Gun Fun was an American advertising campaign that started in the 1930's and encouraged the purchase of guns for children and families. It promoted family hunting and/or family gun sport. It was endorsed heavily by mostly all guns manufactures during this period. Gun gifts for children ranged for BB guns, pump shot guns, and air rifles. Some of the major manufactures that pushed this advertising message include Daisy's, Browning, Colt, Remington, and Winchester.
In the 1930's, extending through the early 1970's gun manufactures began to use advertising targeting American families. These advertisements projected the message that hunting was a father-son experience, a male-bonding opportunity and fun competition for families to participate in with one another. Advertisements were blatantly aimed at youth without any regulations. Without any regulations, gun advertisements targeted at youth started to appear more and more, especially around the holidays.
In the 1950's when the shift in women's role initially started advertiser saw this as an opportunity to target women and market guns fun to the entire family even more. Many advertisements started to appear with women using guns in hunting, intimate bonding time with their husband, and fun family outings. Advertiser soon learned that women were less interested in hunting verses their male counter part. Thus more ads were created displaying women using guns in family oriented environment. These advertisements fizzled out in the early 1970’s. Gun manufacturing eventually moved overseas as a result of the high cost associated with producing guns in America.
During the 1930-50's there was also a strong advertising campaign directed at the sale of gun ammunition.
The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain.
Winchester '73 is a 1950 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, and Stephen McNally. Written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is about the journey of a prized rifle from one ill-fated owner to another and a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive.
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[edit]History
In the 1930' s shooting was portrayed as good-safe fun that the entire family could partake in. Brands like Winchester and Daisy pioneered the idea of creating family oriented advertising that reflected that image. The Winchester Company has been around since 1866 and although there are no longer any manufacturing factories in the USA, the company is still producing guns, all of which are made outside the US. The company is historically known to produce reliable, moderately priced weapons. Their image has always been in line with the rugged outdoors person.In the 1930's, extending through the early 1970's gun manufactures began to use advertising targeting American families. These advertisements projected the message that hunting was a father-son experience, a male-bonding opportunity and fun competition for families to participate in with one another. Advertisements were blatantly aimed at youth without any regulations. Without any regulations, gun advertisements targeted at youth started to appear more and more, especially around the holidays.
In the 1950's when the shift in women's role initially started advertiser saw this as an opportunity to target women and market guns fun to the entire family even more. Many advertisements started to appear with women using guns in hunting, intimate bonding time with their husband, and fun family outings. Advertiser soon learned that women were less interested in hunting verses their male counter part. Thus more ads were created displaying women using guns in family oriented environment. These advertisements fizzled out in the early 1970’s. Gun manufacturing eventually moved overseas as a result of the high cost associated with producing guns in America.
Related advertising
[edit]Parodies and references
A Christmas Story - A 1983 American Christmas comedy film, where a boy get a gun for Christmas and shots his eye out.The Rifleman is an American Western television program that starred Chuck Connors as homesteader Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain.
Winchester '73 is a 1950 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, and Stephen McNally. Written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is about the journey of a prized rifle from one ill-fated owner to another and a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive.
References
- http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/7057
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_weapon
- Blown Away: American Women and Guns
- http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/gun_control.asp
This wiki entry was well put together and informative. Great job at finding an entry that correlates with your blog.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I thought you explained the advertisement very well and I liked how you broke it down to what others perception of the advertisement was for and what groups it was targeting. I also like how this is out of the ordinary and not something you would be looking for, but stumble on. Kind of like a pleasant surprise. My only critique is it sounds more like an article than a Wikipedia entry. But other than that, I thought it was well written.
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