Adelaide advertising in the 1890s

We've been renovating an old house in the Adelaide Hills for a while now.  We've found some pretty interesting things during the renovations.  One of my favourites was an Adelaide based advertising catalogue from 1890.  It's in fabulous condition having been concealed for who knows how many years.  Throughout are some great scenes of South Australia from the late 1800s as well as a full page advertisement on every second page.  A selection of my favourites is below.

What I really enjoy about these old advertisements, apart from the hometown Adelaide connection, is the early examples of marketing.  Differentiating oneself from the competition, brand awareness, values, positioning and developing consumer relationships were concepts just as important for business then as they are now, and are all apparent in these old advertisements. 

1. JH Gartrell & Co.  144 Rundle Street Adelaide.

Great advertisement, and fabulous signage to the building.  It clearly states what business they are in.  Large, visible window displays.  Note that they differentiate themselves from the competition by placing in the  advertisement that they are the "Sole Agents for Doulton & Co's Wattle Blossom".  The building is no longer there - it is now Rockmans in Rundle Mall.

2. Simpson's Ovens and Ranges

'The best cooking ranges in the colony'.  Great sketch of the product.  Note that the company had multiple factories in the CBD.  Advertising boasts of the quality of the product and the value they will provide to the consumer.



3. Excelsior Tobacco.

Great advertisement.  The seal of the Prince Of Wales and recognition from the London Exhibition of Fine Arts tells the consumer this is a quality product.  I love the sketch of the pollution belching factory!

4. C.A. Kruger Coach Builders.

Convenience and quality are the key here.  Convenience to tramcars, short notice production times and an augmented product with a two year guarantee.



5. Mrs Joel Moss's Monster Clothing, Tailoring and Hosiery Palace

Great sketch - bold signage to the shopfront and large windows for shop displays.  The advertisement promotes that the store's ready-made clothing range is 25% cheaper than the competition.  This building still stands on the corner of Hindley and King William Streets in Adelaide.

6. Randall & Boucaut, Wine & Spirit Merchants

The advertisement proudly differentiates the business from competitors by positioning as the sole agent of imported Crystal Champagner Lager.  Also, proudly South Australian with a range of SA Wines and locally brewed beers - Walkerville Ale from Walkerville, as well as Pikes and Johnstons both from Oakbank in the Adelaide Hills.  The King William Street building is long gone, with AdelaideMetro now on the site.  The now disused breweries of Pike and Johnston still stand in Oakbank.

7. The Howard Smith Line. 

Advertisement promoting steamships from Port Adelaide to the WA Goldfields and "The Eastern Colonies."

8. Chas Moore & Co.

This advertisement promotes value - not just in price but service.  Boldly proclaims itself as the CHEAPEST.  Also assures customers of the most up-to-date stock and the individual service consumers can expect.  Stanley's Fish Cafe now stands on this site in Gouger Street.

9. The Austral Furnishing Co, 122 Rundle Street Adelaide

Fabulous illustrations of the product offering.  The furniture was available in huon pine or blackwood.  Huon fetched such tremendous prices today - this bedroom set would bring upwards of $15,000 in antique shops today!  Another long gone building - demolished in the 1930s for a Coles store - now the site of The Reject Shop and Cibo in Rundle Mall.

10. J.B. Siebert & Sons, Undertakers, Gouger Street Adelaide

Even undertakers need a point of difference from the competition.  In this case "Are prepared to embalm or temporarily preserve bodies at any hour, day or night".  The business is still going today as Frank Siebert Funerals in Wakefield Street.



11. Beaumonts Stationery and Facy Goods Warehouse, 68 Rundle Street, Adelaide

Nice print and a great sketch of the store.  Bold signage but perhaps the store had recently changed name, due to the reference to the late CN & WH Birks.  The advertisement makes it very clear what the store sells.  Another building which has long ago been demolished - Strandbags now stands on the site on the corner of Gawler Place and Rundle Mall.



Where have you gone Adelaide?

Every year, for four or five glorious weeks, Adelaide awakens.  Energy, creativity and positivity abound.  And then, with the energy and vitality of Mad March over, Adelaide returns to its slumber for another twelve months.  The tumbleweeds move back in and just like that the vibrancy and vitality of our city are gone.

So, how do we maintain vibrancy in the CBD for the other 11 months of the year?  The decision to open the Adelaide CBD to trading on public holidays is a step in the right direction, but does it go far enough?

Unfortunately, outside of Mad March, Adelaide feels stagnant.  Agreed, there are many positive things about our city, including the lack of traffic gridlock, the relaxed lifestyle, and easy access to the Adelaide Hills, vineyards and beaches.  But we must question, is all that good enough?  Is that enough to be nationally relevant?  Where once Adelaide was equal, if not superior, to the bigger cities of Melbourne or Brisbane, the capital is now more comparable with smaller cities such as Townsville or Cairns.  In other words, we appear more like a regional city than a state capital.  The big country town mentality prevails.

