Cadbury's Bourn-Vita: Plumber's Mate

1954
Sound
2m

Mrs Ring’s complicated life, dominated by professional and domestic chores, is soothed by a nice cup of Bournvita.

The title refers to the wife of Mr Ring the plumber, who has to combine running a shipshape household (no thanks to Peter, her grubby tearaway of a son) with providing professional support to her husband, including his accounts. It’s no wonder that she’s exhausted at the end of the day, but thankfully she has a nice hot cup of Cadbury’s Bournvita to hand - and fellow Mrs Rings were clearly the primary target of an advert that went out of its way to sympathise with their lot in life.

Introduced by Cadbury in the late 1920s, Bournvita (originally Bourn-Vita) was a health food made from - as the ad spells out - malt, cocoa, milk, sugar and eggs, specifically targeted at mothers of young children as a dietary supplement. It was discontinued in the UK in 2008, but remains popular elsewhere, notably India, where it became so firmly established from its initial launch in independence year 1948 that references to it abound in local popular culture to this day. The name comes from the model village of Bournville, near Birmingham, the site of Cadbury’s UK operations.

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Caring mums, hard-working housewives or independent, fun-loving 'new women' - the female consumer has long been a target of screen advertising.

In the cause of selling anything from baked beans to washing powders to all manner of labour-saving devices, advertisers have promised to make women's lives easier and to help them build happy homes and successful relationships.

There's no getting past the fact that women have all-too often been patronised and objectified by a male-dominated advertising industry. But screen advertising also tells (and sells) a more positive story of social progress for women, with increasing social and economic independence. This collection tracks the ups and downs of female empowerment in the 20th century, with its false steps as revealing as its forward ones.