Goods Above All. Czechoslovak Animation and Advertising in the Early 1960s

This study explains the popularity of animated advertising film in socialist Czechoslovakia in the early 1960s. It argues that animated advertising prevailed in the Czechoslovak socialist consumer and material culture of the early 1960s because it allowed to communicate a specific concept of goods and commodity fetishism within it, allowed to continue the cultural tradition of animated film in Czechoslovakia and benefit from its prestige both abroad, as well as in the internal domestic competition between the subjects of the advertising industry. At the same time, animation met the requirements of audiovisual advertising for changes in the way media content is consumed in connection with the rise of television, and last but not least, it has long been the preferred solution in discussions about the morality of socialist advertising.

Keywords: animated film, advertising, socialism, consumer fetishism, Czechoslovakia