ADVERTISING DOMINION’S PRIMARY PRODUCTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27275, 29 December 1949, Page 6

ADVERTISING DOMINION’S PRIMARY PRODUCTS

Resident Correspondent LONDON, Dec. 20. To millions of people in Britain a large New Zealand poster showing a pipe-smoking farmer sitting on a gate, an eager little girl, and a dog, against a background of green pasture and grazing stock has long been familiar. To them it typifies the paradise they insist New Zealand is. To the native New Zealander it is a nostalgic reminder of home. Now comes the news that next year this poster is to be changed. It will be replaced by a romantic one showing settlers landing on a lonely beach 100 years ago. There are no green pastures, no placid cows and sheep, no mention of lamb, butter, cheese, beef, and pork—only a dignified legend: “Birth of a Century’s Enterprise, a large “ New Zealand ” and below it the line: “ Fine quality foqd for Britain. This poster in soft pastel shades

has been painted by Anna Zinkeisen who is probably the best known poster artist in Britain today. It has been designed to appeal especially to women and a survey has shown that it has largely succeeded in its aim. Like other New Zealand advertising today its purpose is to retain the good name our produce established before the war and to prepare for the time when the housewife can again demand New Zealand iamb and New Zealand butter instead of having to accept anything that is offering. It is an example of “ prestige advertising.” , The new poster is a joint production by the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board and the New Zealand Dairy Products Marketing Commission who co-operate fully in these mat-

ters. In addition to this general publicity each organisation issues a certain amount of particular advertising. The biggest effort has been the printing and distribution by the Meat Board to butchers throughout Great Britain of 30,000 sets of transfers and stand-up show cards for window displays. The central piece is a lamb standing on lush grass before a large globe showing Britain and New Zealand with an inset slogan “The Best in the World.” This material has been much appreciated by butchers and has received wide publicity. The most spectacular scheme is the free decoration and signwriting of butchers’ vans with a painting in full colour of a valley well sprinkled with lambs and carrying in big letters

NEW ZE A LAND

fine aualilv load tor tint aw

the words “New Zealand,” and again, “The Best in the World.’ The quality of our meat is also brought to the notice of the butchers by displays at Smithfield and throughout the country of big stands decorated with prime carcasses. Otherwise the general public is reached through advertisements in cinemas, magazines and by blank menu cards which are distributed to notels. The cinema publicity consists of an animated cartoon in colour plus appropriate slogans showing a food ship travelling between New Zealand and Britain. Magazine advertising is at present restricted to women’s journals. Advertising by the Dairy Commission is on a more restricted scale and consists only of display tickets and butter dummies for butchers’ shops. Like the Meat Board, it loses no opportunity of exhibiting at trade exhibitions such as the British Dairy Farmers’ show next month at Olympia.