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ABSTRACT
This article uses a study of the politics of marketing and advertising to consider the role that British World collaboration played in consumer politics in the UK and the Dominions between the 1920s and 1950s. We will assess how politicians and businesspeople in the Dominions responded to the Empire Marketing Board’s efforts to encourage the habit of ‘Buying British’ in the inter-war years, as well as exploring the activities of the leading American marketing agency, J. Walter Thompson. The article concludes with a discussion of how the politics of patriotic trade was recast in the 1950s. While this was a cause which had taken on different forms in Australia, Canada and South Africa during the 1930s, in each country its advocates shared a wider concern with imperial development. And yet, changes in the advertising and marketing industries, and the growth of market research, cut across efforts to promote the consumer habit of buying imperially. By the early 1960s patriotic trade campaigns in the ‘old’ Dominions were nationally focused and shorn of their earlier ‘Britannic’ identity.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank David Clayton, David Higgins, Marc Palen, Martin Thomas, Andrew Thompson and Richard Toye for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 T.B. Browne, Over-sea Britain, 12.
2 T.B. Browne, In Peaceful Africa, 43, 46.
3 Stead, The Art of Advertising, 76.
4 Tuffnell, “Business in the Borderlands”, 49–50, 53.
5 Cain, “Colonies and Capital”, 228–9.
6 Thompson, Imperial Britain, 105–6.
7 The critical literature on British World networks is now well established. For good introductions see Bright and Dilley, “After the British World”, 550–9; Buckner and Francis, Rediscovering the British World; Darian-Smith, Grimshaw, and Macintyre, Britishness Abroad; Potter, “Webs, Networks and Systems”.
8 Magee and Thompson, Empire and Globalisation, 185–98.
9 For the politics of ‘Greater Britonism’ in this period see Armitage, “Greater Britain”, 429–31; Bell, Idea of Greater Britain, particularly ch. 9.
10 Thornton, Imperial Idea and its Enemies, 51.
11 Barnes, “Lancashire’s ‘War’ with Australia”, 709.
12 The term is used here to refer to territories of the Empire-Commonwealth which achieved self-government before 1947.
13 The idea of ‘Britannic’ identity was initially popularised by Richard Jebb in the early twentieth century and subsequently employed in a historical context by Douglas Cole. The term is used to acknowledge that imperial loyalists in the ‘old’ Dominions had a composite culture shaped by institutions in their own nations as well as forms of imperial co-operation. See Jebb, The Britannic Question, 26; Cole, “The Problem of ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Imperialism’”, 162–4.
14 Nixon, Hard Sell; Hilton, Consumerism in Twentieth Century Britain; Crawford, But Wait, There’s More; Crawford, Smart and Humphery, Consumer Australia.
15 Rappaport, A Thirst for Empire, 8, 12, 115, 181–2, 264, 370–409.
16 For an introduction to the EMB’s publicity activities, see Constantine, “‘Bringing the Empire Alive’”; Barnes, “Bringing Another Empire Alive?”; Trentmann, Free Trade Nation, 228–37; Moore, “Selling Empire”.
17 Barnes, New Zealand’s London, 176–88; Barnes, “Lancashire’s ‘War’ with Australia”, 717–8.
18 There is a brief discussion of the reception of EMB propaganda in Australia in Griffiths, Imperial Culture in Antipodean Cities, 159–60; For efforts by the Canadian Department of Trade and Commerce to promote patriotic trade see Hill, Canada’s Salesman to the World, 352–7.
19 ‘The Work of the Imperial Economic Committee’, n.d. [1927], DO222/2, The National Archives (hereafter TNA), London.
20 Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, II, 149.
21 Stephen Tallents, “The Buy British campaign of 1931”, Tallents papers, ICS79/14/11, Institute for Commonwealth Studies, London.
22 For the rise and decline of ‘Buy British’ campaigns in the UK see Thackeray and Toye, “What Was a British Buy?” 135–7.
23 Johnson, “British Multinationals, Culture and Empire”, 142, 167; “‘Buy British’ Economic Term Not Topographical”, Manchester Guardian, 25 Nov. 1931, 11; ‘Buy British Goods’, Shell-Mex advert, Illustrated London News, 25 July 1925, 185; Pillars of British Trade’, BP advert (1926), BP archive, ARC187604, Modern Records Centre, Warwick.
24 Trentmann, Free Trade Nation, 46–50, 344.
25 Higgins and Madhorst, “Bringing Home the ‘Danish’ Bacon”, 142–3, 153–4.
26 ‘Danish Gesture of Goodwill’, Manchester Guardian, 4 Sep. 1932, 23; ‘Britisk Udstilling Industribygningen’ [British Exhibition, Copenhagen handbook] (1931), BT60/26/1, TNA.
27 EMB publicity committee minutes, 3 Mar. 1932; See also extract from the minutes of the EMB marketing committee, 26 May 1932 in memo., 6 June 1932; Lachlan Maclean, memo., ‘Buy British Campaign’, n.d. [5 July 1932], all CO758/94/2, TNA.
