Branding, packaging and trade marks in the medical marketplace, c.1870-c.1920
Popular narrative has equated branded medicines with quacks selling patent medicines to a gullible public. This thesis provides an alternative picture of branded medicines in light of the 1875 Trade Marks Registration Act, which enabled proprietors to frame their medicines as respectable brands within a system of 'intelligent' market participants that included retail chemists, wholesalers, professional medical practitioners, and the lay consumer. In contrast to historians of medicines, like Young (1969), who dismiss consumers as gullible fools duped by patent medicine vendors, this thesis presents the sophisticated marketing efforts deployed by wholesale and manufacturing firms as evidence of a more informed consumer. Building on scholarship from business historians, this thesis shows that branding was redefined in the period as a result of trade mark legislation. In consequence, the materiality of pharmaceutical products was transformed and thereafter they formed new meanings within wider economic, regulatory, and medical contexts. Concentrating particularly on pharmaceutical product packaging and advertisements from the trade periodical The Chemist and Druggist, and supplemented with material from the trade
Robson-Mainwaring, Laura
Branding, packaging and trade marks in the medical marketplace, c.1870-c.1920. Popular narrative has equated branded medicines with quacks selling patent medicines to a gullible public. This thesis provides an alternative picture of branded medicines in light of the 1875 Trade Marks Registration Act, which enabled proprietors to frame their medicines as respectable brands within a system of 'intelligent' market participants that included retail chemists, wholesalers, professional medical practitioners, and the lay consumer. In contrast to historians of medicines, like Young (1969), who dismiss consumers as gullible fools duped by patent medicine vendors, this thesis presents the sophisticated marketing efforts deployed by wholesale and manufacturing firms as evidence of a more informed consumer. Building on scholarship from business historians, this thesis shows that branding was redefined in the period as a result of trade mark legislation. In consequence, the materiality of pharmaceutical products was transformed and thereafter they formed new meanings within wider economic, regulatory, and medical contexts. Concentrating particularly on pharmaceutical product packaging and advertisements from the trade periodical The Chemist and Druggist, and supplemented with material from the trade
branding package trade mark medical marketplace popular narrative equate brand medicine sell patent medicine public provide_alternative picture brand medicine light trade marks registration act enable proprietor frame medicine respectable brand within system intelligent market participant include retail professional medical_practitioner lay consumer contrast historian medicine like young dismiss consumer patent medicine present sophisticate marketing effort deploy wholesale manufacturing firm evidence inform consumer building scholarship business historian show brand period trade mark legislation consequence materiality product transform thereafter form new meaning within_wide economic regulatory medical context concentrating particularly product packaging advertisement trade periodical supplement material trade