OUGD401: Context of Practice - Beginnings : A History of Creative Advertising

Creative Advertising

• Key points in the historical narrative presented 
• The contexts (historical, political, economic etc.) in which modern advertising emerged internationally

• Lever Brothers Soap Ads 

Beginning

• 'advertising, the most fun you can have with your clothes on' (2009)

• Robin Wight (WCRS) 118 118 and the futures bright... advertising campaigns

• William Hesketh Lever 
• Lever Bros (1851-1925) 
• Founding members : James Darcy and William Hesketh Lever
• Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight Liverpool

• Bill Bernbach

• Lever Brothers - First British tycoons
• Gallery and village and soap factory commissioned by Hesketh in Port Sunlight
• Lever Born - 1851

• George Cruikshank (etching) - All the World Going to See the Great Exhibition of 1851
• 1851 - First colour printing on a large scale for publication for the great exhibition

• Advertising an essential
• British Empire - Largest and richest

• Pre Packaging, 1860 - Cereal companies figured out how to print

• Lever was the first to package soap 'I lifted sunlight soap to a class by itself'

• Advertising aided by tax cuts on newspapers 
• New of the World, 2012 - ended because advertising pulled out

• Printing Boom, 1890s - technology enabled contemporary paintings to be reproduced

Lever

• Born at height of empire - International trading routes established
• International Exhibition - First world exhibition
• Large scale printing

• First multinational - 1930s : Unilever was the largest multinational company

Sunlight Soap adversing

• Contemporary art in their advertising campaigns with copy e.g. 'So Clean' advertisement which uses 'The New Frock (1889) - White linen and Children are signs.
• Lever would buy the copyright of contemporary art

• Exhibition Tate Liverpool - Alice in Wonderland (November 2011 - January 2012) - Paintings and photography all to do with Alice in Wonderland
• Children were a popular subject - Signified joy, blessings, purity, innocence and life
• Infant mortality rate was high

• George Dunlop

• A dress rehearsal was bought by LeverHulme in 1888 and used for 'As Good As New' advertisement in 1889 to sell soap - emotional strategy, enhanced naturalism 

•  selected and presented contemporary art works - more powerfully and in an interesting and innovative way.
• Adding simple end lines - Lever changed the meaning of the image to his advantage

Entertainment

• Unilever who produce Axe - A product targeted at young males, aims to give confidence to teenagers
• Axe, Online game and first real time novel - teenagers can join in game, appears to involve the audience

• 'advertising from the moment it was born has aimed to entertain us' - Hegarty
• Prince Harry lynx advert

First creative advertising agencies

• Cracknell (2011) - in late 19th century ad agencies sold space in newspapers, commission / negotiations 
• Client created content - changed with publications (US) Rowell American newspaper 

First global campaigns

• Medicine, chocolate and soap

First use of product placement

• Wedding Morning (1892) bought by Leverhulme - soap replaced clock and cup, shows brand loyalty

Innovative events

• Lever Brothers, F. H. Lavenchy - Clarke - Washing competition 

• Sunlight Soap - Royal endorsement from 1892, democratisation

• Wrapping promos - 1890 Sunlight Soap magazine ad

• One method beloved of advertisers was to capture the essence of children - Give away free gifts
• Target mothers - 'good mothers use Sunlight Soap'

Investing in advertising

• Lever spend 2m in the first decades of making soap
• in 1889 Lever purchased a Philadephia soap firm

Art direction

• Gross suggested Plantol should depict tropical climates and express the care that is exercised in refining oils
• Vision to disguise slavery
• Palm oil is one of the main ingrediants used in soap

First worldwide ECD

• Collaborative Creativity
• Lever  Employed international expertise

First Ambient

• Innovative spaces, doors left open and station 
• Choosy where he advertised - quality of media

Ad expertise

• Lever ambassed an was among innovators of advertising expertise

• Salvation in sunlight - Early ads emphasised that Sunlight Soap would save women from drudgery
• Copy in Sunlight Soap - Working class housewives, giving time for romance

World domination

• Different international agencies
• Domestic and Imperial markets Britishness suited all
• Royal, national and imperial imagery
• Context of thousands of ads

Imperial Mission

• To Civilise
• No commodity aided more than soap 
• Wash and Clothe the native and cleanse the 'great unwashed'
• Empire celebrated

Levers Achievement

• Not only wanted but needed the product
• Victorians conquered the world

Psychology of advertising

• Discrepancy between self and ideal image of self
• Publics leisure practicing

• First Soap Opera - Continuing Dramas

Unileverseries

• Sponsor annual contemporary artist
• Would exhibit in Turbine Hall, Tate Modern

Critics of ad mass

• Boom in consumption
• Highly criticised in inter-war years
• Left wing critics appalled by produced of capitalism and mechanisation 
• Haussmann, Mechanical Head

Ad mass advocates

• Ecomic liberals
• Celebrated agency of the consuming individual
• 'Advertising creates more jobs' Hegarty

Summary

• Starts with Wright, So Clean, Sunlight vision and Alice in Wonderland
• Histotrical, political, comic and technological contexts - Level's pioneering advertising to emerge
• Colour printing