Putting Towns On the Map by Publicity

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 561, 14 January 1929, Page 14

Putting Towns On the Map by Publicity

American Cities are Advertising, More Freely MILLIONS OF DOLLARS SPENT American cities are no longer content to trust to such circumstances as the birth within their boundaries o£ some famous personage to put them on the map, says “The New York Times.” Instead, they are going out into the highways and the byways to tell the world about themselves. And they are digging deep into their official pocket-books for the means with which to do this advertising professionally. The United States Department of Commerce is authority for the statement that practically all communities in the country of more than 5,000 inhabitants and many smaller ones are making some provision for systematic community promotion. The chief advertisers are those with populations of from 50,000 to 300,000, where it has become, the fashion to inaugurate campaigns for promotion funds to be expended over a period of from two to five years. The range of advertising communities, though, is from the small town spending 200 dollars to 300 dollars a year for posters, road signs and booklets and perhaps an occasional newspaper or magazine notice, to the big city with departments and bureaux for making itself known, and a promotion budget of perhaps 100,000 dollars a year. The national annual bill for community advertising is estimated at some 6,000,000 dollars, or over £1,000,000. The cities that go about proclaiming themselves have a wide variety of objectives. Not long ago the Department of Commerce made a point of getting in touch with as many .'f them as possible and asking them why they engage in such advertising programmes. The answers, to attract tourists and to promote bur/ness, were the usual ones. Some -onnnunities wanted settlers. Others wished to entertain conventions. And still others were more vaguely after prestige, good-will and publicity. And some, of course, wished to serve all of these ends at once. Community Publicity Community advertising has come to be looked upon as of such importance that it has been assigned a regular place in the finances of many cities, receiving its fair share of the funds derived from taxation. Many of the advertising programmes depend upon taxes entirely for their support. in a few places there are legal limitations on the use of tax money for such purposes, but in some of them— Massachusetts, for instance—campaigns are being carried on for legislation recognising the call of community advertising on State and municipal taxes. A recent tendency has been noted for cities to advertise in groups, setting forth the advantages of entire regions. This is particularly the case where the attraction of tourists is the motive, unless, of course, a city wishes to establish its exclusiveness for its special facilities for sports and recreation. There are State publicity bureaux, too, engaged in advertising entire sections. The Maine Publicity Bureau, a leader in this group, is expending 50,000 dollars a year to promote tourist trade there, and New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island more recently have made appropriations for this purpose. Two large organisations are similarly engaged in promoting Northern and Southern California. What all these intensive efforts at making communities generally known amount to is difficult of determination. Most of those cities which list tangible benefit from their advertising mention increase in the tourist trade. Some point to new industries, others to increased population or increase in general business. As a rule, however, the benefits are not very definitely measured. The purpose of creating prestige and good-will, which prompts many cities, is impossible of any attempt at measurement, of course. Such Is the belief, however, that advertising does a city good that only two localities investigated by the Department of Commerce reported abandonment of community advertising as a wasteful aDd unsatisfactory enterprise. Several cities reported that they were carrying on no such activities.