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Popular Culture: Advertisements
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The e.p.t In-Home
Early Pregnancy Test is a private little revolution any woman
can easily buy at her drugstore...Now its high accuracy rate
has been verified here in America by doctors...That means you
can confidently do this easy pregnancy test yourself—privately—right
at home without waiting for appointments or delays...At last
early knowledge of pregnancy belongs easily and accurately to
us all.
-print advertisement for e.p.t, March 1978.
Advertisements for home pregnancy tests appeared in most American
women’s magazines beginning in 1978. Seemingly aimed at
white, middle class women, both married and unmarried, the advertisements
appeared in the fashionable Vogue and Mademoiselle
alongside articles about movie stars and advertisements for
birth control, and in McCall’s and Ladies’
Home Journal amidst recipes and advertisements for baby
food. At the cost of $10.00 the test kit was affordable for
many, certainly, but not cheap. Today, most tests come in sets
of two for well under twenty dollars.
The emphasis in the early advertisements wavered between an
emphasis on science and a more emotional appeal. The first e.p.t
advertisement, for example, featured eight paragraphs of text,
a diagram showing the use of the dropper and test tube, and
a photograph of the kit itself, showing test tubes suspended
in a plastic container. Conversely, the ACU-TEST advertisement
from the same year showed a woman’s face under the phrase
“I wonder if I’m pregnant.” Biting her fingernail
and looking pensively off camera, the woman embodied the ambivalence
that often accompanied this new technology.
In many ways, a pregnancy test is difficult to market. The term
“hCG” sounds foreign and the phrase “urine
stream” is difficult to sugar coat. The test is so intimate
that most advertisements focus on its accuracy or the short
time frame to know the answer rather than on the meaning of
the results. In the history of healthcare tests, the pregnancy
test is unique in that—unlike blood tests for most diseases—a
negative result can be cause for celebration for some, despair
for others. With a pregnancy test, the reaction to the results
is complex and depends on many personal factors.
Whether a woman wants to be pregnant or not, she can now find
out whether she is with startling accuracy, ease, and speed
unimaginable to previous generations. Though her mother may
not even have taken a pregnancy test, today, a woman can find
out if she is pregnant four days before a missed period.
A private little revolution, indeed.
Below are some early pregnancy test advertisements.
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Advertisement for ACU-TEST, Mademoiselle,
December 1978.
Advertisement for e.p.t, Vogue,
March 1978. |
Advertisement for e.p.t, Vogue,
March 1978 |
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Advertisement for Predictor, Ladies'
Home Journal, February 1978. |
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e.p.t, 1978. "At last, an accurate
early pregnancy test that women can do at home quickly,
safely and very easily."
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Predictor, 1978. "Pregnant?
The sooner you know, the better." |
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Advertisement for Predictor, Mademoiselle,
November 1979. |
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Advertisement for Answer, Ladies'
Home Journal, December 1978. |
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Predictor, 1979. "Pregnant?
Compare in-home tests. You'll choose Predictor." |
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Answer, 1978. "Am I pregnant?
Introducing Answer. The at-home pregnancy test you can
use with confidence."
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Advertisement for ACU-TEST, Mademoiselle,
December 1978. |
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Advertisement for e.p.t, Ladies'
Home Journal, January 1979. |
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ACU-TEST, 1978. "I wonder
if I'm pregnant. New ACU-TEST gives you the answer. At
home...in two hours." |
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e.p.t, 1979. “e.p.t
in-home early pregnancy test. The only early pregnancy
test thousands of American women have used for the past
2 years accurately, safely, privately, in their own homes.”
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(Though in early 1978 e.p.t had used words
like “at last” and “finally” to
introduce its new test, by the end of the year, this test
had competition. In 1979 the advertisements started claiming
that the test had been “introduced in May, 1976.”
This was most likely a reference to when the test was
approved by the FDA and tested by women as part of that
approval process.) |
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Advertisement for e.p.t, Mademoiselle,
September 1979. |
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Advertisement for Fact, Mademoiselle,
January 1984. |
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e.p.t, 1979. “e.p.t is the original in-home
early pregnancy test. e.p.t is the only in-home pregnancy
test proven accurate by more than a million women.”
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Fact, 1984. “Fact.
The home pregnancy test that gives the fastest possible
results.” |
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Advertisement for e.p.t, Drug
Topics, March 1988. |
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e.p.t, 1988. "Only e.p.t has sold one test every
30 seconds for the last ten years."
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