28 Rooth, British Protectionism and the International Economy, chs. 4–5.
29 Ibid., 101–25, 146–56.
30 ‘The End of “Buy British”?’, Manchester Guardian, 9 Mar. 1933, 8.
31 Ibid.
32 For a more detailed discussion of the progress of the shopping weeks see Thackeray, “Buying for Britain, China, or India?” 399–405.
33 In addition, to the campaigns discussed here, the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Association organised their own Buy New Zealand Made weeks and fairs. See for example ‘New Zealand Made Week in Dunedin’, New Zealand National Review, 15 (June 1931), 29.
34 McKenzie, Redefining the Bonds of Commonwealth, 20–6.
35 Drummond, British Economic Policy and the Empire, 96–114.
36 Victorian Council, Federal Executive Minutes, 12 Apr. 1929 and 26 May 1930, Australian British Trade Association (hereafter ABTA) Papers, 2/3/5, Melbourne University Special Collections (hereafter MUSC).
37 The Argus (Melbourne), 3 Nov. 1934, p. 25.
38 Victorian Chamber of Manufactures, One Hundred Years of Progress, 7.
39 Souvenir of the Centenary All-Australian Exhibition, 17, 19.
40 Victorian Chamber of Manufactures, Australian Protection. 9–12, 19–31.
41 Empire Shopping Week Council Minutes, 24 May 1939, ABTA Papers, 2/5, MUSC.
42 West Australian (Perth), 14 Apr. 1934, 18, 23 May 1939, 3; Hastings Reid, ‘Empire Shopping Week 1939. Report by the Honorary Organiser’, 31 May 1939, Returned Soldiers’ League papers, MS6609 288C, National Library of Australia, Canberra.
43 West Australian (Perth), 20 May 1935, 8; 25 May 1936, 5; 23 May 1939, 3.
44 Daily News (Perth), 21 May 1934, 9; H.C. Reid, ‘Objects of the Campaign. Helping Australia and the Empire’, West Australian (Perth), 23 May 1939, 4.
45 For the problems which the campaign experienced see British Trade in South Africa, June 1932, 5; July 1932, 6; Dec. 1933, 9–10.
46 For the initial reluctance of prominent figures within the United Party to support the exhibition see Robinson, “Johannesburg’s Empire Exhibition”, 766–7.
47 Robinson, “Johannesburg’s Empire Exhibition”, 766–8, 782–4; See also Hughes, “Contesting Whiteness”, 164–9, 177.
48 ‘Empire Shopping Week in Canada’ (1929), BT90/25/7, TNA.
49 Industrial Canada, May 1936, 55, 59; Feb. 1937, 34.
50 Canada Calling Britain Buick advert (1937), DTC, RG20, vol. 204, LAC.
51 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction, 112–37.
52 For a detailed analysis of the trade agreements see Drummond and Hillmer, Negotiating Freer Trade.
53 Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, II, 306–11.
54 Rappaport, A Thirst for Empire, 264–8.
55 Wilson, Empire Trade, xiv.
56 See for instance Harrison, “Home and Empire Marketing: Sales Problems Which Call For Specialised Knowledge”, x; ‘Can a City Be English When 60.8% are French’ (Montreal), Advertiser’s Weekly, 11 February 1937, ii.
57 Watson, “Markets Are People- Not Places. A Few Thoughts On Export”, 3–4.
58 French, Twentieth Century Advertising, 226.
59 Crawford, But Wait, There’s More, 11.
60 Ilott, Creating Customers, 20–40.
61 For the debate on US influences on European consumer societies see for example Trentmann, “Long History of Contemporary Consumer Society”; Swett, Wiesen and Zatlin, Selling Modernity; Fasce and Bini, “Irresistible Empire or Innocents Abroad?”; De Grazia, Irresistible Empire, 4–5, 228–43.
62 West, “From T-Square to T-Plan”, 200–1; Clement Watson, “Memorandum to Mr. Kinney. re. Foreign Department”, 21 May 1928, James Webb Young Papers, International Branch Notebooks, Box 1, J. Walter Thompson Archive (hereafter JWT), Hartman Center for Advertising (hereafter HAC), Duke University, Durham, NC.
63 Davis, “Negotiating Local and Global Knowledge”, 87–9.
64 Watson, “Memorandum to Mr. Kinney”, 21 May 1928, James Webb Young papers, International Branch Notebooks, box 1, JWT, HAC.
65 Memo. J.W. Young, 14 May 1928, James Webb Young Papers, International Branch Notebooks, Box 1, JWT, HAC.
66 In 1929 Campbell-Eward became the first US agency to open an office in Australia, Crawford, But Wait, There’s More, 61.
67 William McNair, Memo., ‘The Establishment of J. Walter Thompson’s Offices in Australia and New Zealand’ (1963); E.L. Jarvis, Memo., ‘Early History of JWT in Australia’; Sidney Bernstein Interview with Tom Carruthers, Nov. 1963, all Sidney Ralph Bernstein Papers, Company History Files, Box 5, JWT, HAC.
