Papers of the Advertising Department

Identity Statement

Content & Structure

• Scope & Content: Arthur Guinness Son & Company Limited ↴

  These are the surviving papers of the Advertising Department (1928 – 1939), one of the many different departments, which together formed the Guinness Company based at St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin. These papers relate specifically to arrangements for the advertising of GUINNESS, within the Irish market. They provide an insight into how GUINNESS advertising developed, and was managed, in Ireland.
  These papers constitute a small body of documentation, and are only a small proportion of the total amount of documentation that would have been produced. Like many of those within the overall collection, the Advertising Department’s records, have survived as a result of the efforts made by a small number of people within the Company to gather such historical documentation together until a proper Archive could be established to take custody of them. Consequently, files were often stored in locations that were not conducive to their preservation, and many have suffered damage, particularly from flooding. Despite these factors the surviving documentation provides a fair representation of the work of the Advertising Department.
  The principle responsibility of the Advertising Department was the distribution of advertising materials to trade customers within the Irish market. These materials were often based on those used within the British market, or were adapted to suit local market conditions. The decision was taken on several occasions to manufacture these advertising materials (all further references to ‘advertising materials’ refer to those produced for use within the Irish market) within Ireland, in instances where suitable suppliers could be found, in order to save on the cost of importing materials from Britain. On these occasions the Advertising Department would be responsible for locating a suitable supplier and investigating appropriate designs.
  The papers of the Advertising department, which were kept mostly in file form, fall into several distinct series, which correspond to the range of advertising materials issued. The series also highlights different roles performed by the Advertising Department, such as: acting as a channel for communication with the trade in product promotion; supervising the design and manufacture of materials, and assessing the effectiveness of advertising materials.
  In carrying out its duties the Advertising Department always maintained a close working relationship with the Advertising Office in London. The closeness of this relationship is particularly reflected in the files held by the Advertising Department on the ‘Medical Campaign’. This campaign was orchestrated by S.H. Benson’s in the years following the commencement of official advertising in 1929. It involved the solicitation of testimonials from medical practitioners, initially in Great Britain, and later in foreign countries (such as France, Belgium, Canada), testifying to the medicinal value of GUINNESS Stout.
  The ‘Medical Campaign’, remarkable in its scope, involved the circulation of literally thousands of letters to medical practitioners, and in return, thousands of replies. Typescript copies of letters sent, and the letters of reply, were retained by the Advertising Department, and were even compiled into volumes and categorised according to the nature of the recommendations provided. These comprise a series of files within the Advertising Department’s papers (GDB/SA01.02/0002.01 – GDB/SA01.02/0002.18).

• Appraisal Destruction ↴

  Permanent Retention

• Arrangement ↴

  The papers within the Advertising Department have been categorised as such because they originated from within the Advertising Department and were created by them. As there were only a relatively small number of files, it has been possible to reconstruct the file series in which the files were originally created. Within each Series, files have been arranged chronologically so far as possible without dividing up Sub-series of files covering the same topics.
  Within the descriptions of each file, where possible all existing file titles and series numbers were noted. When noting the names of the authors of the files, their position within the Brewery, where possible, was also noted in brackets following their names. Once named in a description an author is then referred to thereafter in that description by their last name. The Guinness Company, in its various forms, is referred to as the ‘Company’ and the St. James’s Gate Brewery as the ‘Brewery’.

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