MODERN ADVERTISING

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 959, 30 April 1930, Page 11

MODERN ADVERTISING

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES TALK BY AN EXPERT Every businessman should know a little about the fundamental principles of advertising, stated Mr. F. W. Petterd during the course of an address to the Auckland Advertising Club yesterday. Good sales-pulling advertising was merely sound salesmanship in print, stated Mr. Petterd. yet many advertisers still held to ideas which, if used by a travelling salesman, would ensure his being thrown out of practically every office he entered. The first principle of advertising was that it must be seen and attract. “Smart Alec” stunts, although they might attract the eye, did not necessarily create a favourable impression: it was not sufficient to put over a clever idea; the function of sound advertising was to sell goods, not ideas. “The ingredients of all sound advertising are the same,” said Mr. Petterd, “and if advertisers always judged their efforts on a comparison with the methods of spoken salesmanship they would not go very far wrong.” An advertisement should be one of three kinds; Informative, telling the story; declamative, assertive, such as a petrol advertisement telling of an endurance test with a certain benzine; decorative, or illustrative. The first ingredient was the heading, a tail on which to hand the story; an excuse for intrusion. The next was the story which should be told clearly, convincingly and concisely. In this respect it was amazing the number of advertisement writers who adopted the wrong perspective and forget that 80 per cent, of advertising, to draw sales, should talk to women. STIMULATION TO ACTION Stimulation to action was the t.ardest ingredient to use forcefullv. It was extremely difficult to get away Horn old hackneyed methods: "Send for a catalogue”; "bargains”; or even “sign the coupon," a most ineffective method if only for the reason that the reader was asked to place his name on a small clipping of inferior paper which would not take ink, and on which pencil was not legible. Illustrations were playing an increasingly important part in modern advertising, and. here again, there was need for considerable caution: it was better not to use an illustration at all if it was not exactly that of the article advertised, as nothing tended more to create a bad impression in the mind of a prospective buyer than for j him to be shown “something differj cut," w hen he called round to buy. Legibility was another point often ! overlooked by "ad” writers, stated Mr. j Petterd, in conclusion. Care should be taken with the selection of type. It | was essential that it should be easv j tc read.