Life, 1927-06-02 · page 4 of 46
Life — June 2, 1927 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an advertisement for raisins disguised as social commentary. The cartoon shows a presenter pointing to a blank board, introducing the topic "Take Raisins." The text satirizes Prohibition-era marketing by California raisin growers. During Prohibition (when alcohol was banned), the raisin industry spent $50,000 advertising raisins as food, including promoting "raisin nibbling for your daily iron" and raisin bread consumption. The satire's point: the advertising campaign succeeded economically—raisin prices dropped despite massive promotion because supply exceeded demand. The author finds this amusing: the industry spent heavily to boost sales but inadvertently proved that aggressive advertising alone cannot overcome market fundamentals. Prosperity came to the region anyway, suggesting advertising's limited power. This is ultimately an advertisement betting "his product is right" through reasoned argument rather than hype.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TAKE RAISINS— THis is not a liquor recipe. I'm not a raisin raiser, and I am not worrying about raisin raisers, but gath- er up close and let me recall what raisin advertising did to a lot of innocent by- standers. It looked as if Prohibition would put California raisin growers in the poor- house. They hadn't been too well off anyway, for the local wineries had set their own low prices on crops. Facing ruin, the raisin people decided to spend $50,000 to get people to eat more raisins. They plugged for raisin pie and raisin pudding, and pulled for raisin nibbling (for your daily iron), and they sang of raisin bread, and got up raisin bread day. Then came the dawn. Last year, Chicago alone ate 5,000,000 slices of raisin bread every Wednesday. And last year the raisin raisers spent $630,000 for advertising. Well, what of it? The raisin raisers are prosperous instead of in the poorhouse, but that’s a detail. Their neighbors are prosperous because the raisin money is spread around. That makes California more prosperous and that makes Amer- ica more prosperous. Anybody’s pros- perity is everybody's prosperity. And raisins are really good food and good fun, and millions are eating more raisins. But here's the part I like best. Here's the catch. As a result of the raisin growers’ wild and extravagant adver- tising, the price of raisins has gone not up, but DOWN. Nobody hurt. Everybody helped. And advertising did it—wrote the romance of raisins, THE NATIONAL ADVERTISER BETS HIS $$$ $$$ || ADVERTISING MONEY THAT HIS PRODUCT IS RIGHT | comicbooks.com