“Is It Smart to Be Thrifty?”: How Advertisers Navigated Message Strategies During the Great Depression

ABSTRACT

Despite the major historical significance of the Great Depression, little scholarly research exists that analyzes the state of newspaper advertising during the 1930s, particularly in the hard-hit Dust Bowl states. Using Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel, this research examined display advertising during one of the most difficult years in the most difficult places: 1934 in the Dust Bowl region of Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. Results show that essential services, such as banks, utilities, and transportation, primarily used the informational/rational strategy to provide reassurance and empathy to consumers. However, nonessential industries, such as cosmetics, expensive home goods, and tobacco, often used the transformational/sensory approach to encourage high-quality experiences through spending. This historical analysis offers a unique opportunity for contemporary advertisers to understand how past advertising strategies during a crisis influence the present.

KEYWORDS:

• 1930s
• advertising
• Dust Bowl
• Great Depression
• Great Plains

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. David Welky, Everything Was Better in America: Print Culture in the Great Depression (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 1.

2. Welky, Everything Was Better in America, 10.

3. Michael Barthel, Katerina Eva Matsa, and Kirsten Worden, “Coronavirus-Driven Downturn Hits Newspapers Hard as TV News Thrives,” Pew Research Center, October 29, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2020/10/29/coronavirus-driven-downturn-hits-newspapers-hard-as-tv-news-thrives/.

4. “Newspapers Fact Sheet: State of the News Media,” Pew Research Center, June 29, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/newspapers; and Brad Adgate, “Newspapers Have Been Struggling And Then Came The Pandemic,” Forbes, August 20, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/08/20/newspapers-have-been-struggling-and-then-came-the-pandemic/?sh=49c0738512e6.

5. Rakesh Kochhar, “Unemployment Rose Higher in Three Months of COVID-19 than it did in Two Years of the Great Recession,” Pew Research Center, June 11, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/11/unemployment-rose-higher-in-three-months-of-covid-19-than-it-did-in-two-years-of-the-great-recession/.

6. Tao Deng, Daradirek Ekachai, and James Pokrywczynski, “Global COVID-19 Advertisements: Use of Informational, Transformational and Narrative Advertising Strategies,” Health Communication 37, no. 5 (2022): 628, https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1859725 and Suzanne Vranica, “Coronavirus Upended Advertising,” Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2020.

7. Deng, Ekachai, and Pokrywczynski, “Global COVID-19 Advertisements”; Daneshwar Sharma and Rahul Meena, “Impact of COVID-19 on TV Advertisements: Informational, Transformational & Narrative Analyses of Post-COVID-19 TV Advertisements,” Journal of Marketing Communications (July 2022), https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2022.2098518; Prakiriti Rashi et al., “Influence of Post Covid Change in Consumer Behaviour of Millennials on Advertising Techniques and Practices,” Aptisi Transactions on Technopreneurship 2, no. 2 (2021): 201–8, https://doi.org/10.34306/att.v3i2.210; Cynthia Morton et al., “Advertising in the Times of COVID: A Tight-Loose Analysis of Pandemic-Related TV Commercials,” Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising 44, no. 2 (2023): 123–41, https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2022.2149640; and Francesca Sobande and Bethany Klein, “Come and Get a Taste of Normal: Advertising, Consumerism and the Coronavirus Pandemic,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 26, no. 4 (2023): 493–509, https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494221108219.

8. Christine Hauser, “The Mask Slackers of 1918,” New York Times, August 3, 2020; George Petras and Karl Gelles, “100 Years Ago, Philadelphia Chose a Parade Over Social Distancing During the 1918 Spanish Flu—and Paid a Heavy Price,” USA Today, May 22, 2020; and Garrett Mitchell, “Forgotten Faces of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic,” Arizona Republic, May 2, 2020.

9. Peeter W. J. Verlegh et al., “‘Don’t Worry, We Are Here for You:’ Brands as External Source of Control During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Journal of Advertising 50, no. 3 (2021): 262–70, https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2021.1927913.

10. Verlegh, “Don’t Worry,” 263. See also Marc Fischer, Franziska Völckner, and Henrik Sattler, “How Important are Brands? A Cross-Category, Cross-Country Study,” Journal of Marketing Research 47, no. 5 (2010): 823–39, https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.47.5.823.

