As the country prepares for the platinum jubilee celebrations, we go ‘way back’ and look at how the royal family were used to ‘endorse’ products as far back as the 1930’s. Whether they knew they were endorsing it is another matter!
The food of Royal Babies.
“Nothing but Cow & Gate is good enough for a King’s Baby and nothing else is good enough for your child”.
Today, celebrity endorsements are common practice – people scroll through social media to check out what their favourite celebs are promoting…because if you dress and eat like your favourite celebrity, surely you’ll end up just like them too?
But in terms of advertising, celebrity endorsement is nothing new. Back in 1937 when the King George VI was crowned, Cow & Gate used royal associations to ‘endorse’ their baby milk – giving a strong signal that to be a good mother, you must pick the milk that royal babies drink.
It’s not entirely clear whether the British royal babies were fed Cow & Gate or whether the royal family ever actually approved these statements…and a close look at the royal seal of approval on adverts from the time shows that’s it’s the Kings of Iraq and Yugoslavia who used Cow and Gate.
Around the same time, ‘Smiler’ the happy, healthy-looking baby started to appear on Cow and Gate packaging and advertising and starts to wear a crown. That’s when the slogan ‘The food of royal babies’ is adopted – further suggesting that if you feed your baby on Cow & Gate, they too will be as happy and healthy as the royal babies.
And you of course will be the happiest mother with the most contented baby…cleverly creating the ideal lifestyle that all mothers dream of.
Thank you, your majesty.
