Persuasion, patriotism and PR: US advertising in the Second World War

The purpose of this article is to explore how the (War) Advertising Council organized the advertising community to assist the US government's home front campaigns during the Second World War. It aims to discuss how the council urged individual advertisers to use their product‐ads to instruct the civilian population about behavioral changes that the government deemed essential to the war effort. The task required great ambidexterity: paying a high level of attention to the government's wartime needs while coaching and encouraging advertisers into compliance. As such, the article also aims to discuss the council's challenge in weighing the government's wartime needs against commercial pressures. A case study of the Advertising Council's 1944 campaign to “Stamp out VD” seeks to illustrate the latter concern.

The article comprises an historical account of the US advertising industry during the Second World War. Applying a qualitative approach, it relies on archival sources, industry trade publications, newspapers accounts and existing scholarship for its information.

While publicly framing its wartime contribution as a patriotic gesture, the council's underlying rationale was that of serving the advertising industry in a public relations capacity. Unsure of its standing as America entered the war, the donation of time and talent to the government's war effort helped strengthen the advertising industry's economic position and social standing. As such, the council was not only a pioneer of “social marketing”, but also demonstrated a sophisticated use of “strategic philanthropy,” long before it became a common marketing practice.

Analyzing previously un‐explored sources, the article sheds new light on the US advertising industry's public relations strategies during the Second World War.