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Show Credit Where Credit Is Due ; i A leading metropolitan firm bought space in a New York paper to say: 1 We believe in advertising. I We believe in it so thoroughly that we are willing (unsolkitedly) 1 to buy this space to pay tribute to it. Not merely a tribute to advertising as an art, or as a profession, but to advertising as a power in business, and as a great factor and a positive necessity in the highest type of conduct and of development of the great enterprises that have made American business institutions and American commerce the wonder and the envy of the entire world. 1 We would not, under any circumstances, be understood as advocating : advertising as a substitute for weakness in either merchandise, or methods of merchandising, but rather as an accessory of almost incalculable value in the exploiting and selling of any worthy product. Advertising is a force only when there is a force back of it. The right kind of advertising reduces the cost of selling and therefore there-fore does not necessitate inflation of the price of the merchandise advertised. adver-tised. I Advertising an unworthy product is no more nor less than hastening the inevitable disaster that must follow questionable methods, either in the making or exploiting of merchandise of doubtful character. Advertising often follows and should follow as a sequence to success. It's merely dodging facts for any manufacturer or large distributor of any important and nationally advertised commodity to treat the advertising end of the business slightingly or as merely incidental to the business at large. Unless the advertising end of a business is fully recognized as a substantial factor a part and parcel of the business there is going to be a leak in efficiency. The advertising department of a business is deserving of, and needs, the most whole-hearted sort of understanding and co-operation of the entire force making up the personnel of its organization. From our advertising department wc expert only that the advertisements advertise-ments measure up to the standard of the merchandise, and furthermore we expect the advertising management to make sure that the merchandise is fully worthy of what is to lie said about it in the printed .word. There is good reason for us to feel as we do toward advertising, for we are free to confess that we attribute a large measure of our success a very large measure in fact to advertising. It is naturally to be expected that people will travel the road that fleads them most quickly and safely to destination; hence the guideboard: Advertising. Hiding your light under a bushel is stupidity if you have anything 'worth lighting; if you haven't, the less said the better. We feel that the manifest confidence in our product, now so well (established, was largely achieved through advertising. Of course the merchandise is mainly responsible, but advertising told 'the world about the merchandise. After all is said and done, advertising can be as big a force as the merchandise that is back of it. Advertising, like everything else, must have backing, and when properly backed it becomes one of the greatest forces in present-day industrial life. |