1960s
By the mid 1960's the computer was seen as an information processor, being part of a management information system. Advertisers stressed the "flexibility, versatility, expandability, and ...the capacity of the computer to make logical decisions."
IBM in particular was very successful during this decade. Its System/360, controlled almost 70% of the computer market and there was a long wait for their mainframes. IBM's advertising strategies soothed consumers who were concerned about and unfamiliar with computer technology. This was particularly effective in 1960, when IBM machines were used to tally election votes. Afterwards, IBM began a print campaign asking "Who won the computer battle last night? You did."
Women's labor force participation was expanding along with the use of computers. Women were increasingly portrayed as keypunch operators, card loaders or assistants taking orders from a male supervisor. Office automation marketing strategy used accepted stereotypes and reinforced conventional occupation roles to present the unfamiliar (office computers) in the context to the known and familiar especially in terms of occupational and sexual roles. (Aspray p.137) During the 1970s ads slowly began to change and by the 1980s as computers become more commonplace, women start appearing in nontraditional roles.
IBM, targeted their ads to secretaries as way of influencing their bosses by promising the electric typewriter would drastically improve efficiency.
![Nihon Tokyo Daigaku Denshi Keisanki Senta [University of Tokyo, Japan, Computer Center]](http://images.computerhistory.org/brochures/univtokyo.computer-centre.1964.102646319.jpg?w=200)
