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Every well-dressed gentleman knows that the key to achieving that dressed-for-success look is the proper headgear. A green Tyrolean with a dark overcoat? Never! An off-the-face Homburg would be the discerning choice according to the campaign against "hatlessness" waged by the Hat Research Foundation in the 1940s.
This program, designed to encourage more men to buy more hats and wear them for more occasions, is described in one of a series of Advertising Case Histories that were donated to the Hartman Center in 1993 by Professor Stanley Hollander of the Eli Broad College of Business of Michigan State University. Each of the ten portfolios documents aspects of a different advertising campaign that appeared in The Saturday Evening Post during late 1940s.
Produced through the cooperation of national advertisers and advertising agencies, their objective was to help give students a clear idea of how successful advertisers and agencies deal with real-world problems such as how to reverse the declining demand for hats, how to encourage consumer loyalty for Niblets brand corn, or how companies such as Western Electric, Chevrolet, and International Nickel Company might best adapt their marketing and advertising strategies to a peacetime economy.
A rich variety of materials illustrates each study: text and graphs reporting on market research, reproductions of ads and internal client and agency documents, and detailed descriptions of the complex decision-making and coalition-building processes involved.
For example, Case History Number Five from 1947 contains twenty exhibits for the campaign against "hatlessness." They include a 1900-1944 sales curve chart, a sample radio commercial script, sample advertisements, and a sixty-four page market research report prepared by Grey Advertising entitled "What People Are Thinking About Men’s Hat in 1947."
Such case studies will be familiar to any present or former business student. Their value to the Hartman Center is the insights they provide into the advertising and marketing practices of the post-war U.S. as well as the approach to business education during the 1946-1950 period. So, raise a new hat to the Advertising Case History Collection!
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