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About the Commercialization From Wikipidia.com:

The Associated Men's Wear Retailers formed a National Father's Day Committee in New York City in the 1930's, which was renamed in 1938 to National Council for the Promotion of Father's Day and incorporated several trade groups more. This council had the goals of legitimating the holiday in the mind of the people and managing the holiday as a commercial event in a more systematic way, in order to boost the sales during the holiday. This council always had the support of Dodd, who had no problem with the commercialization of the holiday and endorsed several promotions to increase the amount of gifts. In this aspect she can be considered the opposite of Ann Jarvis, who always opposed actively all commercialization of Mother's Day.

The merchants recognized the tendency to parodize and satirize the holiday, and used it on their benefit by mocking the holiday on the same advertisements where they promoted the gifts for fathers. People felt compelled to buy the gifts even although they could see perfectly through the commercial facade, and the custom of giving gifts on that day became progressively accepted. By 1937 the Father's Day Council calculated that only one father in six had received a present on that day.In 1980s, the Council proclaimed that they had achieved their goal: the one-day event had become a three-week commercial event, a "second Christmas". Its executive director explained back in 1949 that, without the coordinated efforts of the Council and of the groups supporting it, the holiday would have disappeared.