ADVERTISING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19020, 16 November 1923, Page 5

ADVERTISING

CONVENTION AT HOBART. SAFEGUARDS AGAINST FRAUD, Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright HOBART, November 15. The fourth annual convention of the Advertising Association of Australia and New Zealand was opened at Launceston to-day. It was decided to seek affiliation with the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World on the basis of ten subscriptions of two dollars each. A sub-committee was appointed to administer a scheme respecting a bureau of circulation. It was proposed that newspapers should subscribe to the bureau and supply circuk Uon figures, to be available only to thos •, requiring and paying for the information. It was also proposed to appoint a vigilance committee to insist on truth and honesty in advertising to safeguard the public against fraud. The recent strike of press operators in New York, which brought about a suspension ot the whole of the daily newspapers caused immense losses to all classes of advertisers by the sudden cessation of their regular means of communicating with, their clients. The special correspondent of the Daily Mail, in discussing tfle subj ect, stated : “An idea of the colossal sums involved may be gathered from the fact that when the strike broke out they were spending approximately £45.000 on each week day and £BO,OOO for Sunday advertisements m the New York and Brooklyn newspapers, and that now the strike_ is over they are clamouring for nearly twice the space that they normally book. Thus the New York Times to-day (October 4), consisting of-48 pages, devotes 283 columns out of 384 to advertising. Altogether, its manner informs me, applications for 500 columns were received for to-day’s issue. The story told by the business heads of other newspapers is of the same character. Shopkeepers and great department stores all confess that the strike has taught them, how essential newspaper advertising is to their business, and at the Bankers’ Convention held at Atlantic City speakers, bearing in mind the number of bond issues delayed by the strike, testified to the JH* dispensability of newspapers in the promotion of business. Endless devices were adopted by shopkeepers to achieve the results ordinarily obtained by display advertising in newspapers, but none of them succeeded in. attracting shoppers in average numbers. They plastered their windows and delivery vans with posters describing their bargain sales. One department store even published a daily newspaper consisting only of its advertisements, which it distributed gratis to all bookstalls. Others despatched nightly, through the mails, broad-sheet* with their daily announcements to all their credit customers, and when these failed to lure shoppers from their homes they telegraphed “night letters” to their client* inviting them to attend bargain sales. They found, however, that women especially, both rich and poor, preferred to wait until the wvipapors resumed their daily ■announcement,:, of prices before sallying forth on shopping tours. The strike brought a harvest of prosperity to suburban shopkeeper*. who. profiting by the opportunity, advertised their bargains in the local newspapers. Many advertisers resorted to the Philadelphia newspapers, which were specially distributed in New York, but it was not until two days before the strike ended that business began slightly to revive, owing to the fact that the New York newspaper owners, after a conference with leading advertisers, found themselves able to allot displays 10 lines deep and two columns wide,, to each department store. The strike, of course, caused immense losses also to the newspapers, amounting in one instance to £IOO.OOO, but it is held to have proved conclusively that no effective substitute for newspaper adrertismg has yet been invented.