The Fitful Career of Advocacy Advertising: Political Protection,Client Cultivation,and Corporate Morale

Sethi S. Prakash , Advocacy Advertising and Large Corporations (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1977), pp. 7–8.

Garbett Thomas F. , Corporate Advertising: The What, the Why, and the How (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1981), pp. 41, 44.

For a variety of expressions of the difficulty of assessing the effects of institutional advertising see Advertising and Selling, 32 (May 1939): 45; Page Arthur W. , “Address; General Commercial Conference, May, 1930,” p. 1, Vol. V, Arthur W. Page Papers, Wisconsin State Historical Society; Chaplin Tyler to Du Pont Henry B. , September 29, 1939, Accession 1662, Box 64, E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company Archives, Hagley Museum and Library; Harvard Business School Study #521, pp. 12, 30, 37, General Motors Corporation Archives. Even in the 1960s, such concerns influenced the strictures to “measure the problem”, to be “precisely sure” of the objective, and to conduct a “soul-searching self-examination” in such books of advice on institutional advertising as Flanagan George A. , Modern Institutional Advertising (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1967), p. 15.

Barron's, “The Image of Corporate Image,” (pamphlet, 1984), p. 1; Fisher Anne B. , “Spiffing up the Corporate Image,” Fortune, July 21, 1986, p. 68.

Ellsworth J. D. , “The Start of General Magazine Advertising,” p. 4 (typed manuscript, January, 1931), Box 1066, American Telephone & Telegraph Company Archives; Goulden Joseph C. , Monopoly (New York, NY: Putnam, 1968), pp. 71–72.

AT&T, “Institutional Advertisements,” vol. 1, Nos. 1–5, Box 1251, AT&T Archives; Griese Noel L. , “AT&T: 1908 Origins of the Nation's Oldest Continuous Institutional Advertising Campaign,” Journal of Advertising, 6 (1977): 18–22.

“Fair Rates” (October 1908) in “Fifty Years of Telephone Advertising,” N.W. Ayer & Son Archives.

Ellsworth James D. , “The Twisting Trail,” unpublished autobiography (1936), Wisconsin State Historical Society, p. 144; Griese , “AT&T,” pp. 20–21; Printers' Ink Monthly, 22 (June 1931): 54.

Raucher Alan R. , Public Relations and Business, 1900–1929 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968), p. 52; AT&T, “Institutional Advertisements,” Vol. 1, Nos. 24, 28, 81, 138, 195; “AT&T Advertising Program, 1920,” (attachment to letter [ Thayer H. B. to Theodore Vail], February 26, 1920), Box 14, AT&T Archives; Advertising and Selling, March 5, 1921, p. 29; Printers' Ink, October 14, 1915, p. 61; American Magazine, 102 (September 1926): 151; Saturday Evening Post, October 25, 1930, p. 53; May 21, 1932, p. 35; February 25, 1933, p. 45.

AT&T, “Institutional Advertisements,” vols. 1 and 2, Nos. 29, 93, 127, 169, 201, 230, 254; Literary Digest, November 19, 1921, p. 47; Saturday Evening Post, November 22, 1924, p. 154; August 30, 1930, p. 68; Danielian Noobar R. , AT&T: The Story of Industrial Conquest (New York, NY: Vanguard, 1939), pp. 183, 187; “Memorandum for Mr. W. J. O'Connor,” March 24, 1930, Box 1, Papers John M. Shaw , Wisconsin State Historical Society.

In one critic's words, the AT&T figures, constantly reiterated, were “correct as to arithmetic, false as to implication.” Alan Raucher, in his history of public relations, characterizes them as “statistical legerdemain.” It was true that AT&T stock was distributed among more stockholders than that of any other major corporation. But the claim that AT&T was therefore a “democracy” because the average holding was only 26 shares deliberately overlooked the fact that a minority of 5 percent of the stockholders owned about 50 percent of the shares. And while it was accurate to claim that no one person owned as much as one percent of the stock, the effectiveness of this phrase in suggesting the absence of large investors rested upon the failure of the average reader to comprehend the scale of capital investment in AT&T. Ads unsurprisingly failed to note that the ownership of even one-half of one percent of AT&T stock, at a value of $130 a share, would represent an investment of approximately $12 million. Moreover, the notion fostered by AT&T ads that the “average Americans” shown receiving their dividend checks in cozy living rooms or at modest bungalow doors not only owned but “controlled” the giant phone company failed to define the meaning of such control. Danielian , AT&T, p. 188; Raucher , Public Relations, p. 55.

AT&T, “Institutional Advertisements,” vol. 2, Nos. 231, 239, 263; Saturday Evening Post, November 19, 1927, p. 197; December 17, 1927, p. 125; January 30, 1932, p. 27; August 27, 1932, p. 31; February 8, 1936, p. 83; Advertising and Selling, November 2, 1927, p. 83; January 11, 1928, p. 60; American Magazine, 119 (May 1935): 3.

