ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the explanatory power of the alternative hypotheses by means of an explorative advertisement study. It describes the method of data collection. The chapter analyzes the advertisements with regard to the relative frequency with which they link technically advanced clothes washers to the motives of time substitution and physical labor savings. The advertisement content analysis is based on the hypothesis that shared consumer motivations shape the path of technological progress and product diffusion over time and are also reflected in advertisements on technically advanced consumption goods. Product advertisements, then, are one way in which producers inform consumers about the problem solution offered and, vice versa, by which consumers can learn about such options. With the prevailing washing technology–tub, scrubboard and soap–clothes washing was not only a time-consuming activity. The analysis is based on a selection of washing machine advertisements that appeared in the US women’s magazine Ladies’ Home Journal between 1888 and 1989.
