The Hawera Star. MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1929. NEW CONVERTS TO ADVERTISING

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 April 1929, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

MONDAY, APRIL 8, 1929. NEW CONVERTS TO ADVERTISING

Delivered every eveniDg by 6 o’clook in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Bltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga. Alton, Hurleyville, Patea, Waverley. Hoboia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere. Fraser Road, and Ararata.

There was a time when 'the statement ‘‘lt pays to advertise” represented a. truth so novel that it tickled the cars of the world. Many jokes were written about and around it, and at least one successful stage comedy used the words as its title and the idea, it conveyed as its theme. But advertising lias outgrown its infant pains and to-day there are few of the activities of our business, and even of our private lives, upon which advertising does not touch. Those who follow it as their tailing are emphatic in tlieir claims for recognition of its great services to mankind, and after allowing for natural exuberance of the enthusiast whose interests are wholly bound up in the “cause,” one has, perforce, to admit that there is justification for many of those claims. There arc, of course, a few commercial and professional groups which have not thrown down the barriers they have raised against advertising, but the advertising experts are convincingly I confident that in a. few short years none

of these defences, will prove adequate against the. forces exerted by the ad- ' vertising “campaign.’’ Each passing year provides evidence- to justify the . prediction of the experts and within the: last week we have been given signs which may soon prove to be but the ( writing on the wall. The average man would not think, for instance, that there could be anything in common between the back-country sheepman and ' the men who sit in offices in the cities planning how best to spend ot-heT people’s money on advertising. Up till the present the wool-grower and the “copy writer” have not met, but negotiations have been opened for a meeting—and, strange to relate, the first advances have been made by the sheep farmers! At a meeting of the Canterbury Sheepowners’ Union a member strongly urged that the sheepowners of the principal wool-producing countries in -the world should establish a fund for the prosecution of a world-wide advertising campaign as an off-set against the competition! of artificial silk. The proposal was supported by the Canterbury Union and it has been passed on to the national organisation of the wool growers. Briefly, the proposal is that the Government be asked to- pass legislation empowering the growers to strike a levy of not more than sixpence a bale for the purpose of establishing a fund to be used throughout the world in issuing propaganda to encourage the use of wool in preference to other clothing materials, ‘‘the use of w T hich has proved to be so detrimental to. health, especially in the temperate and colder climates.” This latter reference to “health” suggests that the sheepmen of Canterbury are no strangers to the “pulling power” of advertising. It is the intention of the promoter of this resolution that South Africa, Australia and the Argentine- should be invited to join with Hew Zealand in launching an advertising campaign uponi a world which has been steadily changing over from woollens to. near-silk quite unconscious of the danger to which it has exposed its health—and the sheep farmers’ bank account! This -move, by the j wool-growers is one that can be welcomed in all seriousness, however, and provides fresh evidence that the Hew Zealand primary producer is awakening to the fact- that the selling of primary produce ou the world’s markets is a highly specialised business and one in which the follower of -the old ‘‘hit or miss” method cannot hope to hold his own. It might be thought -that no greater voluntary recognition of the power of advertising could be given in this country, but the past week has been a period of triumph for the adjveftising man, who, on top of-the woolgrowers’ resolution, has had the satisfaction of reading .in the Press a summary of a paper read at the present conference of the legal profession in which the suggestion was made that advertising, as a means of combating the propaganda of rivals, could no longer bo regarded as unthinkable! It is certainly going to. be- difficult in the future- to refuse to accept the advertising man’s declaration that there, are no limits to- the things advertising can do.