ADVERTISING.

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 6

ADVERTISING.

Advertising is recognised as an art; it is beginning now to have its lu'storians. Already it is being invested with an antiquity and associations which leave it no need to feel humility in the presence of its sister, journalism. As an art in wholesale practice, it is not much more than fifty years old, but its roots go back to the very beginnings of society. The cave man (as its latest historian, in an American review, reminds us) doubtless advertised his superior hatchets and arrow-heads by peddling them, whence sprang the fair, with its booths, of which the modern shop is a development. The shops advertised on their fronts until more efficient ways wore discovered by them of making known to a much larger number the value of their wares. From an early date advertising has given its own words to the language. The word "libel" comes from the name given by the Romans to a written advertisement for absconded debtors. An " album " was the white space painted on their walls by the ancients for tho purpose of making public notifications. The first newsapers in the modern sense were born about 1526, four centuries ago this year, in the form of small pamphlets, published irregularly, in Germany; the first newspaper advertisement, heralding a book for sale, appeared in one of these in 1591; and tho first miscellaneous advertisement of merchandise in a Dutch newspaper in 1626, or precisely three centuries ago. At last the most ancient need had found a medium for its satisfaction, which the experts of advertising to-day admit \vith one voice to be the most advantageous of all. The publishers of books in Englaud were tho first to take advantage of their new opportunity, and the titles of books in the seventeenth century must have made his art easy for Mr Puff of that period. The following examples are recalled:— Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches. A Most Delectable Swoet Perfumed Nosogay for God's Saints to Smell At. A Sign of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, Breathed Out of a Hole in the Wall, of an Earthly Vessel known among Men by the Name of Samuel Fish. The Spiritual Mustard Pot to make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion. Tobacco Battered, and the Pipe Shattered about their Ears that idly

idolise so loathsome a Vanity, by a Volley of Holy Shot thundered from

Mount Helicon; a poem against the use of tobacco, by Joshua Sylvester. But Charles 11., who caved little for books, at least of the serious kind, was an inveterate advertiser. He was always losing his dogs, hawks, and falcons, and advertising for them in the ‘Mercuriua Politicos.’ Many of these calls to return he is believed to have written himself, and, if so, he had a natural talent for the profession which many of its, modern practitioners might envy. Witness the following;— We must call on you again for a Black Dog, between a greyhound and a spaniel, no white about him, only a streak on his breast, and tayl a little bobbed. It is His Majestie’s own dog, and doubtless was stolen. Whoever finds him may acquaint any

at Whitehall, for the dog was better known at Court than those who stole him. Will they never leave robbing His Majesty? Must we not keep a dog?

The quack advertiser was an early pest, The newspapers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are filled with puffs of such remedies as powdered unicorn horn, antimonial cups, and elixirs of life. Nowadays it is an accepted maxim that advertising must be true before it can have its best effectiveness. The goods must bo genuine if the demand for them, stimulated by publicity, is to continue to increase. In 1672 the first advertising school and agency were formed by one John Houghton, a Fellow of the Royal Society. The volume of newspaper advertising steadily increased until, in 1712, 4 tax of 3s fid was imposed on each advertisement, regardless of ’its size, which was not removed until 1832, when the London ‘Times’ paid the Government £170,000 as its advertising tax for the year. With the removal of this impost and the improvement of the machinery of printing began the modern era, alike of newspaper advertising and of newspapers. Each has helped the other. It is admitted now that goods are not made dearer, they are cheapened, by being advertised, through the greater distribution which is. made for them and the larger, more economical production which this involves. If the effect were otherwise, it has been pointed out, laundry soap would be one of the dearest of commodities, whereas it is one of the cheapest. And newspapers—also magazines—would be dearer, less numerous, and smaller, without the power to give half the nows or half the variety which they now present if it were not for their advertisements.