This thesis studies the ways in which Swedish advertising agents tried to reshape advertising into a practise seen as working for the public benefit, and not just for economical profit of themselves and their clients. Earlier research on Swedish advertising has not paid enough attention to the advertising sectors ambitions to spread their views of advertising as a societal good during the 1930s. By investigating, among other things, the 4th Nordic Advertising Congress in 1937, which was held on the theme “Advertising serves society”, and the magazines Futurum and Reklam nyheterna, published by and for advertising agents in Sweden, this thesis shows that the Swedish advertising sector actively tried to represent advertising as an important factor in the improvement and modernization of Sweden. The arguments used to legitimize advertising as a question with relevance for the whole of society was intimately connected to ideals that are usually associated with the emergence of the Swedish welfare state, such as public health, social improvement, modernity and rationality. Earlier research tend to focus on the agency of the state in this period, but this study shows that also the private advertising sector of Sweden were embracing these ideals and playing a part in the processes creating these policies by advocating a society with more “propaganda” for things such as public health, better homes, and traffic safety.