Procrastination in decision-making and a general lack of leadership, political or otherwise, is the enemy.   Addressing the issues requires collaborative action at all levels of politics.  The Adelaide City Council has been unable to embrace urban development.  Further, successive State Governments have been reluctant to reform local government.  This has seen Adelaide languish while other Australian cities have thrived. 

The reality is that despite their best efforts, most local councils are too small, either by virtue of ratepayer base or geography, to be really effective.  This feeds the public perception that there are too many layers of government and bureaucracy.  This multi-tier bureaucracy produces what appears at State level to be an inability to get development and critical infrastructure undertaken in a timely manner.  When I visit Brisbane, for instance, I’m staggered at the amount of development and infrastructure works that are achieved there in relatively short timeframes.  Is that a consequence of the super-Council model that Brisbane run with?

In theory there is nothing to stop Adelaide adopting the Brisbane model, and becoming a super-council with responsibilities for an expanded area – if only the State Government had the balls.  Inter-agency communications would be improved, administration costs would be reduced.  Surely this would generate more funds to benefit the city and the state as a whole.  In addition to the financial benefits, an amalgamation of metropolitan councils would derive significant urban planning benefits.  Brisbane amalgamated in 1925 – it now administers a budget of more than $3 billion.  In Victoria, radical reform was Jeff Kennett’s modus operandi.   In 1994, the former Victorian premier dissolved 210 councils, sacked 1600 elected members and created 78 new councils through amalgamation.  Currently, New South Wales and Western Australia are both considering similar models.  Unfortunately, amalgamation reform is not on the agenda of the current South Australian Government.  And so the inertia continues.

Further hindering growth and vitality in our city is the role of minority groups.  The Parklands Preservation Association folk have done their best to disrupt progress, including the upgrade of the former Victoria Park racecourse.  Permanent grandstands could not be built for events such as night horse racing, or to provide permanent infrastructure for the Clipsal 500.  Instead, the parklands resemble a building site for six months of the year while temporary facilities are erected and dismantled.  The opportunity for development has passed - the SAJC have moved on.  A further example is the long-standing battle over the Britannia roundabout.  After spending millions of taxpayer dollars on concept plans, the argument for an upgrade of this notorious intersection continues to go around in circles because any upgrade requires cutting down parkland trees.  A win for the minorities and a loss for the state.  Yet again, we breed tumbleweeds.  Why can’t environmentally sensitive development and the parklands co-exist?

Any living thing which doesn’t move and grow, atrophies and dies – and cities are living things.  What Adelaide needs most is a substantial change of attitude.  Many of us, including me, love Adelaide.   We love the state.  We love the city.  Adelaide is a beautiful Australian city in which to live.  Part of what holds us back is the attitude of resentment towards change amongst others.  New innovative, vibrant ideas are met with howls of derision from various elements of the community - in particular the older generations.  Ironically these are the same people who lived through Don Dunstan’s political reign and the reforms and progress that flowed from his vision.  It needs to be recognised that we cannot continue to live in the past.  In today’s competitive, economic climate is it enough to want to be known only as the Festival State, or worse, the City of Churches?

The State Government has failed in its capacity to encourage new businesses to establish themselves in our city.  The attraction and retention of big business would provide our city with substantial corporate activity and add to our capacity to attract further business to our state.  More critically it would provide employment alternatives for South Australian graduates who continue to leave the state.  25,000 people leave the state each year, with those aged 20-39 making up half of this figure.  Adelaide's most critical challenge is curbing the migration of our youth and retaining young, talented, passionate people in our state.

I’m not saying we should need or want to be another Sydney or another Melbourne.  In fact, we need to stop the constant comparisons with our eastern state counterparts – it achieves nothing but inhibits progress and keeps us down.  We need to develop our own Australian identity – not an identity based on notions of churches and serial killers.   A truly unique identity - not a tagline, not a logo.  I’m talking about an evolution not a revolution.  We need to be recognised globally as a city with a great future; a vibrant city, an exciting city, a prosperous city.  I believe it’s a question of identity.  We have forgotten who we are.  Who are we, Adelaide?  What is our brand identity?  What is our vision?

While contemplating these questions you may want to head to North Adelaide.  Whilst there you’ll find Montefiore Hill and on it the statue of the original surveyor of our city, Colonel William Light.  The statue is aptly named “Light’s Vision”.  Could he have imagined the Adelaide of today?  Would he have wanted this once great city to stagnate?

The point is, we lack the vision that put us on the world map in the first place.  Unless we find it soon we will have lost the opportunity to be all that we can be.

So tell me Adelaide, do you think we’re a city that lost it’s way?  Have we listened to the doomsdayers and the naysayers too much?  What do you think should be done to make us great?  How would you revitalise our city?

One missing word can change the meaning.

OK it's petty, but I get bothered when I see the English language used poorly.  This sign amuses me everytime I see it.  The sign below is located on a fountain outside of the Art Gallery Of South Australia:

RECLAIMED WATER USED TO FILL THIS FOUNTAIN

Do they mean reclaimed water is used to fill the fountain?  Because whenever I read it, my mind reads it as reclaimed water used to fill the fountain but it doesn't anymore.  One little word (IS) can change the whole meaning. 

