The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-03-25
ON
FAKE ADVERTISING
FEATURE OF THE MEETING or
THE TOWN cRIERs LAST EVEN.
ING AT THE COMMERCIAL CLUB
WAS ILLUSTRATED TALK ON.
FRAUDULENT ADS.

The illustrated lecture on Fraudulent
Advertising was the leading feature al
the meeting Of the Town Criers last
evening at the commercial club rooms
The programme of the evening was
opened during luncheon to conserve the
time Of the members and between
courses ii was decided to affiliate with
the National Advertising clubs in their
efforts to drive fake advertising from
the columns Of the papers and maya
zines of the country.
The committee on revision Of the
constitution reported and their sug-
gested changes were ]concurred in
They change the time of the annual
election or officers and provide for the
automatic filing Of committees. The
programme committee reported the
programme for the year which was
~Concurred in.
The lecture came after the meal and
President Pierce read the manuscript
which had been written by Charles
Merche, advertising editor Of The De
troit Times. The lantern slides used
to illustrate the lecture were all very
striking and the lecturer at times stop
ped while the ads were commented on
by the members. The following in
PRODUCTION to the lecture explains the
ODJcCtS OF the aE1tatlOn:
Advertising men are agreed upon
the necessity of making all merchants
and manufacturers in the world be-
lieve in advertising, and after years of
development this result Is we'll toward
accomplishment. There Is a. similar
agreement on the necessity of getting
all the buyers in the world to believe
in advertising. and 1t is upon this
phase of the question that we wish TO
talk to you. This result may be &C
complished in two ways; either by
keeping all the people fooled ali the
time, making u advertising as mis-
leading, as exaggerated, as dishonest
as we can, and still bring In the
crowd; or else by being strictly hon
est in u statements to the public, by
telling them the truth about u wares
as personal---very. as possible and elm
mating from the field advertisers who
will not give the public what they
promise. We believe the first method
ID impossible. We do not agree with
the dishonest advertiser who said he
could get UP a new scheme to fool the
people as o o as they learned the
trick in his old one. The only way
that advertising can continue to exert
its great power in the cheap and off,
cient distribution Of the worlds com
modities is by being honest.
! realize that a good many advertis-
ers still believe that there is an in
herent contradiction in the phrase
honest advertising, that II advertis-
ing Is honest 1t cannot be effective,
business getting advertising. Now, I
want to impress upon you that II this
is your attitude, the public will believe
the converse Of this proposition; II 1t
Is advertising, 1t is not honest or re-
liable, or worthy of moro than highly
incredulous interest. / need only state
this proposition TO you advertising
men to impress upon you the vital
importance Of honesty to the future
of your business. The basis of sue
cessful advertising is public conf
dence, and anything that undermines
public confidence in advertising takes
money out of your pockets.
We want 1t understood at the out
set that those of US who are doing
what we can to further this move
ment for honesty in advertising are
neither cranks nor reformers trying
to influence you to ways Of virtue,
and offering you that virtue as your
sole reward. I do not believe that an
ethical movement in the commercial
world which is not economically
sound, which Is not good business, Is
Likely to make much progress until
human nature swings around a great
deal. We are interested in honest ad-
vertising because we believe that ad-
vsrtising cannot develop any further
without honesty. The dishonest ad-
v~ertiser is an exploiter and we are
beginning to recognize that we have al
together too much exploitation in this
country already. In every line we
hear talk of conservation and this
movement for honest advertising IL a
movement for the conservation OF the
public purse-quite as important, at
least, as timber or waterpower, miner