I had trouble parsing your comment - are you thinking of the 1950s as before "modern advertising"? Anyway, if yes, then the answer to your question, I guess, i

I had trouble parsing your comment - are you thinking of the 1950s as before "modern advertising"? Anyway, if yes, then the answer to your question, I guess, is probably yes: "The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks. The central elements of Beat culture are the rejection of standard narrative values, making a spiritual quest, the exploration of American and Eastern religions, the rejection of economic materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation (The "silent generation" is a term for Westerners a bit too young to fight WWII, but too old to be Boomers)