Promoting Player's: Smoking, Advertising and Consumer Culture 1960-1980

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Context of the research:In terms of the proposed partnership between the University of Nottingham and Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, this PhD project builds on the Knowledge Transfer Partnership launched in September 2009 to develop the Player's Advertising Archive, a resource donated to the Museums and Galleries in the 1980s but never before accessible for research.In terms of the research context, the PhD will address key issues in the history of smoking and tobacco advertising during the 1960s and 1970s using the hitherto untapped resources of the Player's Advertising Archive as well as printed sources and other unpublished material. The 1960s and 1970s were an era when the medical establishment's increasingly forceful messages on the damaging effects of smoking elicited limited, though gradually increasing intervention by successive UK governments to restrict tobacco advertising, coupled with voluntary agreements on the images used in advertising (1962, 1975) and the printing of health warnings on cigarette packets (1971). Tobacco companies adapted to a public climate that increasingly linked smoking with health issues by channelling growing expenditure into advertising campaigns and diversifying their promotional strategies. Cigarette marketing innovations of the 1960s included a wide range of new, mostly filtered brands, the launch of new coupon schemes, and a vigorous promotion of brands through sports sponsorship and the patronage of arts and entertainment. Player's took a major part in these developments, both in lobbying against proposals to limit cigarette advertising and promotion, and by setting the pace in sports and entertainment sponsorship. Aims and Objectives:The aims and objectives of the collaborative PhD project are:- to use the rich resources of the Advertising Archive in order to explore two key decades in the history of Player's and shed light on how cigarette promotion in the key decades of the 1960s and 1970s sought in practice to embed a 'culture of smoking' locally and nationally and in different spheres of everyday life, consumer culture, leisure and entertainment;- to enhance the Advertising Archive by continuing the cataloguing work already begun, with a particular focus on promotional materials and artwork relating to sports, arts and entertainment;- to create a new resource for Nottingham City Museums and Galleries in the form of an oral history archive on the history of Player's, consisting of c. 30 interviews with former employees- to provide input into an accessible publication with Nottinghamshire Archives and an exhibition at the University's Weston Gallery.Potential applications and benefits:The PhD will aim to offer a new understanding of the persistence of a 'culture of smoking' even during a period when the risks of smoking were becoming established in the public mind. Fresh knowledge can also be expected on the leisure and consumer culture of the 1960s and 1970s, notably the history of sports and leisure sponsorship.In addition to intellectual benefits, it is anticipated that the collaborative PhD will be of significant benefit to Nottingham City Museums and Galleries by providing a continuing input into the development and cataloguing of the John Player Advertising Archive, which is one of its most significant collections of images and artefacts.Creating an oral history archive will ensure a continuing relationship between Nottingham City Museums and Galleries and the community of former Player's employees. In so doing it will help cultivate an important dimension of the city's heritage and provide a context in which the experiences of a broad cross-section of Nottingham's residents can be recorded, shared and appreciated.Finally, the project will raise the profile of Nottingham City Museums and Galleries both within the heritag