Advertising strategies

Australia.
Advertising Telegrams and the Telegraph Service.

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Australia 1901-1988
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International
Special aspects

Advertising began soon after Percy Brown had been appointed as Head of the Postmaster-Generals Department in 1923. As noted elsewhere, his first task was to reform the Department - starting with the Telegraph Branch - and then develop the special services.

The nature of the advertising took many forms. Initially it was used to promote the use of telegrams but soon spread to include telephones and then to the postal services in general.

The major campaigns really commenced as from 1929 (see for example the delivery forms with slogans and advertisements such as AB-DO-6 and AB-DU-6). Newspapers throughout Australia carried publicity such as the following:

USE THE TELEGRAPH: Commonwealth Services have many advantages.

"The Telegraph Department has sufficiently enlarged and improved its services to warrant the introduction of a publicity campaign, inviting the attention of the public to the many uses to which the telegraph can be put in the promotion of commercial and social interests.

Shortly the distribution will be made of a booklet which, besides conveying a fund of information to the public, presents many interesting particulars of the existing services in Australia. More than 9,000 telegraph offices and 230,000 miles of wire are ready to serve the people and there are over 35,000,000 telegraph transactions yearly within the Commonwealth.

Why not use the service as an indispensable part of your own organisation in the development of your business? asks the booklet. The many and variable uses to which the telegraph service may be economically put are set forth in the pages of the booklet in order that the business man as well as the private citizen may more fully appreciate the extent to which this highly organised public utility is capable of promoting his interests".

Over the years, advertising of telegrams and the telegraph service took many forms. Click on the hyperlink for the advertising approach about which you wish more details.

Advertising on telegrams
Postal slogans
Magazines and newspapers
Brochures
In special booklets: 1937; 1940.