ADVERTISING AND EMPIRE

Evening Star, Issue 19660, 13 September 1927, Page 5

ADVERTISING AND EMPIRE

BRITAIN'S GROWING PUBLICITY BILL IMPRESSIONS OF A UNIQUE EXHIBITION As a people the English are prone to believe that the Government is sluggish and old fashioned, and only too ready to leave the initiative with other Powers in all matters where enterprise is an important factor (writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne ‘Age’). Fortunately for their reputation the low opinion entertained by British people of their Government is not shared by other nations, and it is amusing to find that at a time during the war when in England an almost diabolical cleverness and cunning were attributed to the German Government the Germans were discovering just precisely the same qualities in their British enemies. It is the same in commerce to-day. The croakers tell us that England has lost the initiative (which is. at all events, not yet true) because she is lacking in enterprise—which is probably equally untrue. As far as enterprise expresses itself in judicious advertising, the British Government has nothing to fear by comparison with those of other countries. It was indeed the first Government in the world to advertise by means of newspapers and hoardings and the extended use made of it to raise men and money to carry on a war was a triumph for those who had maintained that the highest purposes could be served by advertising. And since the war direct Government advertising has been carried to a much higher pitch. You cannot enter a post office in these days without being confronted by tastefully designed posters urging the merits of migration to this or that dominion or colony, or pointing out the advantage of lilo assurance through tho offices of a particular company, or advocating the use of special soap that will more or less relieve the body of all human ills. And when yon buy stamps < Ley are tucked up in a neat little hook lull of advertisements. One’s income tax toims hear advertisements upon them when the space is not wholly monopolised with instructions to the harassed taxpayer as to how ho should till in tho horrid blank spaces. Considerable drafts are still made on newspapel columns to urge public thrift through the purchase of Government savings certicates. The old take-il-or-loave-it methods of the General Post Office in regard to the telephone have long since been dropped, and it is difficult to esc;q;j from reading recommendations in the newspapers to install the service, tho growing use of which is shown m graphs and figures. In recent years a much more ambitious scheme of advertising has been undertaken by the British Government by promoting and participating in exhibitions. This form of enterprise reached its climax perhaps at Wembley, but much more important from tho point of view of British bpsiness arc the regular British Industries Fairs, which in time may prove scarcely loss important than the Leipzig, Vicuna, and other great lairs ot the Continent. The task'of organising and conducting these fairs falls exclusively upon the overseas trade department of tho Board of Trade. The fair, which is itself one large-scale advertisement, could not be conducted without considerable expenditure on advertisements in newspapers the world, and no less a sum than £25,000 a year is laid out by tho department in this way. Its experience with tho British Industries Fair has encouraged the Government to make even freer use of advertisement, and when Mr Baldwin, owing in some measure to the ill-con-ceivcd manner in which he plunged into tho thing, 1 ailed to persuade the electorate to follow him in a policy of protection and preference he set on foot his Empire Marketing Board, which is the biggest elfort in State advertising over undertaken. ’I he hoardings all over the country arc plastered with its posters advocating with rare impartiality the increased consumption of Australian apples or raisins, Irish Free State dairy produce, and Newfoundland tinned fish. Space in the newspapers is regularly reserved for similar advertisements, and no loss a sum than £135,700 has already been spent by the board in its publicity campaign to show John Bull what the dominions, colonics, and mandated territories, as well as Britain itself, have to offer. Its latest enterprise is to despatch tho Colonial Secretary on a tour of tho dominions to act as a sort of Imperial commercial traveller, and there can be no doubt that the ultimate effect of this ini mouse campaign will give some impetus to the interimperial trade. In is not surprising that, occurring at such a time, the Advertising Exhibition now being held at Olympia should be given a definitely Imperial note, and the Empire Marketing Board ensured that this should be the case by securing the principal stand in the show. It occupies an area of 10,001) square feet, and contains a most admirably arranged series of exhibits by Great Britain, Northern Ireland, all of the dominions, among which Australia is strongly represented, India, and many of the colonies. A good deal of imagination is displayed in bringing together this unique exhibit, and the danger of its becoming a mere dull museum or statistical abstract is avoided by introducing a display of up-to-date methods of packing and presenting goods, while demonstration kitchens arc attached whore the cooking of Empire foodstuffs may be watched. The Empire note that has been given to tho exhibition has communicated itself to parts of London remote Irom Olympia, and, although this is not the week that is normally sot aside lor the purpose, tho shop windows in various parts of the metropolis are demonstrating what England owes to her overseas possessions. No fewer than 120,000 posters and window cards have been distributed on request by the Empire Marketing Board for exhibition in windows during the current week, and some extraordinarily effective displays have been designed by expert window dressers. The big stores such as Selfridge's and Ilarrod’s are foremost in their efforts, and in the great Kensington shops of Barker’s kangaroos and emus are. calling public attention to the Empire effort. In Chelsea the shopkeepers have entered into the spirit of tho thing with zest, and they set tho ball going with a Town Hall luncheon, at which the Secretary for Air, Sir Samuel Hoare, attended. Ho was able to give some convincing figures to show the value of the sentimental preference for Imperial produce which is unquestionably stimulated by these publicity campaigns. Ho mentioned, for instance, that since 1922 the currants and raisins grown in Australia, the greater part of .which come lo the English markets, increased from 19.000 to 53,000 tons. This actual increase is considerable. It is, however, really more important than the figures suggest, for it occurs at a time when most classes of trade and economic development have been tending to diminish. One wonders what foreign delegates to tho Olympia Exhibition think of this Empire propagandist turn that has been given to the occasion. For, although the primary aim of the exhibition is, according to Mr Amery, to demonstrate the progress and potentialities of British advertising as an essential part of the machinery of trade, it is held in conjunction with an international advertising convention attended by over 2.000 delegates. They represent, in addition to the Home Country and the dominions, France, Germany, Austria, Holland, Czecho-Slovakia, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and America.

