Knowing the Child Consumer through Box Tops: Data Collection, Measurement, and Advertising to Children, 1920–1945

National advertisers took an earnest interest in children during the first half of the 20th century. Throughout this period, food advertisers commonly offered children membership in clubs and premiums (prizes) in exchange for proofs of purchase, such as box tops. This article, relying upon primary research from the advertising trade press and ad agency archives, considers box tops as instruments that generated market-relevant knowledge. I argue that the submission of box tops to advertisers was an early form of data mining—used to learn about and better target consumers, but also as an audience metric, an ad hoc ratings system for print and radio broadcast sponsorship investments. These arguments are contextualized in critical theories that suggest commercial media audiences, as well as consumers more broadly, are manufactured and that measurement plays a central role in the processes of audience manufacture and commodification. I draw two important conclusions. First, this research demonstrates that consumer surveillance is not unique to the digital era of advertising. Second, I conclude that by “knowing” children through box top submissions, the advertising industry socially constructed the child consumer; that is, measurement through box tops constructed the very audience it sought to measure.