Purpose

This paper aims to examine the marketing strategies designed by three innovative early 1900s food companies. It traces the coordination of these businesses’ research funding, advertising, direct mail and promotional tactics to show how they intersected and impacted consumers and health professionals in the period when scientists were first able to quantify the relationship between good health and food. The paper analyzes internal company documents, advertisements and marketing materials from Knox Gelatine, Borden and Sunkist.

Design/methodology/approach

Research for this paper benefited from the author’s unlimited access to the private documents of the Knox Gelatine Company and its executives. These documents were analyzed chronologically and thematically. They chronicled the company’s attempts to influence the medical world and the ways it cultivated home economists. The paper also used publicly available digitized documents from Sunkist and Borden. The paper would benefit from further detailed analysis of these documents to parse Knox’s targeting by race and ethnicity.

Findings

In the 1920s, Knox, Borden and Sunkist developed a marketing strategy which leveraged a new class of experts – the hundreds of thousands of medical professionals, home economists, teachers and government agents who advised American women. By distributing specific laboratory research on the nutritional benefits of their products to this emerging class of health professionals and the consumers who trusted them, these companies developed relationships with opinion leaders designed specifically to influence product sales.

Research limitations/implications

This research benefited from access to the private documents of Knox Gelatine Company which divulge the company’s attempts to influence the medical world and cultivate home economists. The paper would benefit from further analysis of these documents to parse the company’s targeting by race and ethnicity as well as a deeper comparison to companies that tried to work with health professionals unsuccessfully and companies that adopted this tactic in the household products or tobacco area. Opportunities also exist to do a fuller analysis of variations in food marketing by rural versus urban as well as race.

Originality/value

By reconstructing the sequencing and content of these three companies’ 1920s marketing strategies, this research uncovers a form of early 20th century food marketing directed at health and science professionals which has been neglected in advertising histories.

中文翻译：

---

迎合专家：20 世纪初的食品营销和健康专业人士

目的

本文旨在研究 1900 年代初期三个创新食品公司设计的营销策略。它追踪了这些企业的研究资金、广告、直邮和促销策略的协调，以展示在科学家首次能够量化良好健康与食品之间关系的时期，它们如何交叉和影响消费者和健康专业人员。本文分析了诺克斯明胶、博登和新奇士的内部公司文件、广告和营销材料。

设计/方法论/途径

本文的研究得益于作者无限制地查阅诺克斯明胶公司及其高管的私人文件。这些文件按时间顺序和主题进行了分析。他们记录了该公司影响医学界的尝试以及培养家庭经济学家的方式。该报纸还使用了新奇士和博登的公开数字化文件。该论文将受益于对这些文件的进一步详细分析，以解析诺克斯的种族和民族目标。

发现

20 世纪 20 年代，诺克斯、博登和新奇士制定了一项营销策略，利用了新的专家阶层——为美国女性提供建议的数十万医疗专业人员、家庭经济学家、教师和政府代理人。通过向新兴的健康专业人士和信任他们的消费者分发有关其产品营养益处的具体实验室研究成果，这些公司与专门为影响产品销售而设计的意见领袖建立了关系。

研究局限性/影响

这项研究得益于诺克斯明胶公司的私人文件，这些文件透露了该公司试图影响医学界和培养家庭经济学家的企图。该论文将受益于对这些文件的进一步分析，以按种族和民族来解析该公司的目标，并对那些试图与健康专业人员合作但不成功的公司以及在家用产品或烟草领域采取这种策略的公司进行更深入的比较。我们还有机会对农村与城市以及种族的食品营销差异进行更全面的分析。

原创性/价值

通过重建这三个公司 1920 年代营销策略的顺序和内容，本研究揭示了 20 世纪初针对健康和科学专业人士的食品营销形式，这种形式在广告史上被忽视了。