The Brand Names Foundation’s “Worthwhile Community Activity”

Abstract

While the Advertising Council and the American Heritage Foundation organized the Freedom Train, the Brand Names Foundation advocated the use of advertising, brand names, and brand-based media. The Brand Names Foundation called brands “the manufacturer’s symbol of responsibility for his product and his pledge of quality and value” and argued that “brand names knowledge, learned through advertising, saves time and money.”¹ Building on the early Cold War sense of nation and community, the foundation launched campaigns and research projects that promoted the concept of the brand name. Throughout the mid-19405, it organized conferences and events promoting the centrality of the brand to free enterprise capitalism. Targeting the American public and small business owners, the Brand Names Foundation linked brand-name goods and the choice between consumer goods with democracy. The foundation worked to convince small-scale retailers and store owners to use national brand-name goods instead of locally produced goods, and made the consumption of brand-name goods a community experience. Participation in the foundation overlapped with participation in the Advertising Council and the American Heritage Foundation, and included the standard host of major brand-name manufacturers, media outlets, advertising agencies, polling organizations, public relations experts, national testing companies, and trade organizations. Significantly, among the foundation participants was the brand pioneer Procter & Gamble Company, whose success was in part dependent on its innovations in using the brand to cultivate markets.²

Brand Names Foundation, “How Greenfield Did It… A Comprehensive Guide to a Worthwhile Community Activity” (New York: Brand Names Foundation, Incorporated, 1947).