How Fortune in 1938 resonates today
Ad Age takes a look back at the magazine and finds an eerie resemblance to right now
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The more things change, the more they stay the same. That's the lesson of the April 1938 issue of Fortune Magazine, as told by Advertising Age.
In its current issue, Ad Age looks back at that early edition of Fortune and remarks upon how the economic turmoil and uncertainty of those times, reflected in the editorial and advertising, acts almost as a mirror to our current troubles. "It's more than a little resonant 71 years later," says Ad Age.
During those lean years toward the end of the Great Depression, advertising was scarce. But that didn't stop the ad agencies from advertising the need for advertising.
Agencies, including J. Walter Thompson, McCann-Erickson and Young & Rubicam bought 80 pages of ads during 1937 to sell their services, as opposed to clients' products, Fortune boasted. The pitches sound a lot like today's: "Effectiveness is increasingly emphasized," writes Ad Age.
Just as today, with the onslaught of the Internet, traditional print advertising was under attack by a rival medium: back then it was radio. Not all things were exactly the same, of course. The 1938 issue of Fortune profiled General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) chairman Alfred P. Sloan Jr. At the time, GM's biggest growth was still ahead of it. Ah, if only that were true today. 
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