The Winslow mail., 1925-07-24
ADVERTISING.

day operations or business, ana mas
assumed such large proportions in
recent years that it is difficult to
gauge it's magnitude and to calcu-
late it's exact place in commercial
affairs, but some idea may be
gained by recent statistics, which
estimate that billion and half
dollars are spent annually. and
that 1000 square miles of space are
utilized in newspapers and maga-
zines, which includes paper adver-
tising only, not billboards, pub
licity stunts of spectacular ma
ture, and hired speakers who tour
the land.
Another way of getting at the
immensity of advertising is to con-
slider the amount of money paid for
space in single publications. 1t is
common knowledge that a single
full page in the Saturday Evening
Post costs in the neighborhood of
$4,000, and $4,000 for the cover;
the Atlantic Monthly charges $500
and $1,000 for single pages, which
is about the same charge as is
made by metropolitan newspapers.
The layman naturally wonders
whether such large sums Of money
spent for publicity are economi
cally justified, whether it can pos
sibly be profitable, or whether it
is not a luxury indulged in by
larger concerns, or means of sat
isfying a certain vanity of manu-
facturers and merchants.
To understand advertising it is
necessary to understand what its
fundamental problems are. What
is the primary purpose of adver-
tiSing? What is our conception OF
advertising? If one conceives the
primary purpose of advertising to
DE publicity, that is, making
known" the fundamental problem
will be distinctly different than if
one should conceive the primary
function of advertising to be 80
SELL
These are the two main points
of view of advertising. According
to one point of view the function
of advertising is to make a prod
uct known but not to sell it. The
other, that advertising should not
only make a product known but to
help in it's sale. The latter is the
generally accepted view today, that
advertising should both make
known and help sell. That is, in
the last analysis, the real justifi-
cation for its existence.
There are those who maintain
that advertising never actually
sells a commodity, which is un-
doubtedIy true in a large majority
of cases, but selling consists of
much more than the final exchange
of the article for piece of money.
1t oftentimes happens that the
final exchange may be the least
important transaction in the deal.
Take for instance the phonograph,
or an automobile, or soap, In buy
ing a phonograph the customer
may have actually made up his
mind as to just the machine he
wants, the decision having been ar
rived at by reading descriptions,
seeing pictures, or listening to a
recital on the instrument. How
ever, he may, just before making
the purchase, visit the salesrOoms
of different makes of music ma
chimes, listen to them there, listen
attentively to the arguments of the
statesmen, consider the price, but
more often than not his visit will
be made for the purpose of justify
ing his original decision.
The advertising has in that case
served a very real purpose. 1t de-
veloped a desire for the product, a
readiness to accept the product, re-
duced to a minimum the sales re-
sistance of the customer, and
helped in the actual exchange of
the machine for the money.
The simplest definition of adver-
tising, and one that will probably
pass the most critical test, is that
advertising is selling in print. Or,
to put it another way, presenting a
commodity in such a way that peo-
pie will be induced to buy.
There are two types of selling
oral and printed. Many of the
fundamental processes of these two
types of selling are identical, but
they have this difference: Oral
selling is selling to one person at
time, and printing selling is sell
ing in mass.