11. For example, journalism history textbooks like William Sloan’s Media in America provide general overviews of the topic but not scholarly analysis. Danielle Sarver Coombs and Bob Batchelor’s, We Are What We Sell: How Advertising Shapes American Life … And Always Has includes two chapters that mention the Great Depression. Roland Marchand’s Advertising the American Dream provides a comprehensive analysis of advertising in the 1920s and 1930s, but heavily focuses on magazines and just a few national newspapers.

12. Welkey, “Everything Was Better,” 1.

13. Sandra Haarsager, “Choosing Silence: A Case of Reverse Agenda Setting in Depression Era News Coverage,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 6, no. 1 (1991): 35–46, https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327728jmme0601_3.

14. Haarsager, “Choosing Silence,” 35–46.

15. Christopher W. Shaw, “‘The Story Was Not Printed:’ The Press Covers the 1930s Banking Crisis,” Journalism History 45, no. 1 (2019): 26–44, https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2019.1574171.

16. Welky, Everything Was Better, 2.

17. Haarsager, “Choosing Silence,” 35–46.

18. William David Sloan, Media in America (Northport, AL: Vision Press, 2011), 421.

19. Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of those who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 189.

20. Theodore Saloutos, “The New Deal and Farm Policy in the Great Plains,” Journal of American History 61, no. 2 (1969): 394–416, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4617691.

21. Rita Adrosko, “THE FASHION’S IN THE BAG: Recycling Feed, Flour, and Sugar Sacks During the Middle Decades of the 20th Century,” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings (1992), 130.

22. Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, The Dust Bowl (San Francisco: The Dust Bowl Film Project/Chronicle Books, 2012), 64.

23. Duncan and Burns, The Dust Bowl, 70. This is a recollection by Trixie Travis Brown of Follett, Texas.

24. Welky, Everything Was Better, 2.

25. Duncan and Burns, The Dust Bowl, 50–51.

26. Duncan and Burns, The Dust Bowl, 51. This is a recollection from Wayne Lewis of Oklahoma.

27. Duncan and Burns, The Dust Bowl, 64.

28. Sanora Babb, Dorothy Babb, and Douglas Wixson, On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007).

29. Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).

30. A letter from Caroline Henderson to a friend is discussed in Egan, The Worst Hard Time, 154.

31. Richard Hornbeck, “The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short and Long-run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe,” American Economic Review 102, no. 4 (2012): 1477–1507, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.102.4.1477.

32. Martha L. Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 169.

33. Earnest Elmo Calkins, The Business of Advertising (New York: D. Appleton, 1915), 1.

34. Hugh E. Agnew, Advertising Media; How to Weigh and Measure (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1932), 14–16.

35. Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 26.

36. Agnew, Advertising Media, viii.

37. Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later, 158.

38. S. Roland Hall, The Advertising Handbook (New York: McGraw Hill, 1921), 77.

39. Calkins, Advertising, 10.

40. Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, xxi.

41. Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, “Baby, You Can Drive My Car: Advertising Women’s Freedom in 1920s America,” American Journalism 33, no. 4 (2016): 380, https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2016.1241641.

42. Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, xxi.

43. Rabinovitch-Fox, “Baby, You Can Drive,” 380. See also Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 9–13.

44. Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, xxi.

45. Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later, 168.

46. Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later, 171.

47. Christopher Brown, “Consumer Credit and the Propensity to Consume: Evidence from 1930,” Journal of Post Keynesian Economics 19, no. 4 (1997): 622, https://doi.org/10.1080/01603477.1997.11490131.

48. Brown, “Consumer Credit,” 618.

49. Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later, 152.

50. “Business Safe, Ad Men Told,” Washington Times, May 16, 1930.

51. Sloan, Media in America, 421; and Welky, Everything Was Better in America, 10?

52. Yifeng Hua, “Changing Advertising Trends in the Seattle Times during the Great Depression,” Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium University of Washington (2009), https://depts.washington.edu/depress/advertising.shtml. See also Peter Buell Hirsch, “A Breakfast of Champions: Brand Marketing Lessons from the Great Depression,” Journal of Business Strategy 41, no. 4 (2020): 65, https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-04-2020-0081.

53. Kenneth M. Goode, Manual of Modern Advertising (New York: Greenberg, 1932), 6.

54. Hirsch, “A Breakfast of Champions,” 65.

55. Hugh E. Agnew and Warren B. Dygert, Advertising Media, 1st ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1938), 180–81.

