![]() This gave companies all the more reason to assure consumers that a booming postwar economy was just over the horizon. Yet another reason companies ran ads for goods and services that the public couldn't buy or use was to be well positioned at war's end, when an Allied victory was expected to usher in a new era of prosperity.įor many Americans, it was hard to imagine a thriving postwar economy after a decade-long depression and several years of obligatory wartime rationing. "And during WWII, business took this opportunity to once again be seen as the patriotic engine of the American economy-rather than the greedy bastards who caused the Great Depression, which is how they were often viewed during the period." "During the 1930s, business was viewed in a very bad light," says Lawrence Glickman, a history professor at Cornell University. Corporations could deduct portions of their ad costs from their taxable incomes, for instance, which meant that the government might pay up to 80 percent of companies' advertising bills-regardless of whether they had anything to sell.Īnother reason companies participated was to improve their public image after the Great Depression. But many joined up when they saw what a good deal it was. Participation in the War Advertising Council was voluntary, and companies didn't receive direct compensation for it. the Advertising Council managed to orchestrate all these campaigns that the government wanted." your brand name, appear patriotic the public might look at anything you did as self-promoting. "Here you have a period when you have very little to sell you're worrying about. ![]() "The industry was, as you might imagine, super happy," says Stole. To market the idea of nationwide sacrifice to the public, the U.S. government wanted to encourage Americans to ration commodities, donate goods, and buy war bonds. It also promoted the "sense, widespread in the population, that this was a good war that sacrifice was important that we were all in this together." "WWII involved a mobilization and cooperation between government and major corporations on an unprecedented level," says Daniel Horowitz, an emeritus professor of American studies at Smith College. The ad didn't encourage readers to buy the company's tires, but it did advise them to "BUY MORE WAR BONDS." military officer leaning on a white picket fence, gazing longingly at a young woman (who is presumably waiting for him on the home front). "The tire crisis is still acute, of course, and you must conserve the tires you have," read a General Tire advertisement in May 1944. entered WWII, was part of an unprecedented collaboration between advertisers and the U.S. This period of marketing, which began just two months after the U.S. ![]() The ads also portrayed the companies' involvement in the war effort as a patriotic-rather than a profit-driven-act. ![]() They knew that once the war was over, it was very, very important that the public the brand names." Why advertise something you couldn't sell? According to Inger Stole, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, companies advertised these products to "keep their brand names in the public consciousness. On the contrary, firms like Bell Telephone System and General Motors published newspaper and magazine ads for many wartime products and services that Americans couldn't buy or use. What it also meant was that some products-like Filmo cameras and projectors-were completely removed from the civilian economy.īut that didn't stop major companies from advertising their wares. Government-enforced rationing meant that Americans could buy only limited supplies of common products like shoes, cars, and certain processed foods. "There aren't any Filmo Cameras and Projectors for personal movie making just now," the ad copy reads, "but our postwar products will be well worth waiting for."Īfter Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941-73 years ago today-the United States entered World War II and quickly launched a federal rationing program to support its troops. ![]() military officer in a dark war room, using a Bell & Howell Filmo projector, instructing troops on "How to STOP a Tank." In the May 1944 issue of National Geographic, an advertisement shows a U.S. ![]()
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