'Advertising during War-Time'
Anything to Make a Franc
Just what every soldiers needs in a muddy trench : a water purifying straw.
Business doesn't come to a standstill just because there is a war going on. Not even a war the magnitude and scale of the Great War. Of course wars are boom-times for industries supplying arms and munitions and equipement for the armed forces, but not all businesses and manufacturing firms were able to profit in this manner. They still had to sell to consumers as best they could.
Many firms jumped on the patriotic bandwagon, adapting their advertising to confer with the spirit of the times. At times this was done in the best of taste, apparently sincere and genuine in intent. The collection of advertisements from the British firm of Fry's would appear to fall in such a category. Other companies simply shifted the look of their advertising to appeal to men under arms and then again there are a number of firms that must have been quite desperate, both in regards to good taste and commercial advertising talent. The results were at times unintentionally comic.
Here is a collection of advertisements taken from war-time magazines that have a bearing on the war in some manner or another. Often it is only by showing a soldier in uniform, but even so it is interesting to note the manner in which some obviously useless products are presented as being of service to soldiers.
Cocoa and Chocolate
Food and Pills
Timepieces and Watches
Pens and Things
Personal Hygiene
another way of looking at trench building