Are Coles getting into the banking business?

I was in Rundle Street in Adelaide this afternoon and made a quick stop at the ATM to grab some cash.  There's a NAB ATM in Rundle Street on the side of the Target building. After going through the motions, I was waiting for the machine to dispense my cash when I noted the message below appear on the screen.

Apparently, Coles are now in the ATM business.  I did a bit of research tonight and found that until recently NAB held the contract to supply ATM's at all Coles Express stores Australia wide. This contract recently expired and was put out to tender -  NAB was the runner up.  This has now been awarded to a company called Customers Limited.  All existing NAB ATMs will be removed from Coles locations and replaced with Coles branded ATMs.

Customers Limited will provide the ATMs to Coles under a managed service agreement. This means Coles will set and retain all the fees levied on those making withdrawals and checking balances at the ATMs.  I don't know what the levels of ATM usage are at Coles Express stores, but they are obviously sufficiently high to be lucrative enough for Coles to go down this track.  Seeing as the Rundle Street ATM is not in a Coles Express store I can only assume that the building itself is opened by Wesfarmers (who own Coles).

Coles have already expanded their product offering from the traditional Coles supermarkets, to Coles Express stores, Coles Liquor, Coles petrol stations, Coles insurance and Coles Mastercard.  They even have their own music download site Coles Music!  Is the Coles ATM just the first step towards Coles Banking?

Do the supermarkets now have too much power?  Does the Coles/Woolworths duopoly bother you?

Vintage Advertising To Make You Cringe

One of my passions is retro.  All that good stuff from the 50's, 60's and 70's.  Furniture, homewares, fabrics, design.  A passion that runs deep and several years saw me walking away from a promising career to chase an entrepreneurial dream of running my own business.  Atomic Pop was located in Stepney and I sold nothing but retro.  In the end my market in Adelaide was so niche it was unsustainable and I closed the doors of the shop to concentrate on dealing with interstate retro dealers.

One of my guilty pleasures to this day is retro magazines.  The fashions, the design and the print ads.  Oh, the print ads.  They are a brilliant reflection of how society has changed.  Most would never get pitched these days, let along get published.  In no particular order here are a few of the more cringe-worthy!

1.    7 Up.  Nothing does it like 7 Up.  This campaign features a baby drinking soft drink from the bottle.  Sure, the current obesity crisis demonstrates that this probably happens on some level today - but no soft drink manufacturer today is going to use this.

2. Tipalet Cigarettes.  Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere.  Apart from the blatant glamourised cigarette advertising, the advertising tagline leaves a lot to be desired.  A deliberate double entendre?  Maybe it didn't have different connotations in those days.  Somehow I doubt it.

3. Bon Ami.  It was the 1950s.  We've all seen Mad Men.  Well before the sexual revolution.  A time when chauvinism and sexism were unfortunately the norm.

4. Camel Cigarettes.  More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.  I wonder what sample they used to draw that conclusion.  Even if the tobacco companies were still able to advertise, I doubt they would try such fallacious appeals to authority today.  No, they'd use a celebrity instead.

5. Chesterfield Cigarettes.  Yet more cigarette advertising extoling the health benefits of cigarettes.  Smoking is good for you!

 6. Lane Bryant.  Free for chubbies.  How generous!  This company produce a free catalogue full of clothing for "chubbies".  These days we have product ranges and stores that cater for larger sizes.  Would any dare call their customers "chubbies"?

7. Chase and Sanborn Coffee.  What do domestic violence and coffee have in common?  I find this particular ad depressing.  Amazingly this coffee brand is still going strong.

8.  The Soda Pop Board Of America.  Is this Ground Zero for today's obesity epidemic?  Forget breastfeeding - for a better start in life start cola earlier!

9. Hotpoint.  Please let your wife come in the living room.  More 1950s headshaking.  Man of the house in the living room with the Hotpoint TV, while the sub-serviant wife loads the Hotpoint dishwasher.

10. Ovaltine.  To wake up gay in the morning.  A different time, a different meaning.

11. Hoover.  She'll be happier with a Hoover.  I know what would happen in my house if I gave my wife a vacuum cleaner for a gift!

12. Kenwood Chef.  That's what wives are for.  When they're not vacuuming I suppose?

13. Pitney Bowes Postage Meter.  Is it always illegal to kill a woman?  Who is this campaign targeted at?

14. Pep Vitamins.  The harder a wife works, the cuter she looks. Shocking.

15. Bell & Howell Projectors.  Sabrina.  What's with this womans chest? 

16. Delmonte Ketchup.  You mean a woman can open it? 

  
17.   Subaru.  Like a spirited woman who yearns to be tamed.

18. Van Heusen Ties.  Show her it's a mans world.

So what do you think?  Have our advertising standards improved?  Or are we still committing the same sins?