Sir Stephen Tallents was an advertising high-flier of the 1930s, who possibly did more than anyone else to expand the market for the telephone.
Between 1926 and 1933, Tallents' reputation as an imaginative and effective civil servant, led to his selection as Secretary of the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), where he specialised in promoting awareness of the British Empire through an innovative programme of press and poster campaigns, exhibitions, shops and radio broadcasts. Foreshadowing his later work at the Post Office, he set up (under John Grierson) the EMB Film Unit, which pioneered the production of documentary films.
With the demise of the EMB he was appointed Public Relations Officer for the GPO, where he devised a series of marketing and advertising campaigns that were ground-breaking and bold for their time - and in retrospect have been hailed as brilliant.
