VIEWS OF ADVERTISING.

Otago Witness, Issue 3995, 7 October 1930, Page 25

VIEWS OF ADVERTISING.

PROMINENT MOTOR MANUFACTURERS SPEAK.

According to Mr C. W. Nash, president of the Nash Motors Company, advertising does not sell: it opens the way for the sale, and as such is an essentia] part of the selling machine. “ I have never yet encountered anybody, however,” said Mr Nash, “ who could prove to me in mathematical terms just what advertising has done or could do. While an unquestioned force, it is an intangible force. Give it a sufficient place in the merchandising picture and it will perform; try to measure its performances and you become involved in a mass of more or less meaningless figures that inevitably detract from the real work that it can do.”

John N. Willys, former president of Willys-Overland, Inc., says there are some manufacturers who insist that advertising is an economic waste, or at least that it is an expense that has to be added to the selling cost! Without advertising, the automobile in its present form, to say nothing of the vast busienss itself, could not have been. “ I can hardly conceive,” said Mr Willys, “ of any manufacturing business rising to the full limit of its opportunity without advertising. It is my honest belief that advertising must be counted upon to do considerably more than half of the actual selling.” Mr E. T. Strong, president of the Buick Motor Company, gives this as his view: “ Advertising has created a condition of public goodwill which the automobile manufacturer may now call upon to serve him in many ways. Take, for example, the experience of our own company. Through many years of consistent advertising we have built up in 'the public mind belief in, respect for, and acceptance of the Buick car. We also have gained confidence in the Buick Motor Company as an institution. When we make a certain claim on behalf of any of our merchandise, therefore, the cumulative effect of this advertising structure we have been building "causes the truth of that statement to be recognised quickly and without question.”