The Empire Marketing Board was formed in May 1926 by the Colonial Secretary Leo Amery to promote inter-Empire trade and to persuade consumers to 'Buy Empire'. It was actually 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.
Amery was its first Chairman, Sir Stephen George Tallents was its Secretary, Edward Mayow Hastings Lloyd was Assistant Secretary, Walter Elliot was its Chairman of the Research Committee.
The EMB had three principal aims: to support scientific research, promotion of economic analysis, and publicity for Empire trade. Scientific research took up a large proportion of the EMB's work and budget. It also assisted 126 agricultural and medical research projects and issued many Intelligence Notes, pamphlets and surveys. The EMB made links with buyers and produced analyses of markets to help producers. Tallents decided that EMB's staff should employ personnel directly from media, PR and the advertising industry on temporary Civil Service contracts,until 70% were drawn from outside the Civil Service.
The EMB organised poster campaigns, exhibitions, 'Empire Shopping Weeks', Empire shops, lectures, radio talks, schools tour, its own library, advertisements in the national and local press and of shop window displays. Most famous was the EMB film unit led by John Grierson, often considered the father of modern documentary film, which produced around 100 films with such names as Solid Sunshine (which promoted New Zealand butter), Drifters (North Sea herring), The Song of Ceylon (tea), Wheatfields of the Empire, Industrial Britain and One Family.
Colonial governments were reluctant to join the EMB, however. The EMB was ended September 1933 as a result of government cuts and the introduction of Imperial Preference. The film unit was moved to GPO, and during World War II was reorganised into the Crown Film Unit.
There is 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.
Famous quotes containing the words empire and/or board:
“The “paper tiger” hero, James Bond, offering the whites a triumphant image of themselves, is saying what many whites want desperately to hear reaffirmed: I am still the White Man, lord of the land, licensed to kill, and the world is still an empire at my feet.”
—Eldridge Cleaver (b. 1935)
“Watteau is no less an artist for having painted a fascia board while Sainsbury’s is no less effective a business for producing advertisements which entertain and educate instead of condescending and exploiting.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)