Birmingham Business School hosts free exhibition on how advertisers invented the teenager

A major free pop-up exhibition examining how advertising shaped the identity of the British teenager is coming to Birmingham this October, as part of a national tour by the History of Advertising Trust (HAT) - the world's largest archive of UK advertising.

Teenage Kicks: Finding the Teenage Consumer opens at Birmingham Business School at the University of Birmingham on 5 October and runs until 8 October, with free entry and open to the public.

The exhibition is part of HAT's 50th anniversary year and marks the first time the organisation, which has spent half a century preserving the nation's advertising heritage in its Norfolk archive, has taken its work to university campuses across the UK.

The exhibition comes as the Birmingham Business School celebrates accepting its first cohort of undergraduate Marketing students. The BSc Marketing degree is the School's first undergraduate programme dedicated solely to marketing.

Developed in consultation with industry and students, the new degree reflects growing demand for specialist marketing education and careers. Previously, marketing had been included in the BSc in Management.

Professor Sarah Montano, Director of Education at Birmingham Business School, said: “The Business School is thrilled to welcome our first cohort of undergraduate marketing students as we host Teenage Kicks. Marketing has always been a key area of research and education for the University of Birmingham, weaving into multiple courses taught across the Business School, but now for the first time, we have a fully dedicated undergraduate offering.

“Developing the skills to be a leading marketer in an increasingly unpredictable world and understanding how markets are created and how they connect to the world around us is a key point of our marketing education. Teenage Kicks reflects this, demonstrating the lasting impact that marketing can have on our culture.”

Teenage Kicks will explore one of the most fascinating and underexamined stories in British social history: how the teenager, as a distinct cultural and commercial category, was invented in postwar Britain, and how advertising was central to that invention.

Set against the backdrop of the postwar Baby Boom, rising wages, the 1944 Butler Education Act and shifting social expectations, the exhibition will trace how a generation of young people with unprecedented disposable income became the most coveted, and most studied, consumer group in British history.

Dr David Clampin, Education & Outreach Specialist at The History of Advertising Trust (HAT), said: "The teenager is one of the great inventions of the twentieth century, and advertising was one of its principal architects. What makes this exhibition so unique is that it uses historic advertising not just as illustration, but as primary evidence: these campaigns tell us as much about the society that produced them as they do about the products they were selling. We've drawn on material from HAT's extensive archive that most people have never seen, and we think it will surprise visitors - not just students and academics, but anyone who grew up being sold to, which is all of us. We can’t wait to welcome everyone from Birmingham."

Professor Edgar Meyer, Dean of Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, said: "Birmingham Business School has a long-standing reputation for bringing people together to explore the issues shaping business, society and culture. We are delighted to welcome the History of Advertising Trust and to host what promises to be a truly thought-provoking exhibition. Teenage Kicks sits at the intersection of social history, consumer culture and media studies, themes that resonate deeply with our students and with our wider academic community. We look forward to welcoming visitors from across Birmingham and beyond."

Teenage Kicks will be open to members of the public, university students and staff.