Cooper Hewitt says...
The Empire Marketing Board (EMB) was established in 1926 by the British Government and helmed by Sir Stephen Tallents. The underlying intent behind the EMB was a commercial drive: it aimed to increase the consumption of goods and products in the British Empire’s supply chain and thereby continue to bolster its strength. In addition to funding research on the Empire supply chain, the EMB developed an extensive publicity campaign. Within the EMB, a Poster Committee was established, spearheaded by Frank Pick, to hire the period’s most innovative artists and create poster campaigns for the EMB. As a government agency, the EMB was able to design and erect large-format, wooden frames in railway stations, on public buildings, and in other high traffic areas to accommodate the EMB’s elaborate pentaptych arrangements. Each grouping consisted of two pictorial images showing ‘scenes of production’ on the outside edges, with two text-based posters flanking a central ‘scene of marketing’. Every three or so weeks, a new poster group would be rotated in, resulting in over 800 posters being exhibited the specialized hoardings during the run of the EMB’s poster campaign from January 1927 to the EMB’s dissolution in 1933. In addition to a monumental poster campaign, the agency distributed tens of thousands of study-format posters to schools around the UK along with pamphlets which elaborated on the posters’ content.