Printers' Ink, September 7, 1911, p. 89; April 16, 1914, p. 100; April 28, 1932, p. 20; Raucher , Public Relations, pp. 37, 100; Literary Digest, May 6, 1922, p. 50; Saturday Evening Post, October 29, 1921, p. 92; June 11, 1927, p. 35; Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1926, p. 18; Untitled Memorandum [BBD&O to Niagara Hudson Co.], n. d. [1933], Box 79, Bruce Barton Papers, Wisconsin State Historical Society. The term “blurred ownership” is taken from Ohmann Richard , comp., “Doublespeak and Ideology in Ads: A Kit for Teachers” in Dieterich Daniel , ed., Teaching about Doublespeak (Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1976), p. 47. Long Norton E. describes how AT&T sought to remove the “curse of bigness” in “The Public Relations of the Bell System,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 1 (October 1937): 19.

Lee Ivy L. , Human Nature and Railroads (Philadelphia, PA: Nash E. S. & Co., 1915), pp. 4, 9, 21; Hiebert Ray Eldon , Courtier to the Crowd (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1966), pp. 58–61; Printers' Ink, August 10, 1911, p. 69; May 9, 1912, p. 22.

Printers' Ink, August 26, 1908, p. 10; May 9, 1912, p. 22; April 2, 1914, pp. 54–55; April 16, 1914, p. 118–19; March 27, 1913, p. 104.

Printers' Ink, February 12, 1914, pp. 40, 44; May 28, 1914, p. 86; January 22, 1914, p. 186; Tedlow Richard S. , Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900–1950 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1979), pp. 9–12.

Printers' Ink, August 13, 1914, pp. 3–4, 6.

New York Times, May 22, 1916, p. 6; May 26, 1916, p. 22; Chicago Tribune, July 17, 1916, p. 8.

New York Times, May 31, 1916, p. 8; Hiebert , Courtier to the Crowd, pp. 156–62; Scrapbook T. J. Ross , vol. 13 and clipping, vol. 13, Ivy Lee Papers, Seeley Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University.

Yeager Mary , Competition and Regulation: The Development of Oligopoly in the Meat Packing Industry (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1981), p. 220; Corey Lewis , Meat and Men: A Study of Monopoly, Unionism and Food Policy (New York, NY: Viking, 1950), pp. 49, 52.

Printers' Ink, December 21, 1916, p. 57; Aduddell Robert M. Cain Louis P. , “Public Policy Toward ‘The Greatest Trust in the World,”’ Business History Review, 55 (Summer 1981): 236; Aduddell Robert M. Cain Louis P. , “The Consent Decree in the Meatpacking Industry, 1920–1956,” Business History Review, 55 (Autumn 1981): 376; Yeager , Competition and Regulation, p. 172.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Summary of the Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Meat-Packing Industry, (Washington, D.C., 1918), pp. 4–5; Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1918, pp. 1, 4.

Yeager , Competition and Regulation, p. 237.

Printers' Ink, December 21, 1916, p. 57; March 1, 1917, p. 4; Judicious Advertising, 15 (July 1917): 37–38; JWT News Bulletin, No. 10 (August 1916): N.p., J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, New York.

Literary Digest, February 8, 1919, p. 35; March 8, 1919, p. 35; April 19, 1919, p. 45.

Saturday Evening Post, July 13, 1918, p. 96; January 23, 1919, p. 128; August 9, 1919, p. 160; September 3, 1921, p. 88; September 16, 1922, p. 148; Swift and Company, Yearbook, 1924, p. 55, Swift and Company Archives; “Swift and Company ads” (microfilm), J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, Chicago Office.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Summary, pp. 21, 44–45; Corey , Meat and Men, p. 79.

Corey , Meat and Men, pp. 86–87; Aduddell Cain , “Public Policy,” pp. 239–40; Aduddell Cain , “Consent Decree,” pp. 362, 371.

Advertising and Selling, September 4, 1920, pp. 12, 14; Printers' Ink, July 10, 1919, pp. 93–94; December 7, 1922, p. 127; Swift and Company, Yearbook, 1921, p. 11.

Creel George C. , How We Advertised America (New York, NY: Arno Press, 1920), pp. 157, 165; Fox Frank W. , Madison Avenue Goes to War: The Strange Military Career of American Advertising, 1941–45, (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 11–12; Pease Otis A. , The Responsibilities of American Advertising (New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1958), p. 17. See also Printers' Ink, December 13, 1917, p. 148.

Ellsworth , “General Magazine Advertising,” p. 7; Barrett R. T. , “Bell System Advertising and Publicity” (typed manuscript, 1931), Box 1066, AT&T Archives, Danielian , AT&T, pp. 243, 254.

Tedlow , Keeping the Corporate Image, pp. 18–19; Galambos Louis , The Public Image of Big Business in America, 1880–1914: A Quantitative Study in Social Change (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkin Press, 1975), pp. 15, 193, 220–21, 261; Marchand Roland , Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 1985), p. 8.

Marchand , Advertising the American Dream, pp. 286, 320–24; Printer's Ink, September 3, 1931, p. 122.

Advertising Age, November 18, 1935, p. 10; October 12, 1936, p. 38; December 14, 1936, p. 24; November 1, 1937, p. 1.

