THE RATIONAL OF ADVERTISING

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume IV, Issue 413, 26 August 1876, Page 3

THE RATIONAL OF ADVERTISING

Adyeetising- is an expedient for obtaining business by no means generally practised. Many tradesmen are deterred by the expense j some have no faith in its efficiency ; others think it a mark of second-rate status in business, and therefore more apt to be injurious than otherwise. On the other hand, some tradesmen make a Bystem of advertising, planting every kind of periodical, from the daily newspaper to the quarterly review, with specifications of their anxiety to serve tbe public, and of the merits of the articles in which they deal, and evidently spending a considerable sum of money yearly in this way. The unconcerned reader and the less acute tradesman, struck by the frequency of these appeals for business, are apt to suppose that he who makes them must be less under the influence of wisdom than pf folly and a good deal of a pretender or a quack into the bargain. There may even be a olass who make a principle of disbelieving and disregarding all such appeals, and, like the Irishman, when much entreated to come, the more they won't come. Yet the regular discharge of advertisements keeps up nevertheless, and the trader must evidently find it serviceable upon the whole.

It may be worth while to oommunicate to young tradesmen the ideas of an old one on this subject. They are simply, and briefly as follows :— The first utility of frequent and regular advertising consists in this : there is at all times a large class of persons, both in country and town, who have no fixed place for the purchase of certain necessary articles, and are ready to be swayed and drawn towards any particular place which is earnestly brought under their notice* Indifferent to all, they yield without hesitation to the first who asks. Then, in the country, a considerable number of persons who wish a supply of the article advertised, and do not know of any particular place where it is to be got, being thus furnished with the address of a person who can supply them, naturally open a communication with that address which perhaps leads to much ulterior business. People in the oountry are also liable to be favourably impressed by a frequent Bight of a name in the newspapers. The advertising party acquires distinction in their eyes, and thus they are led, in making a choice, to prefer him.

But by far the most important effect of advertising is one .of an indirect nature. It conveys the impression that the party— pre« tending or not pretending, quackish or not quaokish — is anxiouß tor business. One who is anxious for business is unavoidably supposed to be an industrious, attentive, civil pen on, who keeps the best of articles, at the cheapest rate, does everything, in the neatest and most tradesmanlike manner, and in general uses every expedient to gratify and attach customers. People like to purchase under thoße circumstances, and the system of advertising assuring them that such circum* stances exist at this partioular shop, they select it accordingly.

Such are the opinions of the old tradesman alluded to, nnd they are certainly supported by facts, for wherrver an extensive and regular Bystem of advertising is practised, and no back drawing or unoonquerable ciroumstances exist, it is usually Been to be attended with a considerable share of success. One feature in the philosophy of the subject must be carefully attended to, A faint and infrequent system of advertising does not suoceed'not even in proportion. " Drink deep or taste not the Pierian spring," — Chambers Journals