A Japanese Advertising Agency: An Anthropology of Media and Markets

This book tells for the first time the story of the central relationship of novelist Willa Cather’s life, her nearly forty-year partnership with Edith Lewis. Cather has been described as a distinguished artist who turned her back on the crass commercialism of the early twentieth century and as a deeply private woman who strove to hide her sexuality, and Lewis has often been identified as her secretary. However, Lewis was a successful professional woman who edited popular magazines and wrote advertising copy at a major advertising agency and who, behind the scenes, edited Cather’s fiction. Recognizing Lewis’s role in Cather’s creative process changes how we understand Cather as an artist, while recovering their domestic partnership (which they did not seek to hide) provides a fresh perspective on lesbian life in the early twentieth century. Homestead reconstructs Cather and Lewis’s life together in Greenwich Village and on Park Avenue, their travels to the American Southwest that formed the basis of Cather’s novels The Professor’s House and Death Comes for the Archbishop, their summers as part of an all-woman resort community on Grand Manan Island, and Lewis’s magazine and advertising work as a context for her editorial collaboration with Cather. Homestead tells a human story of two women who chose to live in partnership and also explains how the Cold War panic over homosexuality caused biographers and critics to make Lewis and her central role in Cather’s life vanish even as she lived on alone for twenty-five years after her partner’s death.

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Exploring advertiser's expectations of advertising agency services

Journal of Marketing Communications ◽

10.1080/13527266.2014.920902 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 22 (6) ◽

pp. 587-601 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Sarah Turnbull ◽

Colin Wheeler

Keyword(s):

Advertising Agency

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Modernity in British advertising: selling cocoa and chocolate in the 1930s

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing ◽

10.1108/jhrm-05-2017-0015 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 451-466 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Michael French

Keyword(s):

Well Being ◽

Advertising Agency ◽

Consumer Durables ◽

Content Type ◽

Production Methods ◽

Health And Nutrition ◽

And Gender ◽

Gender Groups ◽

New Consumer ◽

Health And Well Being

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of “push” marketing in the confectionery industry in Britain during the 1930s. It examines the interplay between a manufacturer and advertising agency in creating advertising for cocoa and chocolate. Design/methodology/approach A survey of the literature examines the uses of health and well-being in the design of advertising in Britain between the wars. The records of Rowntree and its main advertising agency, J Walter Thompson, are used to examine the themes and tactics used in advertising for cocoa and Aero chocolate bars during the 1930s. Findings The paper emphasises the different ways in which health and nutrition was used in advertising for the two products. The campaigns of the 1930s built on earlier use of these themes. J Walter Thompson looked for ways of presenting commodities as “new and improved” and their role extended into pressing for changes to production methods and the nature of products. Themes of modernity, sexuality and lifestyles all featured, confirming conclusions of earlier studies. However, targeting of mothers and of different age and gender groups indicated that market segmentation was used extensively via print media and tailored advertising messages. Originality/value Although Cadbury, Rowntree and confectionery have been studied in depth before, this paper emphasises their role in applying new advertising ideas to everyday items. It points to the influence of advertising on the mass of consumers compared to the middle- and upper-income groups targeted in the marketing of houses, motor-cars and new consumer durables.

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