APCO Oil Corporation advertised through TV stations across the company’s territory during the 1970s. It is clear from a number of commercials that the company felt it could increase overall sales by appealing more directly to women.

This APCO commerical is a case in point, touting “Here’s a two-way good deal from APCO — a tankful for him, and panty hose for her…”

From our perspective of nearly half a century later, the commercial seems very naive to the point of amusing. The ad features a couple, as though frequenting gas stations was inherently a couples’ activity. The video footage cuts to a few scenes of idyllic romantic images — the couple is first playing on a merry-go-round at a park, then running hand-in-hand across a field in slow motion, and ending up with sitting together on the bank of a lake while skipping stones across the water.

Any scene of a couple, running in slow motion together across a field, is a cliche, of course. This quick scene in the commercial has got to be the funniest part.

At the time, this sort of advertising was not funny at all, and was actually a serious endeavor.

As women increasingly entered the workforce, and as equal rights movements influenced society, companies attempted to appeal to women through respectful inclusion, and tacit acknowledgement of their independence, intelligence, and equality with men. A number of APCO’s ads from this time period demonstrate the company’s desire to attract the important, female consumer demographic.

Also, modern marketing had evolved by the 1970s to try to appeal to consumers’ senses, and to try to connect brands and products to peoples’ emotions. Marketers were trying to make ads sexier and romantic as a means of evoking unconsciously positive associations with the things they were trying to get consumers to buy. In this way, this APCO ad was not at all as stilted as it could be interpreted by today’s consumers, and such ads would help increase the brand’s awareness. Companies today continue to try to connect emotions to brands and products in the same manner, but also try to not be as heavy-handed about it as this retro APCO ad was, or if they are heavy-handed, the ad tries to do so in an ironic way.

All in all, the APCO commercial provides an amusing peek back in history, and is enjoyable to see.