UNDERSTANDING ORDINARY WOMEN

Abstract

The paper reflects on the ways market research in Britain helped produce understandings of and information about the ‘mass housewife’ in the 1950s and 1960s. The paper does this through a case study of the market research used and generated by the London subsidiary office of J. Walter Thompson advertising. The paper focuses on key client accounts, as well as the agency's non-product specific research, as a way of exploring how it sought to understand the ordinary housewife and her consumption habits. In exploring JWT London's approach to the ‘mass market’ housewife, the paper draws on recent sociological arguments about advertising and market research that have conceptualized these commercial practices as technologies or socio-technical devices for ‘making-up’ the consumer. However, the paper also seeks to revise certain aspects of this sociological approach. It does this by proposing a more differentiated sense of the various marketing and market research paradigms that were used by advertising agencies in order to contest the claim that post-war market research was subject to growing sophistication under the influence of the psychological sciences. Secondly, the paper seeks to bring a more international and specifically trans-Atlantic dimension to the understanding of post-war market research. US-derived techniques formed a visible presence within post-war British market research and constituted a key point of reference for British-based practitioners. This influence was neither totalizing nor did it go unchallenged, but even as they rejected elements of ‘American’ approaches to the consumer, British practitioners still had to reckon with their intellectual authority and commercial force in this period.

Keywords:

• advertising
• market research
• market devices
• Americanization
• housewife
• new household
• affluence

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Centre for Economic Sociology and Innovation, Department of Sociology, University of Essex. I am grateful to the audience at that event for their comments and also to Paul du Gay, Mark Harvey, Angela McRobbie and Mike Roper for their support and advice. The comments of the three anonymous reviewers also helped to clarify the arguments developed in the paper.

Notes

1. JWT Offices, 1951–1960, n.d, Edward G. Wilson Papers Box 8, J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, John W. Hartmann Centre for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University (Hereafter, JWT/Duke); Fox (1984, p. 173). JWT's approach to advertising was codified in the Thompson ‘Blue Book’. At the heart of this was the T-square, the central marketing tool used to formalize its approach to advertising. On the T-square, see West (1987); de Grazia (2005) On JWT London, see Nixon (2008).

2. On the ‘creative revolution’ in US advertising of the late 1950s and 60s see Fox (1984). The New York agency Doyle Dane Bernbach was the most celebrated ‘creative agency’. For a fascinating comparison of the ethos of its guiding spirit Bill Bernbach with that of other leading figures in US advertising, including David Ogilvy, see Higgins(1965).

3. On market research in Britain see: Abrams (1951); The Times ( 1960 ) ‘Post-war boom in market research’, 27 April, p. 18; (1962) ‘Rapid expansion of market research interviewing’, 27 March, p. 6; (1950) ‘Research to make guessing easier’, 18 October, p. x; (1950) Letter, 4 December, p. 7; (1968) ‘Market research, an image problem’, 22 May, p. 27; (1965) ‘Market research’, 16 September, p. vii. The Market Research Society (MRS) was formed in 1949. Membership grew to 273 members in 1956 and to 1746 by 1966. By 1966 market research business was ‘about four times as big as it had been in 1956’ (Blythe 2005, p. 35).

4. The Times estimated that the housewife accounted for 90% of money spent on food and household goods. The Times (1962) ‘The housewife – a sitting target’, The Times, 18 October, p. vii; Advertiser's Weekly (1960) ‘The women's market’, 15 January, pp. 24–34; Advertiser's Weekly (1960) ‘Selling to women’, 8 January, p. 40; Advertiser's Weekly (1962) ‘Young homemakers’, 20 April, p. 3; Walter Thompson (1962).

5. Some sense of the relative decline of domestic service is documented by Selina Todd. She notes that in 1921 domestic service was the largest employer of women under 25 in the UK, but by 1951 only 5% of these women were in service. They had moved into clerical work and retailing (Todd 2005, p. 33). For a compelling account of the French experience, particularly in relation to the role played by women's magazines see Ross (1995). The classic work on the North American experience can be found in Strasser (1982).

6. See also the work of Michel Callon and his co-authors on the material devices of consumption for a similar approach to the ‘making up’ of the consumer. In particular, Callon and Muniesa (2005); Callon et al. (2002).

7. ‘To all offices, a summary of development of the company's research in consumer behaviour’, Howard Henderson, 21 February 1957, Edward G. Wilson papers, Box 6, JWT. See also ‘Forecasting the demand for consumer durables’, 1967; ‘Market Research and the Retailer’, 1967, Edward G. Wilson papers, Box 31, JWT

8. ‘To all offices, a summary of development of the company's research in consumer behaviour’, Howard Henderson, 21 February 1957, Edward G. Wilson papers, Box 6, JWT.

9. In the inter-war years JWT London had been unusual amongst British advertising agencies in conducting market research surveys. One of its earliest was for Sun Maid raisins and consisted of interviews with 200 customers and 60 dealers (Abrams 1951, p. 55). JWT London also undertook work for Ponds and Kraft in the inter-war years and in 1936 worked on a readership survey of the Daily Herald.

10. Formed in 1933, BMRB was tied to JWT London by shared board membership and there was some movement of staff between the two companies. See ‘Early Days of BMRB’, JWT London, 1964, Edward G. Wilson papers, Box 2, JWT; Downham (1993); Nixon (2008).

11. JWT and BMRB, December 1957, Edward G. Wilson papers, Box 2, JWT. Market research in Britain was dominated by practitioners with a background in economics and statistics. For example, many of the members of MRS had degrees in economics and allied studies from the London School of Economics. On the ‘LSE factor’ see Blythe (2005, p. 35).