Advertising Age, October 28, 1935, p. 2; October 12, 1936, p. 20; September 20, 1937, pp. 1, 44; April 25, 1938, p. 27; unknown to Lammot Du Pont, March 26, 1936, Box 3, Acc. 1662, Du Pont Archives, Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware; Tedlow Richard , “The National Association of Manufacturers and Public Relations during the New Deal,” Business History Review, 50 (Spring 1976): 31.

Advertising and Selling, April 27, 1933, pp. 44–45; May 21, 1936, pp. 29–30; Advertising Age, May 18, 1936, p. 44; February 21, 1938, p. 31; Printers' Ink, November 22, 1934, p. 7; December 12, 1935, pp. 17, 20.

Printers' Ink, December 12, 1935, p. 24.

Advertising Age, June 21, 1937, p. 49; January 31, 1938, p. 33; Advertising and Selling, May 24, 1937, p. 10; September 9, 1937, p. 36; December 16, 1937, p. 33.

Tedlow , “The NAM,” p. 33.

Weir E. T. to Du Pont Lammot , May 20, 1935, Box 54, Acc. 1662, Du Pont Archives; Tedlow , “The NAM,” p. 35.

Saturday Evening Post, July 14, 1934, pp. 38–39; March 14, 1936, pp. 80–81; September 16, 1936, pp. 27–28, 54–55; November 7, 1936, pp. 34–35; Walker Strother H. Sklar Paul , “Big Business Finds Its Voice,” Harpers Magazine, 176 (January 1938): 116–18, 323–24; Advertising and Selling, December 2, 1937, p. 48.

Saturday Evening Post, January 11, 1936, p. 69; February 1, 1936, p. 46; Du Pont Magazine, 29 (October 1935): 16; “Memo—Information for Miss Betty Vaughn,” Box 35, Acc. 1410, Du Pont Archives; Golden L. L. L. , Only By Public Consent (New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1968), pp. 238–243.

Tide, 9 (September 1935, Supplement): 14–15; 10 (July 1936 Supplement): 1; 10 (September 1936): 17–18; Advertising Age, April 6, 1935, p. 27; January 11, 1937, p. 1; February 1, 1937, p. 4; May 17, 1937, p. 29. Saturday Evening Post, January 31, 1931, p. 115; February 14, 1931, p. 79; January 10, 1932, p. 125; March 20, 1937, p. 109; April 10, 1937, p. 113; October 9, 1937, p. 85; June 12, 1937, p.90.

Tedlow , “The NAM,” pp. 36–37.

Fox , Madison Avenue Goes to War, pp. 68–75. The themes subsequently explored in this paragraph are derived from Fox's excellent study.

Saturday Evening Post, February 12, 1944, p. 66. See also, Saturday Evening Post, May 22, 1945, p. 47 and June 17, 1944, p. 60.

Saturday Evening Post, February 27, 1943, p. 7. See also, Saturday Evening Post, April 17, 1943, 2nd cover and June 12, 1943, 2nd cover.

Saturday Evening Post, April 15, 1944, p. 103; Fortune (October 1944): 259.

Advertising and Selling, 39 (January 1946): 87; Fox , Madison Avenue, pp. 47–50, 55.

Griffith Robert , “The Selling of America: The Advertising Council and American Politics,” 1942–1960,” Business History Review, 57 (Autumn 1983): 393, 396.

Griffith , “The Selling of America,” pp. 399–401; Advertising and Selling, 39 (July 1946): 58; 41 (December 1948): 62–63.

Advertising and Selling, 39 (January 1946): 29, 53, 60 (March 1946): 56; (June 1946): 38–39; 40 (January 1947): 84.

Advertising and Selling, 39 (November 1946): 156–57; (July 1946): 110; (September 1946): 47, 58.

Advertising and Selling, 39 (May 1946): 90; (July 1946): 110; (August 1946): 113; (September 1946): 47–58; (December 1946): 56.

Advertising and Selling, 40 (March 1947): 8–10; (March 1948): 9–15.

Fortune, 42 (September 1950): 78.

Flanagan , Modern Institutional Advertising, pp. 23–26.

Kelley Stanley Jr. , Professional Public Relations and Political Power (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1956), pp. 67–68, 73–76, 83–86.

Whyte William H. Jr. , Is Anybody Listening? (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1952), pp. vii, 1, 8.

Moulton H. G. McKee C. W. , “How Good is ‘Economic Education?”’ Fortune, 44 (July 1951): 84–86, 112, 126. Campion Frank D. , The AMA and U.S. Health Policy Since 1940 (Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 1984), pp. 162–64; Kelley , Professional Public Relations, pp. 79–81, 104.

Sethi , Advocacy Advertising, pp. 3–4, 15–17. On the growing distrust of business corporations and major institutions between 1965 and 1975 see Lipset Seymour M. Schneider William , The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor and Government in the Public Mind (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1938), pp. 31–32, 35.

Houser J. David , What People Want From Business (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1938), pp. 112–13.

Whyte , Is Anybody Listening? p. 38; Tedlow , “The NAM,” p. 37.

Tedlow , “The NAM,” p. 44.

New York Times, January 24, 1938, p. 38.

Advertising and Selling, 32 (June 1938): 52.