PUBLICITY AND THE PUBLIC
First Essays on Advertising. By J. Murray Allison. (Palmer. 10s. 6d.) Bigger Results from Advertising. By Harold Herd. (Allan.. . 9s.) .
No .subject is more -important or less generally understood. than advertising in England to-day. No doubt the experts are alive to its uses ; indeed, there are few men better equipped than Mr. Allison in the advertising world on either side of the Atlantic, but the public in England is only just beginning to wake up to the fact that a manufacturer who spends money on making his wares known has generally something good to sell. Again, there are signs that private persons and small businesses are daily learning that the modern newspaper has a double function : news and- service to its readers. • What miracles may be wrought through the " Want " .columns of-the daily Press, for instance! A recent advertisement in the "agony" column of the Times and in the Daily Telegraph for an experienced shorthand typist " pulled .9 more than one hundred and fifty replies from each source. What monarch of the past, in need of a careful clerk, could have summoned three hundred scriveners by a stroke of the pen ?
There is a very real ignorance among people otherwise open to reason about the use and abuse of publicity. For instance, someone recently suggested with regard to posters of the Daily Mail- and Dewar's whisky that very few. persons wish to know anything about either of these things." It was suggested further that illuminated signs are not only ugly, but of small advertising value, and that Piccadilly Circus is one of the vulgarest places in Europe. Now popular newspapers give pleasure to millions and sky-signs are by no means always ugly. The public is not such a fool as some of us think, nor is advertising only or primarily a matter of aesthetics : it is a vital necessity of the age, the great mover of merchandise, the catalyser of commerce. In short, we cannot do without it, in this nation of merchants, without going bankrupt. Conversely, more advertising means more money for everybody, and more real wealth.
Let us not minimize, however, but on the contrary emphasize and exalt the work of " Scapa " and similar bodies, whose object it is to see that the natural beauties of the countryside are not defaced, and that streets and buildings are not disfigured by hoardings that vie with each other in blatant size and crudity of -colour. Public opinion mobilized to insist on the amenities of advertising is all to the good of the advertisers as well as of the public.
In First Essays on Advertising, Mr. Allison, who was for many years advertising expert of the Times, writes with authority and long experience of the practical needs of the present and with vision of the future ;. so that the theorist as well as the business Man can hardly fail to be impressed with the position which publicity must occupy in our lives.
.At. the present moment from 250,000,000 to 2100,000,000 a year is being spent on advertising by hard-headed men who find it a vital necessity to their business. Perhaps 10 per cent. of this indeterminate stim is wasted; although it -has been shown that even bad advertising is generally better than none at all. Perhaps also some of the publicity—for Bacchus and Venus - is directed towards unworthy objects. But this is a side track from the niain argument, which is that advertising has already brought us better 'bread, better diet, better boots and transport, more reading and travelling, wider and keener contacts with life, and that it may be used in the future to make, us also healthier, happier and possibly wiser.
Publicity is the expression of the urge to which all life is . subject, to be and to become,. Probably it is as old as life itself. The complicated advertisements of birds and beasts at mating time, of which Professor Huxley 'write s so fascinatingly, are examples to the point. Every peacock is a poster. . -
The Emperor Asoka carried his advertisements throughout the length and breadth of India. There is one in the moun- tains near Mansehra relating to the -riglit ireatment of animals which we do not yet follow in this enlightened age. The Egyptians were publicity' experts. Ponfpeii is full of posters. Charles II advertised for iffi strayed spaniels. Where would. Coeur de Lion have been without: his; press-agent, Blondel Many, historical instances of the use of apt stories and striking sentences to drive home a moral or popularize a policy come to mind, but ehiefest are the Parables, which Mr. Bruce Barton, himself an advertising man, very truly says that they are -the greatest advertisements of all time, models of point, brevity, " reader-interest " and all other technical excellences considered simply as " human doom/newts " and quite apart from their source.
Publicity then is no new art, although in its modern aspect it is entering on great new powers. Mr. Allison proves very clearly and simply how it makes increased production possible and therefore cheapens the article for the public. If adver- tising ceased, we would pay more for everything in common use to-day, and would get less value for our money. Three- quarters of our luxuries and our newspapers and magazines (as at present produced) would vanish. The general strike taught us how much—perhaps too much—we have come to rely on the printed word.
As an instance of the future of publicity, we may take the health advertisements of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York. They buy big space in all the popular journals of America (their full page in the Saturday Evening Post no doubt costs them over 21,000 for each issue), and publish clever dissertations on diet and . hygiene,. with no indication of the issuer nor any advertisement as we under- stand the term, beyond the president's name and the Com- pany's address in small type at the foot of the page ; in short, the reader is not asked to do anything except_ read some tactful advice on how to keep well. Yet by this means the Metropolitan saved .52,000 policy holders from dying in one year—and incidentally saved themselves 22,360,000. I can see a sneer from the cynic ! But I believe the scheme was altruistic ; it is not rare or strange in this world that good works profit the doer.
One curious thing about advertising is that competition helps the competitors. Advertising wars are the only wars in which both or all the Protagonists "win.. This' has been often proved ; here in England the cocoa manufacturers began to advertise against each other and they all made fortunes. Then came a "cigarette war." Now the perfume makers are starting a campaign. Two years ago a leading scent maker told Mr. Allison that the saturation point had been reached in his industry. But there is " no sich thing as a saturation point, and to-day Vogue Publishes more than forty pages of perfume advertisements in its three editions.
Here are a few ideas out of a hundred sparks which fly from a turning of Mr. Allison's' pages :—Why not insist on labelling British eggs ? Foreign eggs should be labelled too, so that when You see "Laid in Japan" stamped on the shell you know what to expect ! Why don't architects advertise ? And dentists ? And stockbrokers, who now leave the field open to the bucket-shops? Why isn't there a good standard brand of rope and string advertised ? Why don't banks explain to us the advantages of thrift ? Why -don't life inSurance companies tell us clearly and often what their agents urge on us in conversation ?
There is no space to do more than commend Mr. Herd's Bigger Results from 'Advertising. This book largely deals with the " mail-order " business, but it also contains some very useful hints for anyone managing a business.. There is also some highly interesting information as to the difference in " " power between a Well and badly-written adver. tisensent and as to the psychology of the " follow-up " letter. As regards the former, Mr. Herd records a case where one bright advertisement elicited 54 letters, whereas the same space in the same newspaper on a similar day, with poor text, only " pulled " 26 replies. Chapters on office routine and "feeling the public pulse" are excellent, of their. kind, but too technical for comment here. Mr. Herd's book may be com- mended to business men, Mr. Allison's to a wider public also. Tout eomprendre c'est tout pardonner : if advertising in England is sometimes crude and coarse, we shall change it not by flouts and jeers, which cannot alter the operation of an economic law, but by a better understanding of its present functions and future powers.
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