How Things Have Changed

In an old antiques shop yesterday I happened to stumble across this old newspaper from 1948, and it's fascinating to see just how different newspaper advertising was 60 years ago. The newspaper, which I ended up buying, was a copy of the Illustrated London News from April 10th 1948, and the front page contains no headlines at all, instead it is full of advertisements. These advertisements rely almost entirely on text, so the typography plays a much more important role than it does in newspaper advertising today.

The Illustrated London News, 10th April 1948

A close up of the paper's illustrated masthead

My favourite advert is the one at the top for Bulmer's Cider, the very same Bulmer's which has in recent years seen a huge rise in popularity, helped by advertising campaigns both in print and on TV. It's interesting to see that 60 years ago, they were marketing it as "Champagne Cider" or "Pomagne", clearly trying to make it sound more sophisticated. This sophisticated/luxurious image is helped by the addition of the Royal Crest, a feature which I believe does still remain on Bulmer's bottles to this day, although now a lot less prominent. I cannot however, imagine "Champagne Cider de Luxe" adorning the bottles of Bulmer's I drink down at the pub.

This newspaper is also an fascinating example of how the art of copywriting has changed. The adverts shown here use very different language to entice the customer than would be used today. Describing the customer as "discriminating" seemed to be common amongst advertisers of the time, for example in these two adverts for Basildon Bond notepaper, "Always the choice of discriminating people", and Harden's Tea, "For the discriminating".




I also love the copywriting on this advert for King Six cigars, which states "The quantity available for distribution is still, unfortunately, insufficient to meet demands". It's a reminder of a bygone era of advertising, but I think it's a shame we don't see a little more like this in newspapers today.