68 For example, JWT made use of national cultural stereotypes in Argentina. See Salvatore, “Yankee Advertising in Buenos Aires”.
69 Newspaper News (Sydney), Apr. 1931, 3, reproduced in Crawford, “Differences … .in Dealing With the Australian Public”, 328.
70 McNair, Radio Advertising in Australia, iii, 248.
71 ‘Memorandum Regarding Discussions Between Messrs. Meek, Foote and Russell’, 29 Aug. 1946, Edward G. Wilson papers, box 15, JWT, HAC.
72 Russell to Sam Meek, 8 Aug. 1947, Edward G. Wilson papers, box 15, JWT, HAC.
73 For American ‘inter-imperialism’ see Tuffnell, “Anglo-American Inter-imperialism” and “Business in the Borderlands”.
74 Began publication in 1916 as the Times Imperial and Foreign Trade Supplement, title changed to Times Trade and Engineering Supplement in 1934.
75 Speech by Viscount Bledisloe, Daily Mail, 16 June 1937, 5.
76 Hopkins, “Rethinking Decolonization”, 224; In 1948 New Zealand alone supplied one-third of Britain’s meat imports and over half its dairy imports. Australia and Canada supplied 98 per cent of UK wheat imports at this time, Belich, Replenishing the Earth, 472.
77 Rollings, British Business in the Formative Years, 22–3.
78 Rooth, “Diefenbaker’s Trade Diversion Proposals, 1957–58”, 117–19, 122.
79 Ward, Australia and the British Embrace, 4, 24–7, 70–98, 236–55; Meaney, “In History’s Page”, 364, 383; Hopkins, “Rethinking Decolonization”, 228–33, 238; Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution; Buckner, “Introduction”, 1–14.
80 W.S. Crawford Ltd., Crawfords: The Complete Advertising Agency, n.d. [c.1955], insert between 55 and 56, W.S. Crawford MSS, WSC1/1a-b, History of Advertising Trust, Raveningham.
81 Saxon Mills, There Is A Tide, 88.
82 Sampson, The New Europeans, 84, 86.
83 Elton, How We Use Films in Shell, 1–2, 8.
84 Unilever Limited, Unilever in a Changing Europe, 14.
85 Buzzell, “Can You Standardize Multinational Marketing?”, 93, 97, 100.
86 Morgan and Moss, “Marketing of Scotch Whisky”, 119, 124–6.
87 For the growth of segmented marketing practice in the UK see Lunn, “Segmenting and Constructing Markets”; for Australia see Crawford, But Wait, There’s More, 134.
88 Schwarzkopf, “Managing the Unmanageable”, 163–4; By 1956 around £3 million was being spent on market research sample surveys in the UK each year, with over 1500 people employed in this field. British Market Research Bureau, Readings in Market Research, xxiii–xxv.
89 Crawfords International, How To Break Into World Markets, 38–40; In addition to Contimart, Nielsen, JWT and the Attwood Statistics Group were providing market research services to most of the Common Market countries in 1961. Gallup, INRA and A.E.S. had market research operations across western Europe, ‘Understanding and utilising market research in western Europe’, Aug. 1961, Samuel Meek papers, International Office series, JWT, HAC.
90 Black and Spain, “How Self-service Happened”, 163.
91 Sean Nixon, “Mrs Housewife and the Ad Man”, 197–9.
92 For a discussion of this point in relation to South Africa see Radel, Market Research Practice in South Africa.
93 ‘Beware- Buy South African’, South African Industry and Trade, Jan. 1961, 19.
94 Victoria Chamber of Manufactures, Industry Today, May 1961, 91; for the Buy Australian campaign see also ‘Operation Boomerang’, supplement to Industry Today, July 1961; Minute books of the Made-in-Australia Council, 1950–1966, Australian Chamber of Manufactures (hereafter ACM) papers, 1/4/4/4-5, MUSC.
95 ‘Buy and sell Australian-made goods’, Shop Assistant of Australia, 20 Aug. 1953, 1. See also ‘“Made in Aust”. Council aims at better living’, Bendigo Advertiser, 10 Aug. 1953, both in Minute books of the Made-in-Australia Council, 1950–1966, ACM, MUSC.
96 See for example ‘Australian Industries Fair: an Argus souvenir’, Argus (Melbourne), 21 Apr. 1955, 22–32 and the various newspaper cuttings in Minute books of the Made-in-Australia Council, 1950–1966, ACM, MUSC.
97 ‘“Is it nothing to you … ?”’, Industry Today, Oct. 1961, 379, 381.
98 Canadian Manufacturers Association Buy Canadian campaign material (1960–1961), DTC, MG28 I 230, vol. 97, LAC.
99 R.D.L. Kinsman, ‘Some important aspects of Canada’s international trade’ (1960), DTC, MG28 I 230, vol. 97, LAC.
100 Singleton and Robertson, Economic Relations between Britain and Australasia, ch. 6; Thomas, “Canada’s Trade at the Crossroads”, 30.