ADVERTISING

Southland Times, Issue 18973, 21 June 1923, Page 10

ADVERTISING

A MODERN BUSINESS ESSENTIAL. THE POWER OF THE PRESS. A very interesting and instructive addrees was delivered by Mr Will Appleton in Wellington recently, says the Dominion. Taking for his subject “Advertising and Modern Business,” Mr Appleton traced advertising from its earliest infancy in a manner that held the attention of his audience throughout. “As an economic force,” said Mr Appleton, “advertising gives birth to new wants, and so creates an economic demand for more goods, thus tending to increase the demand for labour. Some modern economic thinkers have accorded to advertising its rightful place with agriculture, manufacturing, commerce and transportation as one of the prominent forms in the creation of wealth. “The importance of the social service of advertising can scarcely be over-emphasised in view of the prevalence of the old idea that its value is to the advertiser only—its cost an unnecessary burden borne by the ultimate consumer. As a matter of fact, the consumer is not only saved time and effort in selecting what he buys, but is enabled to get better qualities and lower prices per piece by this very power of advertising. FIVE WAYS OF ADVERTISING. “There are five distinct ways in which advertising is of service to th© consumer. Publicity educates the public to better knowledge, and thus to quicker and more intelligent selection of goods on the competitive market. If the buyer does not know the relative claims or merits of the competing products, if he does not know where to find them, or if he is in ignorance of the competing prices, he cannot effectively utilise either his time, his means, or his selective ability in buying. Not know-' ing prices, he cannot buy as cheaply. Not knowing qualities, he certainly cannot find the best. The absence of advertising handicaps he consumer. Advertising not only assists the buyer to select the best qualities, but also gives him higher and higher qualities from which to select. Present-day competition forces the manufacturer to establish a sound claim of superiority for his article. This claim is voiced by advertising. Modern advertising of branded and labelled goods through their established individuality and the general knowledge of their quality by the public, has set new standards for the market. The new* and higher business morality brought, about by advertising makes misrepresentation unsafe and in many cases impossible of success.

“The social service of advertising in the introduction of new and useful devices, or of improvements on established products, need hardly be dwelt upon here. Advertising has brought new products to the consumer’s attention, and taught him to use them. In most cases, these products have added to the consumer's health, welfare and happiness. Soap and bath-tub manufacturers have taught the value of cleanliness in preserving the health; advertisements for toothbrushes and dentifrices have emphasised the necessity for care of the teeth until it is not longer considered entirely natural to lose one’s teeth early in life. The makers of good food preparations have exposed many popular fallacies about eating coarse and unwholesome food, and they have spread abroad much information on the subject of pure food and sanitary cooking. “There is hardly a phase of modern life into which the influence of advertising has not entered. Railroad and steamship companies, by advertising the quality of their services, have taught travellers what- to expect in convenience and in safety, and by advertising the benefits of travel have stimulated travel itself to a great degree. Insurance companies, banks, and similar institutions have dwelt so strongly upon the necessity of thrift and protection of the family, that men who do not provide against the risks and accidents of life arc looked upon as possessing poor judgment at least. Automobile manufacturers probably have done more to secure good roads for the farmer than have the combined efforts of all the road commissioners throughout the land. Nobody now denies the utter futility of any new product until the public knows of its existence, and has been educated to its use; but few have recognised the importance of advertising in increasing the social serviceability of i well-established products through creating wider fields for their use.

THE GREAT SERVANT OF TRUTH.

'The intelligent advertiser devotes as much care to the education of old customers to the fullest use of his product, as he spends in attracting new buyers. “Advertising has taken down the screens from the windows of business, of directors’ rooms, and even of departments of State. Business is now done in the open, and will be more and more—and to advertising the credit is due, for it has shown the way. It is the. great servant of the Truth. “No discussion of the social and economic functions of advertising is complete without methods and unit costs of production. Advertising assures and enlarges the market for the manufacturer’s goods. It thereby makes possible large-scale production from single patterns or designs which, through reduction of the overhead or indirect costs per unit, brings about the low prices of most articles of standard design to-day. 'Fhe low-priced watch, the automobile, the cigarette, the man’s collar—all these standard products and hundreds more, are a tribute to the economic power of advertising. Without the assurance of widespread demand and easy sale which good advertising alone can give, no manufacturer could dare to produce the quantities which justify these low prices. The ultimate consumer, who, of course, pays the cost of the advertising, pays it with but a small proportion of what it has saved him. “When a man writes his name on his goods he thereby endorses them. Then by advertising he puts a heavy investment behind that endorsement. He promises to be responsible. He separates himself altogether from the manufacturers, who will not put their names on their handiwork, but send them out into the world like an anonymous letter, for which no one can be held responsible. The manufacturer who, by advertising, has given the purchaser a bond, dare not take liberties. He must fulfil every expectation that his advertising may have aroused, or lose part of his investment. He must keep up the quality. He must make the goods make good. He must see that they are in the stores so that when he has sent you there you will not be disappointed. He knows that goods which can be called for by name can also be rejected by name if the consumer becomes prejudiced against them. Advertising tends to make all consumers into connoisseurs. It has been a great free correspondence school in merchandising. People without taste have been educated into taste by advertising campaigns in music, furniture, wall-coverings, architecture, clothes and an endless number of things. “Advertising is like the railway, the tram, the telephone, the newspaper, the school—a creater of human activity. Like all of these, it is a force for the wider and quicker dissemination of information. It brings within our ken things that we never knew existed, or never thought we wanted. It teaches us to want things a little beyond our grasp, and to work a little harder in order to get them. It is like the rifle that the modern Tom Sawyer saw in the window. He had intended to loaf all the summer, but he wanted that rifle. In order to get it he had to have money. To get money he went out and painted fences and ran errands and mowed lawns. The knowledge that there was a rifle that he could have if he worked for it made him a producer instead of a dependent. “NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING THE MOST ECONOMICAL.” “Newspaper advertising,” Mr Appleton then remarked, “is the most economical kind of publicity procurable. Thanks to the organisation and development of our modern journals, it is now possible to produce, say, a quarter-page advertisement, and distribute this to thousands of readers, at a lesser cost than would be the actual outlay for the paper in printing. This means th pt

the newspapers really distribute your message free. The speaker said that he was sorry to say that a great deal of money was wasted in advertising, simply because many of those who used it did not realise its potentialities. Then, again, thousands of pounds were wasted in New Zealand annually in alleged publicity that was of no service whatever, to the advertiser. People frequently spent money on concert programmes, guide books, and miscellaneous media, brought under notice as being excellent- advertising vehicles, when the money really amounted to charity. Such advertising should not be charged up as publicity at all, but shown in the profit and loss account at the end of the year as donations.”

The speaker thought that the time was coming when advertising would be used extensively in an effort to safeguard the health of the people. Mr Appleton said that he believed in prevention, rather than cure, and he considered that the high cost of hospital administration in Wellington, and the sickness that was evidently prevalent in our midst, were in large measure a reflection on the city. Re thought that the people should be educated on how to prevent illness, and this could be done by judicious advertising. Advertising was indispensible to modern business. Just as oxygen was one of the necessary component parts of the air which sustained life, so too advertising had become one of the vital forces that sustained business. It not only breathed the breath of life into business, but it developed and regulated the wants, the habits and the life of the individual. It was largely responsible for the culture and refinement of presentday civilisation.

In conclusion, Mr Appleton quoted the great authority on advertising, Lord Burnham, who said recently:—“Advertising is the key industry of the universe; it opens every door, it leads through the street to the market place, through the marketplace to the home. It is the fine literature of trade, and the illumination of business.”