12. The Census of Population, the Census of Distribution and the National Income Blue Book were used by market researchers to estimate the size of consumer markets. For example, the Registrar General's Census of Population was used to forecast the number of young married couples likely to be setting up home over a 10–20 year period and manufacturers of furniture, to take one instance, could be guided on how to plan their production.

13. There were two other important forms of research. These were media surveys of television audiences and newspaper and magazine readerships. Agencies also pre-tested ads on consumers, especially to help them select between different ‘copy solutions’.

14. Mark Abrams’ study of the teenager consumer, published in 1959, was the best known example of this approach, though other researchers sought to survey the youth market and drew attention less to the teenager as the ‘young married’ or ‘young homemakers’ (see Advertiser's Weekly (1962), 20 April; (1960) 12 February, pp. 31, 32; (1958) 21 February, pp. 23, 26; (1959) 23 January, pp. 31, 32). Abrams’ arguments focused on the way age was becoming a more reliable social category than class for explaining consumer behaviour and he supplemented the use of age segmentations of consumers with the idea of stages of the lifecycle. As he put it, ‘under conditions of increasing general prosperity, the social study of society in class terms is less and less illuminating. And its place is taken by differences related to age and stages in the family lifecycle’ (Advertiser's Weekly 1964, p. 21).

15. The office was in Victoria Street, London. See Advertiser's Weekly (1957) 13 September, p. 11; The Times (1959) ‘Pioneer of motive research’, 14 April, p. 7.

16. For the debate on motivation research in Britain see: Advertiser's Weekly (1960) ‘Motivation research today’, 25 March, pp. 22, 24; (1960) ‘The bases for creative advertising research’, 19 August, pp. 20, 22; (1964) ‘The sins of motivation research’, 10 July, pp. 22, 24; (1960) ‘Motivation research today 3’, 9 September, pp. 48–52; The Times (1959) 17 April, p.15; (1959) 22 April, p. 5; Market Research Society (1960) ‘Contribution from some personality theories to market research’, Commentary, No. 3, pp. 1–15; (1961) Commentary, No. 4, pp. 4–5. Harry Henry, head of research at the US-owned agency McCann-Erickson developed a version of motivation research that was distinct from Dichter's techniques. See Henry (1958; 1959). For evidence of some of the studies Dichter produced for British clients see Schwarzkopf (2007).

17. See Himmelweit (1958).

18. ‘A JWT Programme for Advertising Research’, JWT London, 1964, JWT/HAT Box 579.

19. ‘A JWT Programme for Advertising Research’, JWT London, 1964, JWT/HAT Box 579.

20. Memo from Noel Bews to Brillo account team, 1 February 1965, Box 113, JWT/HAT.

21. JWT Comprehensive Review 1948–54, p. 5, Box 650, JWT/HAT; Pin Up Research Summary, 1954, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

22. JWT Comprehensive Review, 1948–54, p. 5, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

23. TIHR had been formed in 1947 and sought to apply psychoanalytical concepts to the study of groups and organizational life.

24. TIHR (1950) ‘An Appraisal of the attitudes of women towards their hair’, 11 November, doc. no. 262, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

25. Pin Up, Tavistock Institute Final Report, Memorandum to Mr Silvester from Michael Stern, 26 January 1951, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

26. Pin Up, Tavistock Institute Final Report, Memorandum to Mr Silvester from Michael Stern, 26 January 1951, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

27. Pin Up, Tavistock Institute Final Report, Memorandum to Mr Silvester from Michael Stern, 26 January 1951, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

28. Tavistock Institute Report, From R. Silvester to Mr Mitchell-Innes, cc Mr Stern, 26 February 1951, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

29. Tavistock Institute Report, From R. Silvester to Mr Mitchell-Innes, cc Mr Stern, 26 February 1951, Box 650, JWT/HAT.

30. Oxo cubes, 1962/3 Summary, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

31. Oxo cubes, 1962/3 Summary, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

32. Oxo overall plan, 4 July 1963, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

33. Oxo overall plan, 4 July 1963, Box 323, JWT/HAT

34. Oxo cubes – promotions recommendations, February 1964, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

35. Oxo cubes – promotions recommendations, February 1964, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

36. Oxo cubes – promotions recommendations, February 1964, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

37. Oxo overall plan, 4 July 1963, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

38. Oxo overall plan, 4 July 1963, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

39. Oxo overall plan, 4 July 1963, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

40. Oxo Ltd development work on gravy products, suggested programme, 1967, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

41. Oxo Ltd development work on gravy products, suggested programme, 1967, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

42. Oxo Ltd development work on gravy products, suggested programme, 1967, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

43. Letter from L.W Hore, General Brand Manager, Oxo Ltd to Andrew Wilson, 22 April 1966, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

44. Letter from J.R. Stonehewer (Attwoods Statistics) to L.W Hore, 18 April 1966, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

45. Letter from J.R. Stonehewer (Attwoods Statistics) to L.W Hore, 18 April 1966, Box 323, JWT/HAT.

46. Oxo Ltd Development work on gravy products, marketing plan, 1967/8, Box 323, JWT/HAT. On ‘progressive cooks’ see The Times (1962) 18 October, p. vii.

47. As the Report put it.

48. On the idea of ‘homecentredness’ see Abrams 1959a.

49. For a discussion of what the study of ‘subjectivity’ might entail, see Roper (1994) and Roper (2005).