The Western news. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1933-current, 1941-07-24

of the work involved in selling and
distributing goods.
Another way of looking at ad-
vertising costs is to figure out what
it actually amounts to on partic-
ular products. 1t is interesting to
see how these actual unit costs Of
advertising familiar articles COM
pare with the commonly held ideas
about them. A business journal
called Sales Management recentlv
made such study, conducting .
poll to find what the public would
guess to be the amount spent for
advertising certain individual items.
and then checking with the facts.
Taking Sunkist oranges, for ex-
ample, it was found that the typical
guess by consumers was l11 cents
dozen for the advertising. Actu-
ally the cost of advertising is only
four-tenths of cent per dozen. In
this case the guess OF the public was
nearly four times as high as the
actual advertising cost.
On Camel cigarettes, the guesses
averaged around one cent a package.
while the actual amount spent for
advertising is about half cent.
For an Ingersoll two-dollar watch
the public guessed an average OF 10
cents for the advertising, while the
actual amount is about five cents
On ten dollar pair of FlorSheim
shoes, the typical guess by the pub
lie was that SO cents is spent for
advertising and the correct figure
is only Is cents.
The advertising cost on a bottle of
Coca Cola was guessed at about
half cent, whereas actually it is
less than one-tenth of cent.
On Ethyl gasoline the representa-
tive guess by the public was one
cent per gallon for advertising.
while the actual amount spent by
that company is only half a cent
per gallon.
There are only a few of the we'll
advertised products familiar to us
all On each of them the actual
amount spent for advertising is
comparatively small-much smaller
than the amounts as guessed by rep
resentative public opinion. The
same thing is true of many other
Well-knoWn articles.
While the total amounts spent
for advertising seem to be very
large iii dollars, these amounts be-
come exceedingly small when fig
ured on unit basis. Some compan-
les pay out as much as several mil
n fnv
their products. but they sell great
volume of goods and the resulting
advertising cost for each article is
therefore small
For instance, one cigarette manu-
facturer spends about 10 million
dollars year for advertising.
which is a lot Of money. But his
sales are about 200 million cartons
a year. which certainly is lot of
cigarettes, This makes the adver-
Using cost half a cent per pack
age, which is small, especially when
YOU think Of the large amount of
work which that half cent does.
In any consideration Of advertis-
ing costs, we should take into ac-
count the necessary work which adj
Nertising performs, and which
would have to be paid for in any
event Goods have to be sold, by
one method or another. Nearly ev-
cry business has something to sell,
and ii may be taken for granted
that each business concern sells its
products by the most efficient meth
4G ~ u
saves money wherever possible. No
firm can continue successfully on
any other basis.
So it appears that advertising
must be an economical selling meth
cd, If only from the fact that near
ly all businesses use it, If there
were any cheaper or better way of
getting the same volume of goods
sold, we may be sure that the heads
Of wide awake business concerns
would quickly adopt it In a free
competitive system such as we have
in America, those who use inef-
ficient methods have to make way
for those who are more efficient
This automatically forces business
10 adopt those methods which get
the most work done at the least
cost.
Modern advertising is the only
means by which large numbers of
people can be reached quickly by
those who wish to sell goods. II IS
the only economical way in which
a manufacturer can build up large
sales volume that will enable him
to make his goods in great ouanti-
ties and to apply the most efficient
transportation methods. This
means that in many cases adver-
Using is necessary if products are
to be made at lowest possible cost
In some industries which adver-
tise extensively. such as automo-
biles, radios, refrigerators. and cam
eras, for instance, prevailing prices
have gone down rapidly over a pc
Rod Of years, accompanied by great
Improvements in the product. While
giving all due credit TO engineering
skill, the fact remains that the re-
markable progress made in these
industries toward better products at
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