“Si es bueno, es Bayer”. Health education, corporate communication and the filmic image-building

“Si es bueno, es Bayer”. Health education, corporate communication and the filmic image-building of German pharma industry as the world’s pharmacy”

Christian Bonah

Abstract

In many Latin and South American countries the slogan “Si es Bayer, es Bueno” has become a familiar, popular expression testifying to what corporations have tried to measure for a long time: spectator impact. Audio-visual communication has been at the forefront of promotional strategies for the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer ever since the 1920s when the corporation engaged with the concept of Wertwerbung, literally “value advertisement”. Promotional health education films participated strongly in corporate name, brand and image building. Building consumer trust in a company and its name was essential in a time when Bayer had lost many of its drug patents after WWI. The company established its own independent Filmstelle, a unit for film planning and production and developed and operated in the 1930s Bayer sound film trucks that toured remote areas throughout Germany, Europe and worldwide for public film shows. Building on recent scholarship in the field of industrial, sponsored, non-fiction and most recently utility film studies, the contribution will analyse how Bayer established its film production unit and its film production for a worldwide market in the 1920s and 1930s. Furthermore, we will ask how this corporate strategy played out to promote at the same time health education, modern German science and industry and the corporate brand behind the films.

Film screening is available at: https://medfilm.unistra.fr

In the service of humanity (Dir. W. Ruttmann, GER, 1938)

In einer Stunde um die Welt [In one hour around the world] (Dir. J. Pinschewer, GER, 1931)

Malaria (Dir. U. Kayser, GER, 1934)