Advertising at War: Business, Consumers, and Government in the 1940s

Chapter 2. Advertising Navigates the Defense Economy

2 Advertising navigates the Defense economy Industry leaders, their misgivings fueled by constant alarms, failed to recognize that New Deal actions against advertising had been relatively mild. They continued to monitor influential government officials, worried that a single critical comment might escalate into a crisis demanding the industry’s full attention. America’s response to the war in Europe and the gradual shift from a consumer to a defense economy raised new questions about advertising’s role and function in society. Now, on the eve of the nation ’s own entry into the war, industry leaders were, in the words of one trade journal, trying “frantically to prepare a sound argument” for advertising’s usefulness in the new economic environment.1 Advertisers understood the importance of building and maintaining good relationships with their audiences, and the industry wisely launched several forms of public relations aimed at educating the public, with the hope that the mass of American consumers would not merely tolerate advertising but acknowledge it as a beneficial social and economic force. This chapter explores the challenges faced by the advertising community in the period leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and immediately thereafter. It discusses how the industry dealt with new forms of criticism, how it viewed its role in the war economy, and how it eventually embarked upon a highly successful public relations venture: the Advertising Council. Advertising’s role in the Defense economy The advertising industry had always been sensitive, even defensive, about its contribution to the national economy. And now, in early 1940, with warrelated production demanding a disproportionate share of the nation’s raw materials, production for the consumer market was suffering, and the possibility of inflation was causing the government to consider price controls.2 To encourage consumption when commodities were scarce and few new products were needed might lend credence to the argument that advertising was wasteful, if not downright unpatriotic.3 The claim that advertising performed a valuable economic function by introducing new products, encouraging competition, and ultimately leading to mass production, thereby allowing consumers to enjoy better and more competitively priced goods, had not been entirely convincing during the 1930s and was even less so in the changing economic situation brought on by the war. Thus industry spokesmen began to take another tack, declaring that the new economy had not diminished advertising’s usefulness but in fact had elevated its importance. Advertising could play an educational role, guiding consumers toward products that did not compete with defense production for supplies and raw materials. This, according to industry leaders, not only would help slow down inflation, but also would increase the level of business activity and employment. The result would be a healthy economy and higher tax revenues for the government, which could be used to support defense expenditures. This new rationale for advertising sounded both plausible and upbeat and seemed a far cry from the unpatriotic tendencies that some of the TNEC investigations had suggested.4 Moreover, and perhaps even more important, the business community envisioned an instrumental postwar role for advertising. Even before the United States entered World War II, there was serious concern that the private sector would not be able to immediately absorb the returning citizen-soldiers and the workers who had been employed in wartime production, and that the nation would fall back into a depression as a result. The solution, according to advertisers, was to maintain the visibility of brands such as Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors during the emergency and help secure a demand for the old familiar products once the war was over. The result would be continuously high industrial production and low unemployment, reducing the possibility of a depression. Some even predicted that advertising might help push postwar production beyond anything previously dreamed of.5 36 . chapter 2 This argument was supported by experiences with advertising during World War I. Manufacturers that had maintained their advertising budgets during this period had managed to regain their leadership positions in the postwar era. Large companies that had discontinued or greatly reduced their advertising appropriations during the war had fared much worse. A study tracing seventeen manufacturers from the latter category concluded that six were absorbed by competitors after the war, one failed and went out of business, one went into receivership, one was forced to cut its workforce in half, and one lost nearly half its sales volume and all...