Historic Northampton


Virtual Exhibits

"All conscientious dentists will tell you..."

Here we see two subtle things that Pro-Brush incorporated into their early advertising. The first is the appeal to the profession of dentistry. However, since dentistry was still widely distrusted as of this ad's publication in (date), note how they have added the modifier "conscientious" to the term "dentist." The goal here was to humanize dentists and make them appear to be allied with the public, rather than silent partners with a company merely out to market a useless product; the public needed to be convinced that the tooth brush was indeed a more suitable replacement for the tooth pick that they had come to trust. Also significant here is the distinction between care of the upper and lower teeth. Here is an example of the kind of instruction necessary to the success of the product. The product had not yet successfully entered the public sphere, and so the consumer needed to be subtly treated like a schoolchild. Later, as the tooth brush became increasingly accepted and popular, we see these instructions disappear.