| Summary: | <p>The understanding of the brain that has emerged in the past two decades of research posits cognition as the orchestration of multiple processes that are shaped through the accumulation of material experience. Key cognitive skills such as theory of mind and conceptual blending can now illuminate how the processing of advertising is the result of the consumer’s material knowledge. This dissertation explores how these advances can be incorporated in the study of persuasion, and in particular in historical contexts. To demonstrate, I revisit the iconic 1949-1969 “I dreamed I … in my Maidenform bra” campaign. This proposal is developed over three papers.</p>
<p>In Paper I, I detail how Maidenform orchestrated its efforts to keep abreast of developments in the advertising industry, in the fashion and undergarment sector, and in the media and cultural landscapes. Recovering this historical backdrop is crucial to the study of cognition in the wild, because it formed the material environment that the campaign thrived in.</p>
<p>In Paper II, I introduce cognitive cultural theory and argue that it has the potential to revive empirical work that pulls together consumer cognition and the rhetorical intent of the text. I exemplify this by analysing the mental processes that underpin the interpretation of a LEGO ad, focusing in particular on conceptual blending and theory of mind.</p>
<p>In Paper III, I take a cognitive cultural perspective to humoristic consumer responses to the Maidenform campaign. I delineate how humour enables audiences to mentally elaborate on the implications of novel ideas, and show how a set of artefacts articulated, unravelled, mimicked, materialised, bowdlerised, and hijacked the original premises of the campaign.</p>
<p>Together, these papers demonstrate how advertising texts should not only to be understood as a vehicle for symbolic thought in consumer culture, but also as its instrument.</p>
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