ADVERTISING BY RADIO

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21414, 5 March 1935, Page 8

ADVERTISING BY RADIO

TO TUB KI.IITOB OK TUB I'KK.SH. Sir,—l am very glad that "Advertising Agent" is keeping this discussion alive. The thing to be deplored is the supineness which lets things go by default, and then wakes to repentance too late to eradicate some long and firmly rooted practice. Now is the time to determine whether radio-ad-vertising is to be permitted, or not. It is surely wiser to prohibit it in the meantime, until we arrive at some concensus of opinion and some more accurate definitions and distinctions. Sky-writing has been prohibited, and advertising on the pavement with chalk or paint; city hoardings are disappearing under the stress of public opinion; and road-users arc protesting against the defilement of our scenic beauties with advertisements publishing the merits of this type of tyre and that brand of soap. Radio advertising comes, I think, in the same category and under the same ban. Producers and retailers require, certainly, some media for advertising thenwares, as the public desire to know what articles are iipon the market. There are three such media recognised: Shop window-dressing, bills by post, and newspaper advertisements. I don't know that there is any real "ethical difference" between radio-advertising and newspaper advertisements; but I think there is an aesthetic distinction. For the fraction of a second your eye may light upon a newspaper advertisement, and if not interested you can divert your glance at once. It is much more difficult to divert from your ear a radio-advertisement that offends your taste. It is sprung upon you in the middle of an otherwise good programme, and desiring to hear the next items and the latter part of the programme, you do not care to switch off. Radio-advertisers know this and take an unfair advantage of listeners-in. Moreover, as "Advertising Agent" sug-

gests, there is too great a contrast between revulsion from some trivial trade advertisement and the enjoyment of line music or a good lecture. In any case, as the Rev. A. C, Watson declared in an address at the Rotary Conference in Timaru, we arc not educating, or arc in danger of losing our sense of the beautiful in art, poetry, music, and literature. We shall certainly help to keep the standard high by banning advertising over the air and the commercialising of that element in our complex modern life.— Yours, etc., PURE AIR. March 4, 1935.