65 — It Could Happen to You
Product: Financial planning
Date: 1927
Most of us expect — barring unfortunate and unforeseen circumstance — to live to a ripe old age. To at least 80, maybe 90. Heck, some financial planners caution us to plan on living 100 years or more.
We know that our retirement years will probably start around 65. And we all know the drill about saving now to sustain ourselves financially during those years.
But saving for retirement hasn’t always been a given.
This ad from 1927 plainly shows that many people didn’t plan for retirement because they didn’t think they’d be alive past 65.
Yet things were beginning to change, and the financial services companies were urging people to consider the statistics:
Sixty-three per cent of the 40-year-old men of today will be living at age 65.
To provide for yourself if you live to old age is as necessary as to provide an estate for your family. (emphasis from the ad)
If you lived to old age. A 63% survival rate as surprising. Old age at 65.
What a tremendous shift in cultural thinking from then to now. Improved nutrition, access to medicine, and a myriad of other blessings, big and small, have extended our life expectancies by more than a third in less than 100 years. Mind-boggling.
Click to enlarge.
Technorati Tags: antique advertisement, vintage advertising, retirement, life expectancy
Ice — It’s the Coolest
Product: Ice
Date: 1928
In our ultra-modern hyper-technological age, it’s hard to imagine a time when refrigeration was a novelty. And yet it wasn’t all that long ago, as this December 1928 ad for ice blocks attests.
Only 80 years ago, ice had copywriters gushing:
- Ice was “the life of the party”.
- Ice clinked merrily in time to music.
- Ice sparkled brightly.
- Ice added flavour and appeal to food and drink.
- Ice made out-of-season foods available all year round!
- Ice was good health insurance, keeping food pure and untainted.
- Ice was efficient and inexpensive.
You could even send away for a free booklet called Ice - the Life of the Party. Inside you would learn “modern ways of enjoying ice, including proper uses of ice in table settings.”
Cool.
Click to enlarge
Technorati Tags: antique advertising, vintage advertisement, Baby New Year, ice, refrigeration
