Advertising Agents Hear Colleague Attack Ethics

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30938, 20 December 1965, Page 11

Advertising Agents Hear Colleague Attack Ethics

From an advertising point of view Christchurch was the most viciously competitive city in New Zealand, and ethics among advertising agents here were the lowest in New Zealand, said Mr C. Spring, the retiring Christchurch manager of J. Inglis Wright, Ltd. Mr Spring, a director of the company, was speaking at a farewell function arranged by the Canterbury branch of the Accredited Advertising Agencies’ Association of New Zealand. Mr Spring said that he sometimes had deplored what he had seen and heard of advertising representatives who. while paying lip service to the association, failed to live up to its ethics. The profession was at a stage where its members had a right to some status in the community. “We’re not just pedlars of space,” he said. “Instead of a dog-eat-dog business, advertising has become a science of sorts.”

The concept of advertising was changing continually. Today advertising agencies were not just nondescript businesses with nothing to offer. “Now what you offer includes knowledge of the movement of trade, marketing, and research. Believe me, you really have to be with it to keep abreast of changing trends."

Mr Spring suggested that it would be a service to the profession if newcomers could be urged to join the association and obey its code of ethics. His advice to the younger persons entering the profession was that the only way

to get business was by persistence. “It has been said, and I fully endorse this view, that 80 to 90 per cent of all advertising business is written by the man who is prepared to make not just one but at least four calls on a client.” Mr J. H. Skinner president of the Canterbury branch, paid tribute to the work of Mr Spring, who opened the Christchurch office of J. Inglis Wright, Ltd., in 1938, and made a presentation to him.