56. Agnew, Advertising Media, 39.

57. Agnew, Advertising Media, 28.

58. The J. Walter Thompson News Bulletin (May 1930), John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

59. Associated Press, “Fair Profit Share Asked for Worker,” Evening Star, June 18, 1931.

60. “Newspaper Ads Trade Bulwark,” Seward Daily Gateway, August 18, 1932.

61. “Advertising Cited as Prosperity Aid,” Evening Star, January 3, 1932.

62. “Bank Head Urges Sound Advertising,” Waterbury Democrat, October 25, 1933.

63. Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 288.

64. Roland Taylor, “A Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel,” Journal of Advertising Research 39, no. 6 (1999).

65. James Carey, “A Cultural Approach to Communication,” Communication 2, no. 1 (1975): 1–22.

66. William Wells, How Advertising Works (Chicago: Needham Harper, 1980); Christopher Puto and William Wells, Informational and Transformational Advertising: The Differential Effects of Time (Provo, UT: Association of Consumer Research, 1984); and Taejun Lee, Ronald Taylor, and Wonjun Chung, “Changes in Advertising Strategies During an Economic Crisis: An Application of Taylor’s Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel,” Journal of Applied Communication Research 39, no. 1 (2011): 75–91, https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2010.536846.

67. Taylor, “A Six-Segment Message.”

68. Taylor.

69. Lee, Taylor, and Chung, “Changes in Advertising Strategies”; Deng, Ekachai, and Pokrywczynski, “Global COVID-19 Advertisements;” and Sharma and Meena, “Impact of COVID-19 on TV Advertisements.”

70. History.com Editors, “Dust Bowl,” History, A&E Television Networks, August 24, 2022.

71. “The Dust Bowl,” National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska, https://drought.unl.edu/dustbowl/; I. Link, T. J. Woofter, Jr., and C. C. Taylor, Research Bulletin: Relief and Rehabilitation in the Drought Area (Washington, DC: Works Progress Administration, 1937).

72. Jesse Greenspan, “What Happened on Black Sunday?” History, A&E Television Networks, April 13, 2020.

73. Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, xix.

74. Population of Cities in Kansas, 1900–2020, University of Kansas, https://ipsr.ku.edu/ksdata/ksah/population/2pop33.pdf; and Texas Almanac: City Population History from 1850–2000, www.texasalmanac.com/drupal-backup/images/CityPopHist%20web.pdf.

75. Teri Finneman and Yong Volz, “Leading the Second Wave Into the Third Wave: US Women Journalists and Discursive Continuity of Feminism,” Feminist Media Studies 20, no. 6 (2020): 869, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1644658.

76. Taylor, “A Six-Segment Message,” 13.

77. First National Bank, advertisement, Hutchinson News, January 6, 1934.

78. First National Bank, advertisement, Albuquerque Tribune, January 6, 1934.

79. Emporia State Bank, advertisement, Emporia Gazette, February 27, 1934.

80. Citizens-Farmers National Bank, advertisement, Chickasha Daily Express, January 1, 1934.

81. W. B. Hicks Co., advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, February 15, 1934.

82. Colorado National Bank, advertisement, El democrata del condado de Costilla, May 12, 1934.

83. Given Bros, advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, January 12, 1934.

84. Star Shoe Store, advertisement, Albuquerque Tribune, March 9, 1934.

85. Hemphill-Wells Co., advertisement, Lubbock Morning Avalanche, November 16, 1934.

86. J. C. Penney, Gamble Stores, advertisement, Frontier, July 12, 1934; “Gamble Stores,” Frontier, November 15, 1934.

87. J. C. Penney, advertisement, Emporia Gazette, March 13, 1934; and “The Womans Store,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 1, 1934.

88. Anne Adams, advertisement, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, January 1, 1934.

89. Greyhound, advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, January 31, 1934.

90. Santa Fe Railroad, advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, February 9, 1934.

91. Wellington Motor Company, advertisement, Wellington Leader, June 7, 1934.

92. Southern Pacific, advertisement, Mexia Weekly Herald, May 25, 1934.

93. Gateway Auto, advertisement, Clovis News-Journal, March 10, 1934.

94. Sanders Furniture, advertisement, Marshall County News, April 20, 1934.

95. Las Vegas Laundry, advertisement, Las Vegas Daily Optic, April 21, 1934.

96. Venetian Cleansing Cream, advertisement, Wichita Falls Times, February 4, 1934.

97. “Melba Cleansing Cream,” Elgin Journal, June 7, 1934.

