media environments and distribution systems, and how overarching sector characteristics nonetheless shaped consumer electronics advertising in similar ways across brands and borders. It further investigates the impact of the European Common Market on advertising presence and marketing strategy and analyzes advertising in Luxembourg’s distinctive multilingual and transnational media environment. Accounting for national specificities and transnational convergences, this research links production contexts and everyday encounters to offer a better understanding of advertising as both a cultural and an economic factor in Western European mass consumer societies during the long 1960s.