admassn.
/ˈadmas/, U.S. /ˈædˌmæs/ 1. Advertising as conducted through the mass media; contemporary culture, or the modern world, regarded as unduly influenced by mass advertising; the consumer society.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > information > publishing or spreading abroad > advertising > business of advertising > [noun]
advertising industry1850
adland1915
admass1955
1955 J. B. Priestley & J. Hawkes Journey down Rainbow iii. 51 Admass. This is my name for the whole system of an increasing productivity, plus inflation, plus a rising standard of material living, plus high-pressure advertising and salesmanship, plus mass communications, plus cultural democracy and the creation of the mass mind, the mass man.
1955 J. B. Priestley & J. Hawkes Journey down Rainbow v. 75 In the phantasmagorial atmosphere of Admass, nothing can keep its true proportions.
1984 Irish Arts Rev. Winter 41/3 Are we not in the age of Admass when shadow is more important than substance?
2005 in G. McKay Circular Breathing 32 We were against Admass, which can be seen as American.
2. That section of the public which is easily influenced by the mass media, esp. considered as a target for advertising.
ΘΚΠ
society > communication > information > publishing or spreading abroad > advertising > [noun] > person(s) to whom advertising addressed
advertisee1845
admass1957
eyeball1970
1957 M. Richardson in Observer 10 Nov. 18/3 That notorious institutional persona which has proved such a handicap to the B.B.C. in its attempt to woo the admass.
1958 N. Marsh Singing in Shrouds v. 98 I've got the entire Jolyon swimsuit admass between me and Beryl Cohen. Twenty million viewers can't be wrong!
2008 Times (Nexis) 29 Feb. 54 Those microcelebrities who haunt the downmarket magazines and tabloids..are losing their allure, even with the bovine admass that used to lap them up.
Compounds
General attributive.
ΚΠ
1955 J. B. Priestley & J. Hawkes Journey down Rainbow 126 If a good Admass man does not order a steak, either he is not hungry or he cannot afford the price.
1957 Listener 10 Oct. 583/2 Ordinary, intelligent people..who do not wish to be caught up in the Admass culture, yet whose education has not provided them with a complete means to resist it.
1967 D. Potter Nigel Barton Plays 66 Bright little boys from the back-to-back houses who now write advertising copy, television plays, newspaper columns; the admass clowns.
2005 W. S. Saunders Commodification & Spectacle in Archit. p. xv The arts of visual communication..have long since been co-opted by the admass drives of the advertising industry.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1955