Sherlock Holmes in Advertising

J Field Amanda

Description

This fascinating book explores the way that Sherlock Holmes has been appropriated by British businesses to advertise everything from carpets and tyres, to honey and whisky. Somerset Maugham believed that Holmes had survived so long in the public imagination because Arthur Conan Doyle had hammered the detective's idiosyncracies into the minds of his readers with 'the same pertinacity as the great advertisers use to proclaim the merits of their soap, beer or cigarettes'. Linking Holmes with consumer products in this way implies that the detective was becoming a 'brand' in his own right. But if he was a brand, then what values did he portray? Why would advertisers want to associate those values with their own products - even if those products had, on the face of it, nothing whatsoever to do with Sherlock Holmes? And how did they go about it? The book draws on a treasure-trove of advertisements in the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection - Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest at Portsmouth Museum.

Sujets

• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 08 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909183896
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN ADVERTISING
by
Amanda J Field



Publisher Information
Note: An earlier version of this ebook was published in 2012 as a chapter within Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle: Multi-Media Afterlives edited by Catherine Wynne and Sabine Vanacker, published by Palgrave Macmillan
This digital edition converted
and distributed in 2015 for
Chaplin Books by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © 2012, 2015 Amanda J Field
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder for which application should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as a result of the reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents of this publication or any errors or omissions in the contents.



Introduction
Somerset Maugham believed that the longevity of Sherlock Holmes as a character was attributable to the way Arthur Conan Doyle hammered the detective’s idiosyncracies into the minds of his readers with ‘the same pertinacity as the great advertisers use to proclaim the merits of their soap, beer or cigarettes’ (Maugham 160). Likening Holmes to consumer products in this way raises two interesting issues, firstly because it implies that the detective was becoming a ‘brand’ or ‘product’ in his own right with his own distinct set of widely recognised values, and secondly because Holmes was indeed appropriated by manufacturers of those very products - and many more - as a lucrative aid to their sales campaigns.
This paper examines how business and industry have used Holmes in their advertising, which elements of his visual iconography and characteristics they exploited, and how they attempted to make the link between Holmes and their products in the minds of consumers. It also considers why they might have chosen him in the first place - and whether his being a fictional character makes a difference to the way he is used or the way consumers might respond. It draws on primary source material from the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Richard Lancelyn Green Bequest, at Portsmouth City Museum. Richard Lancelyn Green, son of the writer Roger Lancelyn Green, amassed one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of material on Arthur Conan Doyle. When he died in 2004, he left his collection to Portsmouth: in addition to 16,000 books and hundreds of objects, there are around 40,000 documents ranging from film stills, scripts and theatre programmes, to original Doyle manuscripts and family correspondence, Spiritualist photographs and pamphlets, booklets and mailings from over 200 Sherlockian societies, and a wide range of material on the continuing phenomenon that is Sherlock Holmes (including stamps, greetings cards, menus, calendars, newspaper cuttings and games). Among the Collection’s documents is an archive of 340 advertisements from over 170 different companies and organisations, all featuring Holmes, and spanning the period 1900 to 2000. None of these advertisements are direct promotions for Holmes books, pastiches, films or memorabilia, nor are they promoting places related to Holmes, such as the Sherlock Holmes Hotel which trades on the connection through its location in Baker Street, or the Sherlock Holmes pub in Northumberland Street which contains a replica of Holmes’ sitting room. Instead, they draw on the Holmes ‘brand’ to promote products or services that appear to have no pre-existing connection with him. Whereas Peggy Perdue, in her survey of Holmes in advertising offered a global perspective, this study looks specifically at the British market. Holmes, though his every utterance, as C A Lejeune has pointed out, is ‘a household word in … Tamil, Talugu, Urdu and Pitman’s Shorthand’ is the quintessential Englishman and therefore examining how he is promoted in his own country should give an insight into the place he occupies in the British popular consciousness (Lejeune 155). All the advertisements and original correspondence referred to in this paper come from the Arthur Conan Doyle collection.



The Holmes ‘Brand’
David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, defined a brand as being ‘a complex symbol. It is the intangible sum of a product’s attributes, its name, packaging, and price, its history, reputation and the way it is advertised. A brand is also defined by consumers’ impressions of the people who use it, as well as their own experience’ (Roman). If Holmes can be said to be a brand, then - just like a product - it is made up of a combination of all these elements. Brands are much more than logos, and although Holmes’ ‘logo’ might consist of his deerstalker, pipe and magnifying glass, these are not empty symbols: the deerstalker implies someone who will patiently ‘hunt down’ their quarry; the pipe indicates a man given to thoughtful contemplation and the magnifying glass someone for whom close observation is a key skill. Together, they also suggest a man of the nineteenth century. Holmes’ ‘attributes, history and reputation’ might include his rooms at 221B Baker Street, his friendship with Dr Watson, his violin, his reputation for always ‘cracking the case’, his use of deduction, his rationality, imperviousness to women, his ability to move with ease through social strata, his talent for disguise, and his taking of cocaine when bored. Thus there is a link between what is denoted by the image of Holmes and what is connoted, a connection which Roland Barthes calls a ‘code’.