The wonder of ... advertising

In the early days of the F. W. Woolworth chains in North America and the United Kingdom the only thing the firm advertised regularly was new store openings. The founder, Frank Winfield Woolworth, said "Dress your windows twice a week with big leaders with prices attached. That  is our advertising".

There were occasional exceptions, like the launch of the chain's own label cottons and sewing notions, and bullseye rings during the Great War. But these were rare.

It was only in the 1950s that the company first dabbled with serious advertising, in response to increased competition. A major press campaign in the USA generated good results. This was supplemented by 'The Woolworth Hour' on CBS Radio. Initially the idea was not adopted in the UK where sales and profit were booming.

In 1959, with encouragement from New York, it was agreed that the subsidiary would launch a wall-to-wall press campaign and its first tv commercials to promote its year-long Golden Jubilee event. Afterwards the Board concluded that print had been most effective. They continued to use the medium throughout the Sixties.

Then in November 1971 there was a new departure.  A twenty page Christmas Catalogue was stapled into the Radio Times, which was the nation's largest circulation magazine. This showed the extensive range of toys, gifts and electrical appliances. Woolworth was the first company to distribute its catalogue to a wide audience in this way. As the idea developed, the best products could be ordered by mail using a new "Woolworth by Post" service. The firm went on to publish a Christmas Catalogue every Christmas until 2008, but dropped the mail order idea in 1982, restoring it for a spell from 1998-2001 and, as The Big Red Book, from 2006-2008.

The catalogues were a hit, which was soon copied by rivals like Boots the Chemist and W.H. Smith. Executives were determined to stay a step ahead and chose a more radical solution, booking wall-to-wall advertising for the Christmas Season in 1975. The leading Ad Agency Allen, Brady and Marsh ('ABM') was selected. It was hoped would repeat their success with 'This is the age of the train' for British Rail. The agency excelled with a memorable campaign that added a new word to the Woolworth vocabulary that remained with the business more thirty years after the commercials last screened. Rod Allen wrote the jingle 'That's the wonder of Woolworth' and the tune 'The Wonder March', which was performed by the Winfield Brass. His business partner Peter Marsh directed the shooting. He came up with the concept of the 'parade of stars', which continues to be used by a number of retailers in the twenty-first century.

The commercials varied in length from 30 seconds to the whole ad break. They regularly featured a galaxy of stars. Georgie Fame and Sir Jimmy Young both did two or three minute slots to camera.  Over the years there were lots of walk-on cameo appearances, from both stars and personalities in the news.  See how many people you can recognise from walk of fame, which spans the years 1977 to 2007.

Among the favourite TV campaigns of the era was Sir Harry Secombe's "Everybody Needs Woolworth" from 1979.  It featured spoof pantomime sequences in which Harry (Aladdin) sang the names of as many products as possible in a commercial of up to three minutes' duration. At the end ("look behind you") a parcel fell from the sky and swallowed the rumbustuous former Goon. It finished with a muffled "it ain't half dark in here, where's my lamp?".

Customers at the Worthing, West Sussex, Woolworth store, (which at the time was famed for its poor lighting,) had been asking "where's my lamp?" for years. One of them adapted the sign at the front of the store!

Alongside the salvo on television, the firm continued its banner print campaign. Some spreads featured specific products and promotions, while others concentrated on the brand. In 1980 the focus turned from shoppers to target investors and City analysts.

As part of the new corporate advertising Woolworth invested £100k to place a series of full page advertisements in the London Times and the Financial Times in 1981. The objective was to respond to City page criticism of what they considered to be lacklustre profit performance. The adverts sought to communicate the Board's strategy to revitalise the business. The copy highlighted the progress Woolworth had made in establishing large shares in its chosen new markets. It also flagged untapped potential which the Board was working to realise.

Only months after the campaign ran, a potential bidder for the British subsidiary approached its US parent in secret. The campaign had intended to achieve the opposite results and keep the British Woolworth safe from predators.