Pear's ads tied this notion directly to cleanliness. Dirty (brown) was bad; poor (also brown) was uncivilized and Pear's was the means to solve this problem. It exemplified the white man's burden of cleaning up the dirty, poor brownness in society. Betty Crocker made significant contributions to consumer culture. The character was one of the most successful, and was so in part because consumers who had been exposed to the character on the radio thought she was a real person. A character - a mascot - had for the first time been ascribed by the market the same respect as a human. As such, Betty Crocker was allowed by the market to exemplify the ideal American home life of the times.

In establishing Betty Crocker as a symbol of the American identify,...

The Betty Crocker cake mix was an early example of a prepared food - one that did not require any kitchen skills to produce. The persuasive power of "Betty Crocker" aided in the transition of the American food consumption culture from one of preparation to one of unthinking consumption. There is no question that technological developments in the modern kitchen assisted with that transition, but Betty Crocker was a major contributor to the shift in society's views towards food as a consumer product because now the notion was tied to the ideal American home life. Marketing had been used to re-educate the American populace towards meeting the strategic goals of General Mills, a seismic shift towards the consumer culture we experience today.