Bovril Charity Competion 1923

This contest was announced in the Christmas 1923 edition of “The Graphic” magazine - a publication similar in page size and contents to the “Illustrated London News”. The set of 16 Bovril posters in thumbnails comes from the cover of “The History of Bovril Advertising”. This was an undated in-house production (no ISBN) issued in about 1970. The book tells us that the aim of the contest, (which required a donation of £5, equivalent to £13.50 in today’s money to enter), was to rank the first 12 out of 16 examples in order of popularity. For prize winners, the sums were impressive - out of a total of £30,000 (£1.6 million today) prize money, £12,000 (£648,000 today) went to the overall winner. The equivalent of £3.8 million was donated to hospital charities.

Bovril’s viscous charms may hold little attraction for the modern consumer but its distinctive red labels on black jars can still be glimpsed on the lower supermarket shelves but the days when it was one of the most intensively advertised products will not be returning. It began life as a Victorian product in an era when anything new in the marketplace had to fight hard for attention.  Outdoor advertising was virtually unregulated and popular magazines catering to an increasingly literate public, swelled their revenues with pages and pages of implausible and outlandish claims that largely went unchallenged - consumer protection was not a thing. Relentless publicity campaigns put the Bovril name into the public eye at every opportunity with constant appeals to patriotic fervour while building a strong association with good health and physical strength. In 1893 its factory manager, S H Benson, left to start his own advertising agency with Bovril as his first client. It would go on to be one of the most successful British agencies of the 20th. century until it was acquired by WPP in 1989. Two examples of Victorian advertising are at the end of the post.

More on Bovril can be seen at Prevents That Sinking Feeling (2007) and British to the Backbone (2017).

 

Bovril – British to the Backbone

This is a second selection of vintage advertising and publicity for Bovril and includes something from every decade between 1900 and the 1950s. To see a selection posted in 2007 please follow this link. Our survey begins in 1909 with a postcard from the The Imperial International Exhibition. It shows Bovril flying the flag for empire from the battlements of the Bovril Castle. Three Highland cattle are posed in the first floor window apertures under the well-worn slogan: “We hear they want more”. When Britain went to war, Bovril stood ready to play its part. In 1917 the company produced a booklet for distribution to the troops in the field in the form of a War Diary. Inside was a list of day by day events in the war from 1914 to 1916 and several pages listing Ranks, Badges, Medals and Decorations. The bovine theme, with its handy associations with strength and virility, remained popular and served with distinction in the Second World War. Pyjama Man, star of the “Sinking Feeling” ads was another regular and turns up here, escaping the unwanted attentions of a furious beast. A sober realism prevailed in the late 1940s, being succeeded by a typical example of 1950s whimsy, where the sacrificial ox has been embedded in a stained glass window, accompanied by some lazy doggerel. S H Benson, the advertising agency for Bovril throughout these years, was notorious for providing a refuge for self-indulgent, tweedy, pipe-smoking copywriters, happily engaged in turning out bad verse by the yard. In their off-duty hours they would busy themselves writing thrillers and mysteries involving white slavers, debutantes with a taste for the demi-monde and sinister Orientals. It’s impressive how this unprepossessing product has survived for almost 150 years. Whether it lasts much longer is a matter for conjecture – it could be that the last Bovril consumer on Earth has already been born.