EMPIRE MARKETING.

Otago Witness, Issue 4048, 13 October 1931, Page 7

EMPIRE MARKETING.

THE BOARD’S NEW SHOP. DISPLAY OF NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE. ADVERTISING AT BLACKPOOL. Another front window in England has been filled with New Zealand produce. This is at Blackpool—-in many ways the most remarkable seaside centre in the Old Country—where the Empire Marketing Board have opened a shop for the holiday season. The two previous Empire Marketing Board shops have been in Glasgow and Birmingham and have carried on, for six months each, the good work of putting New Zealand produce directly under the eyes of Old Country housewives. Striking success attended these ventures. Now, at Blackpool, a new experiment has been launched. The aim here is to catch crowds from ail the many scattered industrial towns of Lancashre and Yorkshire who (lock to Blackpool when the “ Wakes ” are in full swing Blackpool is the Mecca of North country folk on holiday. That is why the Empire Marketing Board have chosen a central site on the sea front and just by the famous tower, and are handing these commanding shop premises to the Empire countries, in turn, to display their goods, and sell samples, and, by every kind of enterprise, to extend their markets. NEW ZEALAND ENERGY. It would be impossible to open shops in every industrial town. The expense and the strain on staffs would be prohibitive. But. in Blackpool, visitors from Wigen and Batley, from Halifax and

Preston and from a wider area still, pass through between July and October and none of them can miss the Empire shop. There they are invited to test the excellence of New Zealand produce and. if they approve (and who doubts that they will?) to make it part of their daily shopping when their holidays end and the trains or charabancs take them home.

The New Zealand show is a triumph for the energy and experience of the New Zealand officials who have staged it and it has had a good “send-off" from Ihe Mayor of Blackpool who welcomed Mr William Lunn, the Under-secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, and Mr Drew, the New Zealand I’ublicty Officer in London, at the opening. Nobody who hag not seen the masses of people, thick on the wide sands, up and down the several miles of front and in the enormous pleasure resorts, like the Tower and the Winter Gardens, can picture what Blackpool is like at this season. No Empire shop window ever opened on to such a scene before. This is a unique chance for New Zealand and full advantage is being taken of it.