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Advertising in the United States

Canadian nationalism

The 1920s in America

Advertising in Canada

by Stephen L. Muzzatti

Canada’s advertising and marketing industry developed in the 1920s, when mass production of products, the rise of major industrial corporations and retailers, and intense economic growth fueled competition for consumer dollars. The advent of radio and thriving newspapers and magazines allowed the advertising industry to flourish.

By 1920, Canadians were becoming accustomed to seeing advertising in public spaces and, increasingly, in newspapers and magazines. At this time, a great deal of advertising was still accomplished “in house,” with large companies and organizations controlling the creative component of advertising by designing their own logos, posters, and placards. However, smaller entities (primarily retailers) often contracted out to other small companies involved in what was then called “bill posting.” Informed by a British model, these companies handled almost all aspects of outdoor advertising. Their responsibilities included securing creative design business contracts and, as the name implies, physically posting (or, in some instances, painting) standard-size posters on fences, the sides of buildings, and other outdoor spaces.

Advertising Methods

Newspaper and magazine advertising was typically the purview of a small handful of advertising agencies such as Norris-Patterson, Ltd., the F. W. Hunt Advertising Service, or the William Findlay Company. Unlike the major British advertising agencies from which they developed, these companies operated under a model that served newspapers and magazines by focusing on selling space in urban newspapers such as Montreal’s La Presse and the Toronto Telegram, and in nationally circulated magazines such as MacLean’s, Jack Canuck, and Chatelaine. In this model, advertising agencies considered publishers their clients, rather than product makers, distributors, or retailers. Although this model was dominant during the 1920s, advertising agencies shifted to a product- and service-driven industry in later years with the emergence of “full-service” advertising firms.

Canada’s first radio broadcasting station, owned by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, broadcast out of Montreal and was later identified by its call letters, CFCF. Many believe it was responsible for North America’s first radio broadcast in December 1919. Several years passed before Canadians heard advertisements on the airwaves, however. For the first half of the decade, almost all media advertising was in print form. In 1925, Canadian radio began airing advertisements for the first time, and by 1928, all of the country’s sixty privately-owned radio stations were broadcasting advertisements. As the production and infrastructure costs necessary to broadcast radio programs increased, radio stations began relying more heavily on the underwriting support of outside funding sources. In these early days of radio, most external funding came in the form of sponsorship. Companies such as Imperial Oil would pay to sponsor a program, and in exchange, they would receive a public acknowledgment of the corporate sponsorship during a given broadcast. The ubiquitous “spot commercial” that interrupts our radio and television programs today did not exist in the 1920s.

Advertising Agencies and Cultural Identity

At the beginning of the decade, there were fewer than forty advertising agencies in Canada, almost all of which were located in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver. Of these, roughly a dozen were subsidiaries of American companies. Canadian advertising reflected the United States’ growing economic and cultural influence on Canada, with American products (Ford automobiles and Lucky Strike cigarettes) featuring nearly as prominently as their Canadian counterparts (Bourassa automobiles and Macdonald cigarettes). Some Canadian manufacturers even began contracting work to advertising agencies located in New York City and Chicago.

However, a growing sense of national identity and surging economic nationalism soon led to a backlash against the influence of U.S. advertisers in Canada. In a 1922 editorial, Canada’s top industry magazine, Marketing, condemned what it termed the “meaningless Yankeeism” of U.S. advertisements intended for Canadian audiences. Citing numerous high-profile examples of Americanized spelling (“labor” instead of “labour”), prominent U.S. iconography (eagles or stars), and references to American holidays that are not observed in Canada, such as Memorial Day, Marketing encouraged Canadian businesses and advertisers to emphasize national identity and culture in their advertising campaigns.

Growth and Direction

By the middle of the decade it was clear that the industry had responded to Marketing’s call. The movement toward Canadian nationalism in advertising was evident in advertisements by the government of Canada and Canadian Crown corporations (companies belonging to the federal government of Canada), as well as in advertisements by private companies. For example, the Department of Trade and Commerce “branded” apples as Canada’s “national fruit,” with their magazine and newspaper advertisements proclaiming “Canadians! Enjoy Canada’s National Fruit.” The Canadian Pacific Railway promoted the slogan “Holidays in Canada: Riding, Mountaineering, Fishing!” while Molson Breweries publicized their “Perfect Canadian Beer.”

As Canadian identity further coalesced and advertising agencies moved toward a “full-service” paradigm, a number of U.S. and British companies such as Fleischman’s, General Motors, and Lipton began utilizing Canadian advertising firms to reach Canadian audiences. In 1929, Canadian advertising company Cockfield, Brown & Company employed Canada’s first full-time market researcher, foreshadowing the Canadian economy’s future commercial focus on advertising. As the 1920s came to a close, there were more than seventy Canadian-owned and Canadian-operated advertising agencies. Advertisements had become an increasingly normalized and substantial part of Canadian media culture.

Impact

Beginning in the early 1920s, advertising in Canada began to undergo a shift that heralded its current incarnation. This shift was tied to broad economic forces that made the production and distribution of consumer goods easier than at any other time in history. However, it was also culturally driven: As themes of nationalism, identity, and lifestyle permeated the advertisements, advertising became a vital tool in the development and communication of Canadian cultural identity.

Further Reading

1 

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Chronology of Network Broadcasting in Canada, 1901–1961. Toronto, ON: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1961. Comprehensive history of radio and television broadcasting in Canada from the turn of the century.

2 

Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture. Toronto, ON: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1977. A sociological examination of the origins of the advertising and consumerism.

3 

Johnston, Russell. Selling Themselves: The Emergence of Canadian Advertising. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Cultural analysis of the birth of the advertising industry between the 1880s and 1930s.

4 

Stephenson, H. E. and Carlton McNaught. The Story of Advertising in Canada: A Chronicle of Fifty Years. Toronto, ON: Ryerson Press, 1940. An overview of fifty tears of advertising history in Canada, beginning in the late nineteenth century.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Muzzatti, Stephen L. "Advertising In Canada." The 1920s in America, edited by Carl Rollyson, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=1920_0006.
APA 7th
Muzzatti, S. L. (2012). Advertising in Canada. In C. Rollyson (Ed.), The 1920s in America. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Muzzatti, Stephen L. "Advertising In Canada." Edited by Carl Rollyson. The 1920s in America. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed September 18, 2025. online.salempress.com.