Oxfam

From the Brand Historian’s Timeline: Bristol, 1822

Amongst the brands that defined my over confected youth and won my heart was the fruity fondant deliciousness of Fry’s Five Centre – a pocket-sized dark chocolate slab containing seams of pineapple, raspberry, lime, orange and strawberry cream, all wrapped up in sensuously thin foil. Five Centre was never one of the mainstream countlines which appeared in the school playground; rather, it owned a Maverick niche. It was produced by Fry’s of Bristol, founded by Joseph Fry in 1761, and expanded by Joseph Storrs Fry, who developed a patent for grinding cocoa beans. In the early nineteenth century, Fry’s built a reputation for making innovative and sophisticated confectionery. Apart from its signature brand, Peppermint Cream (1866), Fry’s also created the first solid chocolate bar, the first chocolate Easter egg and the definitive British presentation of Turkish Delight (1914), famously full of Eastern promise. At the end of the First World War, Fry’s merged with Cadbury’s of Bourneville, but Fry’s had more in common with Cadbury than just chocolate: Both businesses were owned by prominent Quaker families.

In the heady days of the 1970s, when fast-moving packaged goods set the standards for great brand management, there was much debate whether Unilever or P&G educated the best brand managers. In my book (Bluff Your Way in Marketing, Ravette), the award for the most creative and innovative school of brand management goes to a revolutionary sect founded long before the soap giants, who called themselves The Society of Friends, more familiarly known to us as the Quakers. Apparently, this was because the Friends were known to tremble at the very mention of the name of God.

In the mid-seventeenth century, George Fox founded this movement when the British Isles were torn asunder by civil war and religious ferment. Fox was an impressive itinerant preacher who believed there is a bit of God in everybody and consequently saw no need for Priests. This was radical stuff that a few years before might have got him burnt as a heretic. But in the nervously uncertain years after the Stuart Restoration, religious dissent was tolerated if it didn’t get mixed up with politics or, for that matter, any other part of the Establishment. Test Acts were put in place, which in effect kept Quakers and other non-conformists out of the Army, the Church, Parliament and any other Crown office.

But that didn’t prevent Quaker families from setting up businesses. Quite the opposite, because such discriminatory laws positively encouraged Quaker families to become entrepreneurs. Quaker businesses were soon achieving success throughout Britain. They had a strong belief in individual spirit but a willingness to collaborate and network; they had a capacity for hard work and a reputation for truth and honesty. Indeed, over the next couple of centuries, Quaker businesses were to have a massively disproportionate effect on the landscape of British industry.

Fry’s (1761), Cadbury (1824), Rowntree (1862) in confectionery; Huntley and Palmer (1822) and Carr’s (1831) in biscuits; Clark’s (1825) in footwear, not to mention Barclays (1690), Lloyd’s (1769) in banking; Friends Provident (1832) in insurance. Quaker influence is also very strong in several Twentieth Century mega-charities: Oxfam (1942), Amnesty International (1961) and Greenpeace (1971).

Today, it is very fashionable for brands to talk about Purpose as if this notion was completely novel. At a time when many brands obsess about finding their Purpose, it is worth reflecting on the contribution of this small, radical movement founded by George Fox. The Quakers not only created some of Britain’s greatest brands but did so while incubating businesses that also exemplified a distinctive style of caring capitalism. Oh, and one of these also made The Brand Historian’s favourite chocolate bar.

From the Brand Historian’s Timeline:

July 1942. The war in Europe is going badly. The U boat wolf packs are enjoying another period of great success against Allied shipping. Convoy PQ17 has just assembled but will lose two thirds of its ships on its voyage to Russia. Rommel’s Afrika Korps has retaken Tobruk, and the Wehrmacht, having captured Sevastopol, is now threatening the Crimean oil fields and Stalingrad. Millions of Europeans are already living in semi-starvation as German forces have cut off the areas in the Ukraine which produce half of all Soviet wheat and pork supplies.

Meanwhile, following the horrendous agenda of the conference at Wannsee, the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews is now underway, as the first group of 6000 from the Warsaw ghetto are killed in the gas chambers of Treblinka on July 23rd.

But even on the darkest of summer days, there can still be an inspiring light and the promise of better things. On July 31^st The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief is formed which will become celebrated the world over as Oxfam.

Shortly afterwards, a small group gathered in the Old Library of St Mary’s the Virgin, the University Church in Oxford. This was the inaugural meeting of the committee and it proved to be a perfect balance of personalities. Dick Milford who took the chair, was the Vicar of St Mary’s, Henry Gillett was a former Lord Mayor of the City and a leading Quaker. George Murray was a prominent Greek scholar and humanist, and his wife, the well-connected Lady Mary Howard. The grit in the oyster was provided by Cecil Jackson Cole, one of the most successful social entrepreneurs of the Twentieth century and the committee’s business brain.

Whilst some of the group had already been involved in charitable work including helping with the flood of refugees arriving in Oxford in the late 1930s, what brought this group together in the ancient library overlooking Radcliffe Square was the famine that was now causing so many deaths in Greece and which, at least in part, was caused by Allied war efforts.

At the start of the war, Greece had managed to resist the Italian army, Germany’s ally, but in 1941, Germany intervened and quickly overran the country, dividing it up between themselves, the Italians and Bulgaria, the other European member of Axis. The occupying forces pursued a strategy of plunder and pillage and brutally suppressed resistance. Meanwhile, the Allied naval blockade effectively stopped food supplies getting into Greece which resulted in a long and particularly horrific famine. “Send us food or send us coffins!” was the plea that the Oxford Committee responded to, and thus was started in the middle of all that darkness, a small group which became the global movement of millions of people to end poverty.

Music from 1942:

Fanfare for the Common Man Aaron Copland

Artful Strategy

The human antidote to death by the SWOT Bots

The revolutionary sect that set the bar for brand innovation

From the Brand Historian’s Timeline: Bristol, 1822