During the Fascist period, advertising underwent several important changes in both the commercial and the political field. Italian advertisers studied political propaganda techniques and experimented with them. This article examines the relationship between advertising and propaganda under Fascism. It builds on recent studies about the history of advertising, by integrating an institutional perspective with an examination of the cross-transfer of knowhow and expertise between the advertising and the political domains. On the one hand, it focuses on the relations that were established at the time between the emerging role of the professional advertiser and the Fascist regime, by examining the creation of the Sindacato nazionale fascista “Agenzie e case di pubblicità” and of its journal “La Pubblicità d’Italia”.
On the other hand, it examines the studies carried out on advertising and propaganda during the 1930s, as well as the conferences and international debates among experts that took place at the time. Hence, this article goes beyond the traditional history of propaganda and advertising by offering an innovative study of the links between the two domains — propaganda and advertising —, and of their porous boundaries.