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Blurring the Boundaries Between Medicine and Food: The Canny Marketing of Läkerol in Early Twentieth-Century Sweden
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5554-4492
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. Department of Media and Communication Studies, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University , Fakultetsgatan 1, Örebro 702 81 , Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1089-5819
2024 (English)In: Social history of medicine, ISSN 0951-631X, E-ISSN 1477-4666Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

This paper explores the early marketing practices (1910–1940) of the Swedish cough drop brand Läkerol, demonstrating how it capitalised on the ‘spaces of confusion’ posed by the product’s liminality between food and medicine to create a slick marketing campaign inspired by the tried-and-tested formulas of the food industry. Advertisements used a range of strategies, such as expert and role model testimonials, humorous and serious newsjacking and the introduction of a friend-physician brand mascot to extend Läkerol from a cold remedy to an everyday product necessary for fun and excitement. By telling consumers not just about its benefits, but also connoting that it was part of a contemporary way of living, Läkerol was able to incorporate itself into a daily consumerist lifestyle, growing into a trendy and popular brand consumed daily by Swedes as part of a ritualised practice.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford University Press, 2024.
Keywords [en]
cough drops, advertisements, Sweden, Läkerol, borderline products
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-114443DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkae038ISI: 001248196100001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-114443DiVA, id: diva2:1878513
Available from: 2024-06-27 Created: 2024-06-27 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

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O’Hagan, Lauren AlexEriksson, Göran

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