Being men schooled in the sweet use* of advertisement, they will be disinclined to, grdmble ; and will probably be content to admire the way in which the Empire Marketing Board has collared all the publicity that the show has to offer. And anyway, quite apart from tho central stand, it is, even to a layman, a very remarkable exhibition, and is admittedly The greatest advertising exhibition ever held. One feature of it that was noted by Mr Amery is that it has been conceived as a unity and not as a jumble. Despite the_ endless diversity of the stands with their varying decorations, a common artistic plan aimed at demonstrating what advertising means dominates tho whole. This is .the more remarkable, lor it would appear that all the newspapers, all the advertising agents, all the poster artists, all the printers, and all the big national advertisers are represented. And there never were such posters and such slogans brought together under a single roof. Of tho latter those which are inscribed below the frieze illustrating events in British constitutional history in the rooms devoted to the Empire show include such aphorisms as “Good packing brings good business,” “Careful grading is vital to sales,” “The label should guarantee the goods,” “ Perfect packing promotes purchases/’ One thing that'ls strongly emphasised, and that is perhaps the most lasting impression that is left by a visit to the exhibition, is that advertising is a highly specialised art, science, business, or profession—what you will. Wo have long since left behind the days when crudity and vulgarity were the keynote of advertising and when extravagance of statement was the test of the success ot the advertisement. A careful study of effects produced on those to idiom advertisements are addressed lias Jed to a correction of abuses that in the early days seemed inevitable in development of advertising. Restraint, it lias apparently been found, is more effective than blatancy, and good taste counts for more than excessive exaggeration. Business is discouraged by a form of advertisement that causes annoyance, and increasing care is obviously being devoted to design and literary form. Another impression that one carried away from the exhibition was that the days are gone when business houses regarded tho expenditure on advertising as an outlay on which a return was doubtful. Successful men realise that they must allow for the cost of distributing their wares, and if by means of judicious advertisement they find, as they almost invarably do, "that the total cost of other distributive activities is reduced they naturally agree that the money spent on advertisement justifies itself. And in these circumstances similarly the consumer will not be slow to realise that a well-advertised commodity docs not of necessity cost him more than one that is not so pushed. The consumer can, of course, test the case from his point of view more readily than can the advertiser himself, but if tiro maker of a famous blend of chewing gum sets out on a publicity campaign that involves a cost equivalent to the amount represented by the retail sale of a couple of million bars of lus sweetmeat he has, one must assume, a pretty shrewd notion that sales will multiply by many tines two million when tho lull effect is realised. The consumer in any event does not stand to lose. And it is a truism that many successful firms, having satisfied themselves that they have a good commodity for which there is a popular demand, have found that advertisement is one of the cheapest forms of salesmanship.