Mark Abrams and the Remaking of Modern Britain

This research project examines the work of advertising consultancies in mid-twentieth century Britain. It posits that emerging consultancies, such as Mark Abrams’ Research Services Ltd, played an important role in mediating between political parties, government, business and the public. As the quasi corporatism of the inter-war years was institutionalised by Clement Attlee’s Labour government, Britain’s new advertising industries began to wed new technologies to a wider project of national renewal. My argument is that the promotional work and demographic research conducted by Britain’s nascent advertising consultancies articulated a vision of the future distinct from both American and Soviet models.

The project will examine the central role played by advertising consultancies in the reconfiguration of Britain’s national self-image (and ideas of citizenship) that occurred during the twentieth century.

During the inter-war period there was a piecemeal but concerted effort among ‘middle opinion’ (as Arthur Marwick termed it) to encourage Britain’s ‘producers’ (including farmers, industrialists and trade unions) to work more closely together. The impact of the slump prompted government to encourage distinctive sectors of the economy to independently arrange themselves into larger organisational units as part of an effort to eliminate wasteful competition and replace it with economically and socially beneficial co-operation. This was itself part of a wider attempt to encourage the ‘producer units’ of the British economy to develop a broader-view of the national scene at the expense of narrow sectarian interests. These limited experiments in, what might be termed, quasi corporatism, were massively expanded during the war and became a policy touchstone of Clement Attlee’s Labour administration in 1945.

This political development went hand-in-hand with underlying technological and cultural change. New industries; dependent on oil, fine chemicals and the electrical industries required new ways of working, new economic models and the creation of new human environments. By the middle of the inter war period these changes became reflected in mainstream of British national life as consumer shows, educational broadcasts, popular visual art, museum exhibitions and the documentary cinema movement began to engage with the political, economic, social and imaginative impact of new developments in media communications, transport and mass production.

Among the greatest beneficiaries of these changes were a nascent group of new integrated advertising consultancies that had sprung up in the inter-war period and had consolidated their presence during the War. Operating at the nexus between government, industry and the wider public they were to play a crucial role in the rapid series of political and cultural reconfigurements that occurred in mid-twentieth century Britain.

This research project extends and builds on existing scholarship by analysing the promotional work and demographic research conducted by Britain’s nascent advertising consultancies as they attempted to articulate a vision of the nation’s future (and its people) distinct from both American and Soviet models.

Dr Scott Anthony