Research On Domestic Advertising Of Shanghai Life Magazine (1937—1941)

The 1920 s and 1930 s was the most prosperous period of Shanghai’s newspaper industry.Until November 1937,after the failure of the Songhu battle,Shanghai’s newspaper industry was severely damaged,many tabloids were difficult to survive and were forced to stop publishing.However,the relatively independent management system and loose public opinion environment in Shanghai concession gave birth to a large number of comprehensive and small newspapers focusing on intermediate and soft news,Shanghai Life magazine was “born” in such “troubled times”.From its inception in March 1937 to its final publication in December1941,Shanghai Life magazine issued 49 issues.Although it was forced to stop publication once due to the impact of the war,after its resumption,through the adjustment and upgrading of the contents and column settings of the magazine by its editors,Shanghai Life magazine was finally able to become a mature publication.Shanghai Life magazine has the nature of a comprehensive publication and an advertising publication,which determines the layout of the magazine’s advertising and text content.At the same time,most of the advertisements in Shanghai Life magazine are domestic advertisements.The reasons are as follows: first,advertisers’ positive response to the domestic goods movement;Second,under the background of the outbreak of the all-round war of resistance against Japan,the national bourgeois advertisers made a strategic choice for commercial war with foreign businessmen,which is a manifestation of the high unity of patriotism and commercial interests by domestic manufacturers.There are many kinds of domestic advertisements in Shanghai Life magazine.According to the commodity category,it can be divided into beauty and skin care product advertising,medical advertising and health care product advertising.According to the external manifestation of advertising,it can be divided into pure text advertising and picture and text advertising.Among them,picture and text advertising can be divided into situational advertising,series advertising and story advertising.The advertising technique of Shanghai life is skillful,and different advertising forms are given according to the characteristics of different commodities.Born in the "troubled times",Shanghai Life magazine publishes a large number of domestic advertisements,which not only contains the operation of advertisers,but also full of the characteristics of the times,mainly showing the following characteristics: first,most of the domestic advertisements of Shanghai Life magazine emphasize the attribute of domestic products and the identity of domestic products and patriotism,so as to make the people accept that "resisting foreign goods and consuming domestic goods" is the basic obligation and responsibility of Chinese people.Secondly,through the widespread use of trademarks in domestic advertising,it shows that domestic advertisers have applied trademark publicity and protection to commodity advertising since modern times;Third,Shanghai Life magazine is an advertising publication,with flexible and rich forms of domestic advertising and diversified means of promotion.A large number of domestic advertisements published in Shanghai Life magazine are conducive to improving national cohesion and guiding the public to consume domestic goods,so as to improve the popularity of domestic brands and promote the rise of domestic brands;The advanced life concept contained in domestic advertising has imperceptibly changed people’s behavior habits and ideas,and promoted the formation of modern life concept.