BRITAIN'S AWAKENING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18193, 14 September 1933, Page 10

BRITAIN'S AWAKENING

DISCLOSED AT OLYMPIA A REMARKABLE EXHIBITION LONDON, Aug. 19. Everyone knows that British industry and. finance have staged a ‘'comeback” these last few years that has astonished the world. How much of this astonishing revival should bo credited to courageous modern advertising on the part of British experts is only now being realised by the industrialists 'themselves, and by means of the largest 'advertising exhibition ever put on in England, the advertising men of this country have been “telling the world” how they have helped, and can help in the future, to tight depression conditions of trade.

Foreigners, wont to sneer at the slow-going British with their selfsatisfied ways, have often found “twisting the lion’s tail” an amusing game. The British, they said, were always boasting that they made the best goods in the world —but they did not know how to soli them under modern competitive conditions. MOST STABLE COUNTRY To-day they sing a different tune, for Britain is acknowledged to be the most stable country in the world, in-

ilus!iiallv, financially and socially, and those who used to ecu If now pause to envy. Largely this metamorphosis is .due to that strange churaeterislic of English people which makes them thrive best when they are “up against if.” The “depression” brought out all (lie lighting qualities of the race, put British industry “on its toes” and caused a complete change in the British exporters’ outlook on world markets. The finest evidence of this awakening hits Iteon seen recently in this most remarkable advertising and marketing exhibition ever singed in England. Greatly daring, the Advertising Association of (front Britain hired Olympia, the enclosed arena in London and determined to “show the world” the part which advertising is playing in the battle, l'or prosperity. No exhibition of this kind has over brought together such an amazing collection of advertising and marketing information. The huge hall was Idled with .exhibits of newspapers, advertisers and ‘ merchandisers’ of every kind. There were elaborate stands creeled by all the chief newspapers in the kingdom; stands and information bureaux of all the Dominions and many of the larger newspapers in each of them. Never was there concentrated in one place such a mass of expert information about markets for British manufacturers in every corner of the world. EMI‘IKE SECTION FINEST OF A I,E Th r Empire section was one of (lie finest of all. In the centre of the main hall were the stands of the chief London news-

papers and vmy ntfrae.five 1 hey were, it was natural that the Times should take a prominent place, for Major ,1. J. Astor, chief proprietor of the Times, is chairman of tlie Advertising Association and devoted weeks of his time to making speeches''all over Britain on the exhibition and to encouraging British industrialists to go oul after new overseas markets, One of the two stands of the Times illustrated, by means of dioramas, the pioneer pari the newspaper lias played in printing, journalism and advertising. They showed respectively .lolln Walter the Second’s cutter landing news from Franco in a lonely bay on the south coast in ISdo when a rigid censorship had been essayed by the Government; William Howard Russell, fhe famous war correspondent, in his tenf amid the snows of the Crimea in 385-4-; the first newspaper train chartered bv the Times in 187.3, and the first wireless-equipped vessel used by tt newspaper during the Russo-Jap-anese war in 15)0-1.

Other London newspapers had exhibits on an elaborate scale—one particularly prominent with life-size pictures of its chief editorial eoiilri tailors. The 8.8.0. was not to bo outdone and showed an exhibition of a sectional model of Broadcasting House, while from a rent ml .studio broadcast talks by advertisers went on all and every day. DAILY TALK" ON EMPIRE In the Empire section there were daily talks on every pari of the Empire by distinguished speakers, including Mr. R. B. Bennett and Mr. S. M. Bruce, Australia s resident Minister in London. Every form of ad-

vertising had its own methods of dis play. There was a working model in section of the London .1 rausport service, showing trackless street-curs and motor-buses above ground; tubes and moving staircases underground. All round the great hull were hundreds of large posters, entered in a competition to be judged by arlists ami experts. Another section contained vvlial is a novelty in Britain, though long in use in Canada, a store labelled “Packetaria 1950” designed on 1 lie* model of the “help-yourself” stores common across the Atlantic. The Daily Review, the exhibition’s own newspaper, was printed daily in sight of spectators. Attractions for the public were nol neglected and succeeded in drawing large crowds to the show. There was, for instance, a full-size swimming pool in which bathing beauties, costumed in the wares of a wellknown; make, 'disported themselves. There was a movie studio where the public were invited to allow their features to lie given a test.

The King and (jueen. the Prince oi Wales and many Cabinet Ministers were, among the visitors to the exhition, whose chief purposes were set forth bv Major Astor in these word if; “The problem of the time is rather one of distribution than of production. He who makes two ears of corn grow where one grew before is to-day less, perhaps, of a benefactor than lie who succeeds in litiding purchasers for the grain. Tt is in the solution of such difficulties as this that the contribution. of the advertising expert mav, indeed, be found invaluable.”