From the collection of
Established in 2001, the National Library of Wales Screen and Sound Archive holds an unrivalled collection of films, TV and radio broadcasts, video tapes and sound recordings relating to Wales and the Welsh, from 1898 to the present day. The collection spans multiples formats and genres, both professional and amateur.
The message for cinema-goers in Port Talbot, Neath and Briton Ferry is that they should shop local!
Animated, cartoon characters, aided by speech bubbles, endeavour to interest Port Talbot area's cinema-going patrons in buying goods or services from local businesses. Included is an advertisment for an optician, which prefigures the Specsavers scenarios, in an era when specialist shops and shopkeepers, and the accompanying nomenclature, were commonplace - milliners, fancy drapers, outfitters, grocers and ironmongers.
British Publicity Pictures had offices in London, Cardiff, Glasgow and Dublin and appear to have created what were probably generic cinema advertisements, the particulars only needing to be changed for each different location.
Local goods for local people! Screen advertising wasn’t all national brands and chain stores.
Purpose-built cinemas began appearing around Britain shortly before WWI, booming in popularity during the War and developing into the ‘picture palaces’ of the 1920s - when adverts jostled for space alongside newsreels before the main feature. Local businesses were quick to see the potential of a big screen and a captive audience to promote their wares.
While they didn’t have access to the budgets of the national brands, regionally-specific businesses had the benefit of that personal touch. Products and services evolved over time, but that scratchy ad for your local Indian restaurant, so integral to the cinema-going experience into the 1990s, had its roots in the booming entrepreneurship of the industry many decades before.
