Empire Marketing Board

[1] It was established as a substitute for tariff reform and protectionist legislation and this is why it was eventually abolished in 1933, as a system of imperial preference replaced free trade.

The committee wrote “that the grant of £1 million per annum should be spent by an ‘executive commission’ which would undertake a ‘national movement’ to increase Empire buying by the British public”.

This message is found in the first annual report of the Empire Marketing Board with an address by Secretary Stephen Tallents who wrote Fundamentally the stimulation of Empire marketing must depend on the private enterprise of producers and traders… The best service that can be done to the Empire producer is to place freely at his disposal the resources of science and economic investigation – to see that he is made aware of sowing and planting, of tending and harvesting; to show him how his produce should be graded and packed to ensure that it is transported safely and without deterioration: to suggest lastly how its presentation, in the shop window or on the counter, may be fitted to win the housewife’s critical eye.

In 1931 Walter Elliot of the Royal Society detailed the research programs of the Empire Marketing Board in saying that a large group of grants is made towards the fostering of Central Institutions are trained, such as Cambridge University and the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad.

Tallents decided that EMB's staff should employ personnel directly from the media and the advertising industry – as well as giving commissions to some of the most talented poster artists of the day.

[22] These advertisements attempted to use bold colours and stir patriotic feelings amongst citizens of the Empire but the effectiveness of the campaign also drew criticism.

[23] What opinions may exist about the Empire Marketing Board and its short campaign for inter-Empire trade did have a lasting impact through the posters, shopping weeks, radio shows and numerous other advertisements it ran.

There is a collection of the EMB's posters at the Manchester Art Gallery and some originals at the Victoria Falls Hotel, Zimbabwe, as well as the National Archives of Canada.