Henderson daily dispatch., 1938-02-18


houses, are going after business ham
mer and longs. Variously, retail
clothing prices have come down five
to Is per cent and retail food has
backwatered about seven per cent
Many Fortunes Made In 1882.
This current period of industrial
recession shows how sensitive the
! business cycle is. Each phase brings
its own special opportunities. People
with foresight and courage who
bought securities and commodities
and started new enterprises in 1882
have established fortunes. We have a
similar opportunity today-in small
Ter way. Right now cash is a sale"
and raw materials and securities are
"buy". Those who are buying and
investing today are doing themselves
a good turn. More important, they are
doing a service for their communities
and the nation. AS retail shelves are
emptied, orders shift hack to factories
and the "help wanted" signs are hung
up once more.
Newspaper, magazine and radio adj
vertisers are doing their bit, too, to
help defeat the recession before it de-
generates into ma or depression. For
thirty years, I have studied the bust
ness cycle and have tried to discover
how the peaks and valleys can be
ironed out. I have always been con
vinced that one of the solutions is by
the proper use of advertising. When
times are good and business is boom
ing, advertisers like to drive for or
ders. This is only natural. Actually,
however, manufacturers and mer-
chants should hold back in good times
and build up an advertising backlog
which they can pump out to maintain.
their sales volume and their employ
ment in periods such as the present.
Why Not Advertising "Relief."
If all concerns in the same industry
would agree to spend a certain per-
centage of their gross sales on adver-
Using, this policy might be made
workable. The trouble is that a few
outfits would always back out of the
bargain and take advantage of their
competitors programs. Two or three
concerns can scarcely afford 20 carry
the advertising for the industry. So,
while the logical policy is to cut down
on space when business is coming in
under it's own momentum and to boost
sales budgets in slack periods, in pfac
tice the opposite happens.
The government is pouring out
money for various purposes to stiml
late public purchasing power. Why
not consider a policy of allowing bus
mess concerns to deduct any increase
in their advertising and selling ex-
penses from their tax bills during pc
RODS when industrial production is
running below normal? Depressions
are serious only when retail selling
stops. Most of our basic economic
troubles today are not connected with
production, but rather with distribu-
ton and taxation. Speeding up the
flow of goods is where we must put
the emphasis rather than on speeding
I'D the assembly line. Space advertis-
ing can play tremendous part in this
program.
Time To "Plug" Sales.
Advertising is to mass distribution
what the machine is TO mass produc-
ton. Right now. for instance. it de-
serves a good share of credit for the
conparatively excellent volume of re
fail trade. "Sales" cannot move goods
unless customers know about them. [
think that merchants and manufac-
turers now realize this more than they
Gid in 1929 Not only should purcha:.