Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1914-07-31
FUNCTION or THE
ADVERTISING ART
Is to Create or Enlarge Public
Demand for Goods-The
- New Evangel.

If that committee Of the Unlteo
States senate had only been wise or
thoughtful enough to say that In
judious advertising Is one OF many
factors in the increased cost of living
we should not have the chorus OF ols-
sent from those who practically know
something about the nature and rune
ton of the advertising art.
Taking the data before the COM
mittee, let us try to see what 1t prop
ably had in mind, but failed to clearly
express:
l. An advertising project, dissociat-
ed from those problems Of production
and distribution sure to be raised oy
it, becomes merely an additional
charge upon the conduct Of a busi-
ness; and that charge must. In great
er part, be shifted upon the consumer
if that kind Of advertising is to be
kept going.
2. Inconsiderate advertising Is, there
fore, an unproductive expense that
must, in the last analysis. fall upon
the consuming public.
In short-however awkwardly, and
even unconsciously-the committee
has virtually classified all advertising
into the categories Of productive and
non-productive, and thus rendered
real service to q great and expanding
industry. For all will admit that
while the practice Of advertising mas
attained u respectable age and volume
the underlying science Is still rudi-
mentary, and in need Of definite terms
conveying clean-cut meanings. what
is all that we have been lately hear
ing, through the columns of Printers
Ink about the psychology of advertls-
ing but a cropping after a better OASIS
than the familiar hit or miss, upon
which to rest the unceasing ventures
in advertising? Why are many seats
of the higher learning adding adVer-
Using courses to their currtculums!
1t is well, at a moment itself psyche
logical, to have suggested to us a
broad division of the subject, upon
which the whole science of the matter
can be built. We all know what pro-
ductive advertising means. What re:
mains is to learn beforehand how to
attain It
Quite recently, and very largely
through the influence Of this journal
there has come a realization that ad'
vertising Is a link in a chain, and
not an ellipse or circle, beginning and
ending in itself. The columns OF
Printers Ink have teemed CT late with
new uses Of old words and phrases
pressed into service to give emphasis
to these now dominant ideas: Adver'
Using Is a part, not the whole; 1t is
the beginning, but not the ending, OF
a. process. So ardent has been the
preaching, and so responsive the au
dience, that some who read this arti
Gle will be sure to ask themselves II
they ever knew 1t to be otherwise
| The answer is yes, and the time sc
lately that 1t must be counted by q
few years, and not by so much as g
| decade.
Having reduced the dictum Of the
senate committee to its logical terms
let us now try to summarize the new
evangel of advertising, as put forth
under the Printers Ink imprimatur:
l. The object Of the advertising is
to create or enlarge public demand
for the goods.
2. Behind the advertising must be
the goods, leveling up to the highest
plane Of the advertising.
8. Back of the goods must be the
plans and means Of distribution, equal
to all the demands created by the ad,
vertising.
4. AS the consuming demand grows
the advertising should strengthen. the
production better itself in quality OF
price, and distribution become easier
and cheaper.
1t is obvious that under such q
systematized project Of advertising
the consumer will either get the same
quality for less money, or a better
quality for the same money, and In
either case the cost Of living will not
have been ncreased.-Charles F. Ben
jamin in Printers Ink.