THEY LACK PUBLICITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 125, 17 August 1927, Page 13

THEY LACK PUBLICITY

GREAT UTILITIES’ NEED ADDRESS BY MR. ALLUM The theory that the great public utilities, water, light and power, and transport, suffered most from a lack of publicity, was advanced by Mr. J. A. C. Allum in an address to the Auckland Advertising Club at luncheon yesterday. The water supply of Auckland had been clarified and improved of late to equal any service in the Dominion, but there had not been enough information sent out about what the administrators were doing. The same applied to electric power. There had been more publicity there, but few even now realised much of the facts and history of the service. The publicity of the railways consisted, said Mr. Allum, in getting the other fellow’s money and plastering posters anywhere. It was quite a proper thing, provided that tlie posters were not objectionable. The bus organisation of London was indeed wonderful. This was due to publicity. To many hundreds of thousands of people one of the forms of pleasure was to take a trip into the country on tlie great bus routes. By placards and maps; full information of routes, fares and points of interest were disseminated. In New Zealand, publicity for transport was needed. More publicity would result in less criticism, and he wished to get a little publicity that was so badly needed by the tramways. Like any other business, the tramways needed more capital or the system would go back. If the tramways had had sufficient publicity two years ago there would not have been the position in which the system found itself today. ___