98. McNeill Motor Co., advertisement, Galveston Daily News, April 22, 1934.

99. Murine, advertisement, Brookshire Times, July 13, 1934.

100. Cole’s, advertisement, Morning Chronicle, January 13, 1934.

101. New Mexico Power Co., advertisement, Santa Fe New Mexican, July 20, 1934.

102. Chickasha Daily Express, January 1, 1934.

103. Chickasha Daily Express, January 9, 1934.

104. Chickasha Daily Express, January 13, 1934.

105. Chris Jones, “Dust Bowl Defined Worst of Times,” Oklahoman, April 24, 1994.

106. Dayton and Burns, The Dust Bowl, 66.

107. Collins Garett Finance Co., advertisement, Big Spring Daily Herald, December 18, 1934.

108. Consolidated Auto Parts, advertisement, Omaha Guide, October 27, 1934.

109. Gerber Consolidated Auto Parts Co., advertisement, Frontier, May 26, 1934.

110. Keen Motor Co., advertisement, Kerrville Mountain Sun, June 7, 1934.

111. Lux Toilet Soap, advertisement, Albuquerque Journal, April 18, 1934.

112. Lux, advertisement, Wichita Beacon, July 11, 1934.

113. Lifebuoy, advertisement, Austin-American Statesman, September 24, 1934.

114. Melba, advertisement, Summerfield Sun, February 8, 1934.

115. Cuticura Talcum, advertisement, Granbury News, August 31, 1934.

116. Mercolized Wax, advertisement, Shiner Gazette, June 28, 1934.

117. Luckies, advertisement, Clovis News-Journal, January 19, 1934.

118. Chesterfield, advertisement, Santa Fe New Mexican, May 14, 1934.

119. Camel, advertisement, San Angelo Evening Standard, January 31, 1934.

120. Camel, advertisement, Chickasha Daily Express, January 24, 1934.

121. Coco Cod Liver Oil, advertisement, Omaha Guide, December 29, 1934.

122. Tom H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America (New York: Henry Holt, 1999).

123. Evans Grocery and Market, advertisement, Olney Enterprise, September 7, 1934.

124. Armstrong, advertisement, Tyler Morning Telegraph, February 9, 1934.

125. Postum, advertisement, El democrata del condado de Costilla, May 12, 1934.

126. Kellogg, advertisement, Austin American, January 13, 1934; KC Baking Powder, advertisement, Abilene Daily Reporter, April 6, 1934; and Stedman Grain Co., advertisement, Marshall News Messenger, October 20, 1934.

127. Albuquerque Gas and Co., advertisement, Albuquerque Tribune, May 7, 1934.

128. Kansas Electric Power, advertisement, Council Grove Republican, May 19, 1934.

129. Anderson Furniture Store, advertisement, Chickasha Daily Express, March 18, 1934.

130. Herington Ice Co., advertisement, Herington Sun, April 19, 1934.

131. Southwestern Bell Telephone, advertisement, Chickasha Daily Express, March 18, 1934.

132. Stedman Grain Co., advertisement, Marshall News Messenger, October 20, 1934; and Chesterfield, advertisement, Santa Fe New Mexican, May 14, 1934.

133. Lee et al., “Changes in Advertising Strategies During an Economic Crisis,” 75–91.

134. Deng, Ekachai, and Pokrywczynski, “Global COVID-19 Advertisements.”

135. Verlegh, “Don’t Worry, We Are Here for You,” 262–70.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Teri Finneman

Teri Finneman is an associate professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on news coverage of US first ladies and women politicians, the US suffrage movement, and Great Plains journalism history.

Vaibhav Shwetangbhai Diwanji

Vaibhav Shwetangbhai Diwanji is an assistant professor in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas. His primary research interests include media consumer behavior, new and emerging media technologies, and promoting diversity and sustainability in advertising and public relations.

Melissa Greene-Blye

Melissa Greene-Blye is an assistant professor at the University of Kansas. Her primary research examines Native representation in media past and present. She is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

Chloe Martens

Chloe Martens is a strategic communications major with a minor in psychology. She graduated in May 2023 from the University of Kansas.