EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18000, 10 November 1926, Page 5

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.

MASS ATTACK BY PUBLICITY. GENEROUS FUNDS FOR RESEARCH. From Our Correspondent. LONDON, September 30. Mr L. C. M. S. Amery summoned representatives of the Press to the office of Dominion Affairs in order that he might lay before them the lines along which the Government wished the Empire Marketing Board—on w’hich Mr R. S. Forsyth, London representative of the Meat Prdoucers' Board, represents New Zealand —to work, and how the £1,000,000 a year which it is proposed to spend in promoting the production and sale of Empire products shall be expended. The Secretary for the Dominions took some pains to explain that the home producer was not excluded from this scheme; he emphasised the fact that home products came first, British dominions next and foreign products last. It will be seen that the Empire Marketing Board is to function chiefly as an advertising medium, and secondly as an organiser of research into problems of productoin and distribution of foods. The board is to launch a mass attack on the consuming public by means of advertisement and to appeal by every means known to the publicity agent—slogans, posters, exhibitions—to the consumer to buy Empire goods. This constitutes the biggest thing of the kind that a British Government Department has ever undertaken. Large-scale advertising by Government is almost entirely a post-war development, and dates from 'Wembley. There are to be exhibits of Empire produce at some of the most important trade exhibitions, and Professor A. E. Richardson has designed a pavilion for this purpose. The board has enlisted the co-operation of leading business and commercial men like Sir Woodman Burbidge, chairman of Harrods, Viscount Burnham, Mr F. Pick, of the London Underground Railways, Mr J. C. Sto bart, of the British Broadcasting Com* pany, and others who come into contact with the public and the advertising world. The big posters which will be ready at the beginning of the New Year will include special maps of the Empire, showing productions, with not too much text and instruction on them. They are endeavouring to get the best sites for the display of these posters in London and the big cities. They are arranging for a campaign of publicity in all the newspapers, and are developing suitable films. Through the British Broadcasting Company they are arranging lectures on Empire production, and intend to take a very active part in all exhibitions. The first move to assist the dominions has already been made. The board has taken 3500 square feet of space at the Imperial Fruit Show, to be held in the Holland Park Hall from October 29 to November 6, and is letting this out freely to the dominions which care to organise exhibits. In parenthesis it may be added that a fruit exhibition at this time of year is no use to Australia or New Zealand, and a New Zealand representative has urged the need of two fruit exhibitions a year at least. The marketing committee, of which Mr Ormsby-Gore, Under Secretary for the Colonies, is chairman, is presenting the prizes—cups and cash awards totalling more than £3OO in value—for the window-dressing competition for London fruit shops that is taking place in connection with the Imperial Show. All the 6000 retail fruitsellers in London have been invited to enter for the window-dressing competition by circular. Classes have been devised according to the rateable value of shops, so that it is hoped to attract the great London stores equally with the small retailer in the suburban back street. As first prizes two silver cups, specially designed, and valued at £IOO each, are being offered by the Empire Marketing Board to be won outright. But, probably, the bulk of the sum

available will be expended on a thorough campaign of educational publicity, in which the newspapers, hoardings, and other advertising mediums will be pressed into service. The public will have pointed out to them not only the merits of the food-stuffs and other imports that we receive from the Empire, but the important economic advantages that will ensue to England from a development of internal trading within the great commonwealth of British nations. The board, it will be recalled, was constituted as the result of evidence secured by the Imperial Economic Committee from the dominions, and food producers and distributors in this country. Inquiries have already been held by the Imperial Economic Committee into the marketing of meat, fruit, and dairy produce in Great Britain, and a great many reforms have been recommended, which it will be the task of the Marketing Board to urge on importers and distributors. It is also their intention to publish bulletins in the schools of an informative and educational character. They have also allotted £40.000 a year for creating better marketing methods for home produce and. what they consider is of first-class importance, assistance will be provided to obtain the labelling of produce, so that Empire imports may become familiar throughout the country. Information about consignments and market conditions will be circulated to secure that commodities may have ready and advantageous sale. The board has already taken one step to implement Imperial Eponomic Committee findings by announcing that the cost of transporting pedigree cattle, sheep and swine from the United Kingdom to other parts of the Empire shall be assisted financially. It may be remarked parenthetically here, too, that that Union Castle Line and the Shaw Savill have voluntarily carried pedigree stock. Nothing has been done in this way of late to New Zealand, partly because it has not been necessary, but, writes one correspondent, an authority here tells us the Dominion will be wanting fresh blood in its flocks and herds within a few years. RESEARCH WORK. The other section of the board’s work, research, will not be actually done by it. Rather the board will assist financially such existing enterprises as are doing good work. Thus £IO,OOO has been allocated to research into mineral constituents of pastures, and it was hoped to discover the causes which, in various parts of the Empire, underlay the persistent symptoms of malnutrition among flocks and herds. Good work had already been done at the Rowett Institute, Aberdeen, and at the Onderstepoort in South Africa. Research into this problem had been extended to Kenya, and would be further extended to Australia, Southern Rhodesia and, it was hoped, Palestine. A grant of £21,000 has been promised t.o the Imperial Cqllege of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad, on condition that a certain sum would be provided by

certain cotton interests in the United Kingdom. That sum had now been forthcoming. Steps were being taken to re-open the Amani Institute, Tanganyika, and to convert it into a firstclass institution. The problems of cold storage were most important, and a sum not exceeding £25,000 had been promised to the Low Temperature Research Station, Cambridge, in respect of buildings and equipment, and an annual maintenance contribution of £SOOO for five years. The board were also considering favourably the establishment of a cold storage experimental station at East Mailing. A capital sum of £15,000 and an annual maintenance grant of £4OOO for five years had been offered to the Managing Committee of the Imperial Bureau of Entomology for the establishment, under careful safeguards, of a laboratory for the breeding and distribution to the dominions and colonies of beneficial parasites to control and destroy insect pest? It had been calculated that 10 per cent of the world’s crops were destroyed by insect pests. This, in brief, is the programme the Imperial Marketing Board is setting before it. It should be added that the constitution and policy of the board will be reviewed at the Imperial Conference. As an aid in making known the range and scope of the products available within the Empire, the newly-arranged'

galleries of the Imperial Institute at South Kensington must not be omit ted. This does not come within the orbit of the Empire Marketing Board’s activities, but the galleries certainly play a part in Empire publicity. To mark their re-opening last week, 1000 head teachers of London schools were invited to inspect the new display, of which New Zealand is certainly the star exhibit. Mr Ormsby-Gore, the Duchess of Atholl and Mr A. M. Samuei addressed the teachers, and Mr OrmsbyGore paid a tribute to the enthusiasm of Sir James Allen in making the new galleries a success, and he expressed the hope that other representatives of the dominions and colonies would take as abiding an interest in furthering the display so that the educational and commercial value may be fully utilised. The sympathetic help of the assembled teachers was besought by these speakers.