WEB PAGE NO. 2880 6th February 2022 Mr Cube First Picture: Mr Cube

Second Picture: Sugar Packet with Mr C

Third Picture: Golden Syrup

Forth Picture: Mr C with weights

Mr Cube', an animated cartoon character born in July 1949 during rationing and nationalisation proposals. Mr Cube became sugar's brand image, the company logo of Tate & Lyle and a symbol of political embarrassment and electoral setback for the Labour government in the February 1950 General Election. The company's campaign strategist recalls how `they were strongly advised to have a cartoon character who, if he caught the public's imagination, could say the most outrageous things and get away with it, and who could act as a buffer between the public and Tate & Lyle'. Brandishing his sword of free enterprise and protected by his T&L shield, Mr Cube would `say sensible or outrageous things' allowing Tates to `concentrate on attacking the Socialist policy in a more dignified manner'. A brand-image was not just a mascot'; it actively shapd`corporate consciousness' of Tate & Lyle in 1949-50 and was heightened by Labour's nationalisation threats. Tate & Lyle were aware of American advertising and public relations methods and Mr Cube spearheaded the campaignon more than two million sugar packages, on 100,000 ration book holders distributed free to housewives by Tate & Lyle, and on all Tate & Lyle delivery trucks. The two main sources of `raw sugar' are tropical sugar-cane and temperate sugar-beet, alternative sources of supply which had produced `wars' between rival companies in the nineteenth century. After the two families of Tate and Lyle had merged in 1921, cane dominated their refining processes. The new company's nineteenth-century founding fathers, Henry Tate and Abraham Lyle, responded to competition from heavily subsidised Continental producers of sugar beet by `product differentiating' into cubes and syrup. The threat to Tates in 1949 did not come out of the blue. Two pre-Second World War books had flagged up many of the general arguments that would be directed against the company. In 1936 the government amalgamated eighteen sugar-beet factories into the British Sugar Corporation (BSC), forcing Tate & Lyle to divest itself of its sugar beet interests and change into an imperial sugar company with supplies secured from acquisition of sugar cane plantations in Jamaica and Trinidad. This provoked the impressive Mr Cube campaign. It even had its own Mr Cube dance tunes and poker dice game and from the end of July 1949, the comic hero, found his way on to millions of sugar packets. Mr Cube's catchy slogans featured `Take the S out of State', urged Mr Cube; `state control will make a hole in your pocket and my packet'. The simplest and most effective message was `Tate not State!' Shopkeepers passed on millions of leaflets, and `over-the-counter chit-chat informed harassed housewives that all the inconveniences of rationing and shortages stemmed from Labour Government bungling'. A sugar-sponsored film, called `All in Favour', was shown throughout the country in factories, workshops, men's clubs and women's institutes. Richard Dimbleby visited the refineries at Thames and Plaistow `with an open mind and an open mike' to search out the views of Tates' workers. A feature at the Schoolboy's Exhibition at the Horticultural Hall in January 1950 was `dialing Mr Cube and questioning him about sugar'. He figured prominently at the Ideal Home Exhibition as `the first mechanical man who has been made to speak correctly'. A six-foot Mr Cube was constructed and company president Lord Lyle, known to journalists as Lord Cubevisited. With a crowd of schoolboys around him, `he picked up the receiver and asked Mr Cube what he thought about nationalisation'. The answer from a very animated sugar lump was `the same as you do'! The King's speech after the 1950 election made no reference to Tates, and in 1951 Labour's new manifesto made no mention of the sugar refining industry. The strongest weapon in the campaign to reduce the Labour majority had turned out to be Mr Cube'. Stay in touch Peter gsseditor@gmail.com