Prize Day

To the advertising world last week came annual prize day when the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration handed out $10,000 and a gold medal. Money and medal came from a fund established in 1923 by the late Edward William Bok of the Ladies' Home Journal, the Florida bird-sanctuary, third-person autobiography. Awards are for excellence in various aspects of advertising endeavour. Cash-winners included:

Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, Inc. ($1.000), for the institutional campaign of Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

("70,000 of us invite you to ride on our railroad." "The three Commandments that guide our engineers," etc. etc.).

Steinway & Sons ($1,000), for the advertisement most distinguished for its combination of the elements of illustration, headline, text and type ("A song for parents").

Gardner Advertising Co. ($1,000), for the best national campaign for a specific product (chairs of Alcoa Aluminum, "Strong to stand up in the battle of Big Business").

Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn ($1,000), for the most effective use of headline (Electrolux: "As silently as nature makes ice.").

Pleasing to all admen was disclosure that the gold medal "for distinguished contemporary service to advertising" had been awarded to Frederick Kendall, Publisher of Advertising & Selling. Had the reasons for the award not been announced, the profession could have guessed that they were: "For having the courage to open the pages of his magazine to controversial subjects of vital importance to advertising and presenting both sides fairly; for attacking the use of paid testimonials which were endangering the whole fabric of advertising; and for founding Advertising Arts, thereby presenting a medium for the expression of art in business."

Editor Kendall is 42, British-born. In 1907 he arrived in the U. S. to live, found he had enough money to carry him to St. Louis. There he went to work for Sherwin-Williams Co. (whose paint "covers the Globe";. From 1918 to 1923 he served as managing editor of Printers' Ink. In the spring of 1923 he decided the advertising world needed a new trade paper, founded Advertising Fortnightly, now called Advertising & Selling.

In February 1929, Editor Kendall started his anti-testimonial crusade, roundly flayed Captain George Fried and Chief Officer Harry Manning of S.S. America for endorsing Lucky Strikes immediately after they saved the crew of S.S. Florida. Urging publishers to refuse purchased testimonials in advertising copy, he said they are "murdering popular faith in advertising."

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