The man inside the minds of a million consumers

Retropod

The Washington Post

History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.5 • 670 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2019

⏱️ 5 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the 1950s, Lester Wunderman became the king of direct mail advertising — the ancestor of today’s online targeted ads.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Retropod is sponsored by Tiro Price. Are you looking to learn a thing or two about getting your finances in order, saving, and investing? Check out the Confident Wallet, a personal finance podcast series by TeroPrice and the Washington Post Brand Studio. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
0:14.7	Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod. The show about the past, rediscovered.
0:21.6	Okay, so it's winter.
0:24.6	A big snowstorm is headed your way.
0:27.6	You think, hey, time to research snowblowers.
0:31.6	Off to Google, you go.
0:33.6	You spend the next hour reading everything you possibly can about various models.
0:40.5	Then your eyes get tired.
0:42.3	You go do something else.
0:44.3	You forget about the snowblower.
0:47.0	But the internet, it does not forget.
0:50.2	The next time you open your browser, there's an ad for a snowblower on Facebook.
0:55.0	On Yahoo News, another snowblower ad.
0:59.0	ESPN.com, snowblowers.
1:02.0	You cannot escape snowblowers.
1:05.0	They haunt your every click.
1:08.0	This is advertising on digital steroids.
1:11.7	Targeted ads,
1:12.6	the industry calls them, but it is
1:14.8	not a new idea. Nope.
1:17.6	A man named
1:18.5	Lester Wunderman thought of this
	...

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