The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1926. "IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE."

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 54, 5 March 1926, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 1926. "IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE."

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that toe can do.

Two trade slogans are heard in New Zealand to-day. One is "Buy British Goods," and the other "Support Local Industry," and the two are combined sometimes in a third, "Buy Empire Goods." The Christchurch "Press," which, like ourselves, has consistently urged the public to support the Homeland's industries, remarks that there is another side to the question, the duty that lies on the manufacturer to advertise his goods adequately. It quotes the London "Spectator" as saying that it is all very well urgirg the inhabitants of the British Isles to buy British goods, but what about the need for selling these goods abroad? Is Britain pushing the sale of these goods as energetically and skilfully as it might? The "Spectator" was moved to ask this by the receipt of a letter from a prominent American who was depressed by what he regarded as Britain's neglect of opportunities. In his travels between Britain and America he met scores of Americans going to England to sell American goods, but very few Englishmen going to the United States to sell English goods. Nor does the British manufacturer rely on advertisement. In a recent number of "Punch" this American counted seventeen American advertisements of goods produced in America. In a current number of "Life," which more or less corresponds to "Punch," he failed to find a single advertisement of any English goods. It must be remembered that England is a free trade and the United States a protectionist country, therefore English journals may be expected to carry more American advertisements than there are English advertisements in American journals. We are quite prepared to believe, however, that this does not wholly account for the difference. This American, it is interesting to note, says that British goods are -popular in America, but American goods are unpopular in England. To support his contention that -there is a market for foreign goods in his country, he mentions that in every chemist's shop from the Atlantic to the Pacific a famous French brand of soap is to be found. Nothing is heard now, however, of a still more famous English brand. The "Press" makes the point that the American looks after his customers in a way that the Englishman might copy with profit. The fact that American goods are unpopular in Britain moves him to take particular pains with publicity work there. He realises more fully than the Englishman that the manufacturer must look for customers, and that ordinarily merit alone will not sell goods. Every observant New Zealander will have noted the respects in which American publicity is superior to English. The advertising section of an American magazine is far more attractive to the reader than the same section of an English magazine. When one sees the same old dull appeals used year after year in some English journals one marvels at the conservatism of advertisers and publishers. The lesson has a world-wide application. If English manufacturers are remiss at Home, they are bound to be the same in other parts of the world, and those who sincerely wish- to see them prosper have a right to ask that they shall improve their publicity methods. But the lesson is not for them alone. It also touches New Zealand goods. Local manufacturers, says the "Press," "cannot achieve their ends unless they learn the value of effective advertisement and the maintenance of a steady appeal to those who have money to spend." New Zealand goods will not be sold by slogans in general terms, but by steady, carefully thought-out publicity relating to goods in detail.