STEP OUT!

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 257, 30 October 1929, Page 5

STEP OUT!

MODERN ADVERTISING CALLS. "WRITTEN ACROSS THE SKY." HIGH ETHICAL STANDARDS. The extent to which the columns of tlie newspaper press are being used for advertising purposes throughout the world formed the theme of an address which was given by Mr. G. C. Codlin to the Auckland Advertising Club convention last evening on "The Trend of Advertising—lts Modern Development." Clean, virile advertising, the speaker said, was one of the most potent factors in the attainment of higher standards and the utilisation of services of all descriptions. Lord Melchett, better known as Sir Alfred Mond, had aptly described advertising as the lubricant of trade.

To copy the United States in methods of selling and advertising was not necessary, and neither would matters be improved by wiping out the background of centuries. "But," added the speaker, "to recapture the spirit of enterprise, to absorb the zest of experiment, to try and to test, to strive and to struggle, and to work for the fun of it—that is another matter. Clash and change and challenge! Like it or not, it is the neworder. It is written across the sky. No nation can afford to ignore this signal to step out."

The trend of modern advertising, the speaker said, had to a very large extent been determined by consideration of the problem brought into being by intensive production in the factories of the world. In conformity with this intensive organised production, standards of living had risen everywhere, but these standards could not be maintained unless efficient organisation of sales effort kept pace.

Going out of fashion, Mr. Codlin declared, was the traveller who loaded up the retailer with goods, and incidentally with '"'tips, nips and quips." Intensive advertising campaigns were a real factor in modern trade. The advertising expert and the retafler were at one with the manufacturr and the wholesaler in the handling of commodities.

Some interesting comments were made bv the speaker concerning the censorship of advertising by newspapers, or the organisations that spoke for the newspapers, which had led to the steady modification of any tendency to exaggeration or misdescription. This was in keeping with the modern tendency of advertising to conform with higher ethical standards.