Selling advertising: The U.S. advertising industry and its public relations activities, 1932-1945

This dissertation addresses how the advertising industry responded and organized itself to combat consumer criticism and the threat posed by hostile federal legislation between 1932 and 1945. In particular, it shows how the industry began employing public relations techniques to advance its cause.;The first part of the study deals with a growing public discontent with advertising in the late 1920s and 1930s, including legislative attempts to protect consumers from false and misleading advertising. It explores how the advertising industry, through clever use of public relations, helped defeat the 1933 Tugwell bill and crushed the consumer movement's hope for legislated consumer protection. During the five year struggle over a law to regulate advertising, the industry practiced innovative public relations to undermine and marginalize the consumer movement. The strategy paid off through the 1938 Wheeler-Lea Amendment, a law giving blanket approval for "advertising as usual.".;By the late 1930s, the advertising industry had developed a well orchestrated public relations program. It was just at a time when the industry appeared to be outsmarting the consumer movement in winning consumers' trust and loyalty that the Second World War broke out. The war asked new, and frequently difficult, questions of an unprepared advertising industry. Eying a revamped public relations effort as its best solution, the advertising industry established the (War) Advertising Council in 1942. The Council's stated purpose was to assist and prepare the government's homefront campaigns.;The second part of the study discusses the Advertising Council, its work with and for the government, and the Council's ultimate mission as a public relations arm for the advertising industry. It explores the Council's strengths and weaknesses, including its support among advertisers. The dissertation concludes that the Advertising Council's PR work improved the relationship between the industry and the U.S. government and dramatically altered the nature of advertising criticism. Unlike the 1930s consumer critics who viewed advertising as obstructing democratic ideals, postwar consumer advocates, although critical to certain advertising techniques, accepted the advertising industry's claim as a pillar of American democracy.