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The purpose of this paper is to provide the first comprehensive examination of the early cannabis-based food products industry, using Sweden as a case study. Drawing upon historical newspaper articles and advertisements from the Swedish Historical Newspaper Archive, the authors trace the short-lived development of the industry, from the initial exploitation of fears of tuberculosis in the late 19th century, followed by the “boom” in hempseed extract products and the widening of its claimed effects and, finally, increased skepticism and critiques of such products across the popular press in the early 20th century.

A rigorous search of the Swedish Historical Newspaper Archive was conducted to gather newspaper articles and advertisements on cannabis-based foods. The collected resources were scrutinized using critical discourse analysis to tease out key discourses at work, particularly around the concepts of health, nutrition and science.

The authors find that central to the marketization of cannabis-based foods was the construction of disease based on scientific and medical discourse, fearmongering to create a strong consumer base and individualization to place responsibility on consumers to take action to protect their family’s health. This demonstrates not only the long historical relationship between science and food marketing but also how brands’ health claims could often be fraudulent or overstated.

It is important to cast a historical lens on the commercialization of cannabis-based food products because demand for similar types of products has rapidly grown over the past decade. Now, just as before, manufacturers tap into consumers’ insecurities about health, and many of the same questions continue to be mooted about products’ safety. Paying greater attention to the broader and problematic history of commercial cannabis can, thus, serve as a reminder for both consumers and policymakers to think twice about whether hemp really is for health and if the claims it espouses are a mirage rather than a miracle.

This paper aims to historicise the contemporary chlorophyll trend through the first academic study of its early marketing in Sweden (1950–1953). Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, it demonstrates how brands used advertisements to convince female consumers of chlorophyll’s necessity to fulfil certain aspirational goals.

In all, 150 advertisements for chlorophyll products were collected from the Swedish Historical Newspaper Archive, as well as 600 additional advertisements for the three most popular products (toothpaste/mouthwash, sanitary towels and soap) from 1940 to 1950 and from 1954 to 1964. Then, multimodal critical discourse analysis was used to investigate how the products were marketed before, during and after the chlorophyll trend, identifying the general themes and linguistic/semiotic structures of the advertisements.

This paper shows how the commercial use of chlorophyll offered a lucrative opportunity for marketers, acting as a “tabula rasa” on which they could use discourses of science, nature, idealised femininity and luxury to draw connections with health, modernity and beauty, despite the product having no real purpose or value.

Viewing this fad from a historical perspective emphasises how brands, marketers and influencers continue to capitalise on the anxieties of female consumers with promises around beauty, hygiene and health. It, thus, offers us critical distance to reflect on contemporary claims about chlorophyll’s health benefits to make informed choices.

This paper aims to investigate three promotional publications produced by the Postum Cereal Company – A Trip Through Postumville (1920), How I Make Postum (1924) and The Wonderful Lunch Boxes (1925) – with the aim of understanding how language and other semiotic resources are used to promote its products as good and healthy choices.

The three publications were collected from the HathiTrust Digital Library and University of South Florida Tampa Special Collections. They were subjected to multimodal critical discourse analysis to tease out their subtle characteristics and how a combination of language, image, colour, typography and composition are used to represent certain ideas and values related to health and well-being.

The publications subscribe to three distinct genres – “inside the factory”, “friendly spokesperson” and “fictional world” – each of which are aimed at different target audiences. The first seeks to promote Postum as an open and transparent company; the second to promote Postum as a company that cares about its consumers; and the third to promote the health benefits of Postum in a fun and accessible manner. Nonetheless, they are united in their overall objective to link the regular consumption of Postum as essential for good health.

To date, few studies have been conducted on the Postum Cereal Company, while the limited research conducted on promotional publications has tended to overlook discourses of health and well-being. The three genres outlined in this study, thus, have the potential to foster a reappraisal of promotional publications and showcase their ability to offer new understandings on historical approaches to marketing, particularly the link with health and science.

This paper aims to challenge the assumption that brands of everyday products have only used lifestyle marketing in the past 30 years by conducting the first case study of the marketing practices of the Swedish toothpaste brand Stomatol (1910–1940). Through visual social semiotic analysis, it explores how the brand was a pioneer in lifestyle marketing, using discourses of modernity, beauty and the Swedish “way of life” to sell its toothpaste.

Two hundred Stomatol advertisements were collected from the Swedish Historical Newspaper Archive and analysed using visual social semiotics. The analysis considers how the idea of a cultural Swedishness centred around modernity and beauty developed between 1910 and 1940, and how both linguistic and semiotic resources were used to make these claims seem credible.

At a time when its main adversaries were capitalising upon science in their advertisements to construct authority and credibility, Stomatol instead targeted lifestyle. Modernity, beauty and the Swedish “way of life” were central themes of their marketing campaigns, yet the way these themes were articulated varied between 1910 and 1940 in accordance with changing popular discourse. This made Stomatol more competitive than other toothpaste brands because it was able to sell an experience rather than a product, turning it into Sweden’s most popular toothpaste.

This paper demonstrates the importance of case studies to challenge the assumption that toothpaste brands have only used lifestyle marketing in the past 30 years (a claim based on Anglocentrism). It also showcases the need to further investigate non-Anglo countries when conducting research into lifestyle marketing to build a more nuanced perspective on its origins and the supposed novelty of (largely) US practices. Thus, Stomatol makes an important case for Sweden as a trailblazer in lifestyle marketing.

This paper aims to use the advertisements of three major brands – Chymol, Formamint and Lifebuoy Soap – to examine how advertisers responded to the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in Great Britain influenza pandemic. It looks particularly at the ways in which marketing strategies changed and how these strategies were enacted in the lexical and semiotic choices (e.g. language, image, colour, typography, texture, materiality, composition and layout) of advertisements.

A total of 120 advertisements for the three brands were collected from the British Newspaper Archive and analysed using the theory and analytical tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis. The general themes and semiotic structures of the advertisements were identified, with the aim of deconstructing the meaning potentials of verbal and visual resources used to convey ideas about the pandemic, and how they work to shape public understanding of the products and make them appear as effective and credible.

Each brand rapidly changed their marketing strategy in response to the influenza pandemic, using such techniques as testimonials, hyperbole, scaremongering and pseudoscientific claims to persuade consumers that their products offered protection. Whilst these strategies may appear manipulative, they also had the function of fostering reassurance and sympathy amongst the general public in a moment of turmoil, indicating the important role of brands in building consumer trust and promoting a sense of authority in early twentieth-century Britain.

Exploring the way in which advertisers responded to the 1918‐1919 influenza pandemic reminds us of the challenges of distinguishing legitimate and illegitimate medical advice in a fast-moving pandemic and highlights the need to cast a critical eye to the public health information, particularly when it comes from unofficial sources with vested interests.

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of children in an emergent Irish consumer culture and advertising from 1848-1921. In particular, the significance of children's gender and reading materials in the process of consumption will be evaluated.

An analysis of primary sources, literature and secondary sources substantiates this research.

By evaluating advertisements, magazines, school textbooks and children's literature from the 1848-1921 period, this article argues that Irish children were encouraged to engage with an emergent consumer culture through reading. This article also evaluates the importance of gender in considering children as consumers and it focuses upon a number of critically neglected Victorian, Irish, female authors who discussed the interface between advertising, consumption and the Irish child.

This article is an original contribution to new areas of research about Irish consumerism and advertising history. Substantial archival research has been carried out which appraises the historical significance of advertisements, ephemera and critically neglected children's fiction.