Have You Seen Me? Recovering the Inner Child in Late Twentieth-Century America

Examined is an ADVO (a national advertisement enterprise based in Hartford, CT) marketing campaign in which residents throughout the US are sent postcard-sized fliers that advertise products (eg, pizza) on one side & the face of a missing child on the other. Popular culture discourse on missing & abused children is linked to similar discourse on drug abuse & popular therapies that focus on "recovering" the "inner-child" through the retrieval of repressed memories. It is shown that US consumerism's effectiveness at playing on the fears & desires of consumers is increasing, & that ADVO's advertising represents an intense effort to manage consumer desire & fear. W. Howard