MAINTAINING PROSPERITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 10

MAINTAINING PROSPERITY.

FREE DEVELOPMENT OF BUSINESS. "At each stage of the business situation, advertising takes on new significance and new obligations/' writes Mi. James 11. McGraw, a writer with an international reputation. "More and more," lie adds, "advertising becomes essential to the economical movement of goods, from industry to industry, from producer to merchant to consumer. More and more does advertising guide preference for. commodities and services that, interwoven, form the very warp and woof of our civilisation. "in considering the broader, as well as the more effective, use of advertising it may well be questioned whether any product, however staple at first sight it may appear, is without elements of distinction. A product -is endowed with the qualities of its makers, and no organisation is entirely devoid of personality. The very fact of survival in a competitive market is proof that there is distinctiveness in product or service. There are such individual factors as company reliability, assurance of progressive .product improvement through intelligent engineering or painstaking research, ability to assist buyers by prompt deliveries, competence of representatives to advise on nse and application of the product arid on the condition of ~tlie market. There a,re a hundred respects in which firms differ from each other. All these affect the willingness of tne buyer to take one manufacturer's product rather .than another's, even though tlie products appear to be similar. _"Jt is apparent that the very planning of advertising causes a most searching examination of products to determine the distinctive elements. If perchance, there be no market distinction, then, at the very least, advertising may guarantee a continuance of quality. The market position of certain brands of flour, bread, soap, cement, brass, industrial belting—the prosperity attending their makers—is eloquent testimony of advertising's effectiveness in the staple field. It has endowed run-of-product with a special character, and through the guarantee of sustained quality, advertising has made specialities within staples."