Abstract

"From “Ceramic Arts of Destruction” to “Sunny Postwar Breakfasts”: The Reinvention of British and American Pottery Advertising During WWII"

Stephanie Vincent, Kent State University (svincen2@kent.edu)

How does a business maintain their identity and consumer relationships at a time when they have little or no product to sell? During World War II, the combination of military needs and raw materials shortages severely curtailed the market for consumer home goods such as dinnerware. For British and American potteries, the war represented a dilemma: while government orders kept production lines moving, it also meant the loss of civilian manufacture for the duration and a question of how to keep a customer base loyal in the postwar future. The solution lay in advertising: during the war, these potteries reinvented their promotional strategies to sell wartime ideas alongside (or in place of) tangible products. While a popular strategy among businesses at the time, potteries had the advantage that their production was going to the war effort and as a result, could draw a clear line from their role in defense to their role on the postwar table.

Through a deep reading of selected advertising placed in trade journals and women’s magazines, this case study analysis will explore three major themes present in pottery advertisements in both Britain and the United States, all of which emphasize the relationship between current defense production and promises for the future. Major themes appearing in these ads include companies’ assistance of the troops through providing tableware and weapons; innovation and improvement of production developed in the war and available for future civilian orders; and finally, selling the notion of peace and reuniting with loved ones once victory was achieved. By reinventing their advertising to sell an idealized postwar future (one that deliberately included their products on the tables), these companies built up a level of goodwill at a necessary time as imports from occupied Japan, Czechoslovakia, and elsewhere threatened the existence of domestic producers.