A Sign is a Fine Investment - ACE136.6

The woman in her kitchen. Advertisements try to offer both security and freedom. Workers leaving factory. An Englishman’s Home (1946), Horlicks. Car worker returning to his council flat. Advertisement captioned "Leisure. It’s what you come home for." Man brings the woman some chocolates; she serves family dinner. Commentary says that, in advertising, production and consumption are kept separate, with one used to justify the other, "while the work on which the whole system depends remains concealed". Work is shown only when it appears distant from its intended audience, or when it is nationally rather than class related. Family watching factory health and safety film aimed at employers, intercut with scenes from The Economist and An Englishman’s Home. Television advertisement for Myer’s Comfortable Beds; other images of "dreams and desires", all of which point to consumerism. Montage of images from the film; commentary says that while advertising attempts to change the consumer, it is changes in society which affect what advertising can show. "Advertising itself cannot be changed until change becomes more than a question of replacing one image with another." Credits.