THE USES OF ADVERTISEMENTS

Taupo Times, Volume III, Issue 129, 16 July 1954, Page 4

THE USES OF ADVERTISEMENTS

IN commercial and newspaper circles throughout New Zealand, this week is being observed as "Advertising Week," in an attempt to emphasise the value of advertising to consumers and buyers, as well as to producers and sellers. Of the various forms of advertising, that which fmds its medium of expression in the pages of the newspapers is of prime importance, not always realised by the newspaper reader, to the continued existence of the whole system of newspaper production.

Without a certain definite proportion of advertising the cost of producing a newspaper, and of providing the necessary news services to supply it, could not be met. But the importance of this relationship between advertising and the modern daily and weekly press, great as it is, is no greater than the importance of advertising to the whole very complex system of modern business and industry. Modern society could not exist without the almost inconceivably intricate -system of modern business, including in that term all those precesses of production and distribution which provide the

goods and services demanded by and essential to that society. And modern business itself could not function without advertising. Modern production methods in many lines can only be used if large saies are secured, and such saies cannot be had without the publicity secured by advertising. It is this fact which provides the seeming paradox that advertising of such goods, far from 'increasing the price at which they are sold, actually enables them to be sold at prices considerably lower than would otherwise be possible. (

One of the important features of modern advertising is that it necessarily requires that goods advertised should be of a quality equal to the claims made for them. The reader of advertisements is the judge of their truthfulness, and goods that do not come up to their advertised claims are not bought again. Irresponsible advertising is a dangerous boomerang, and in modern business it is a truism that the regularly advertised article can in general be relied on, to be up to standard. The advertising of a poor product, on the other hand, brings upon its sellers a flood of undesirable comment.