Advertising v. Adversity

From the same Latin parents (ad and verto) come "advertising" and "adversity.'' Last week 2,300 disciples of the former heard how their noun may do much to drive from the land its unwelcome brother. Depression has brought advertising its problems, as it has to every other industry. Clients, frantically endeavoring to save money, are very apt to curtail advertising expenditures. Smart campaigns which in normal times would bring in great results may strike against locked purses and collapse. So an unusual gravity pervaded the convention in Manhattan last week of the Federation of America. But, after heeding the many speeches, most of the ventioners went home more cheerful they came.

One roundly applauded speaker Charles Franklin Kettering, long, jointed head of General Motors Corp. Obscure to the general public, Re searcher Kettering deserves fame as inventor of the self-starter (first used Cadillac), as an important contributor the perfection of Duco, Ethyl Frigidaire. Surrounded at home and work by strange mechanical devices simplify life.* Mr. Kettering has that the chief block to progress is the stag nancy of human minds. Less diabolic it first sounds is his theory that and dissatisfaction are the best forces for improvement and progress. week he reiterated his credo that is "a method of keeping everybody reasonably dissatisfied with what he has."

The hope for business, according to Kettering. is in the development of products rather than "stirring up the mud." Said he: "There is a horrible thing in this world known as monotony. When we continue to produce the same things, the same model indefinitely . . . the people don't want to buy it. ... We are suffering today from that thing called standardization. . . . Never has it been so difficult to sell a new idea as it is today. We are suffering with industrial stagnation, and that is all that is wrong with us."

The advantages of advertising during Depression, the relative merits of newspapers, radio, and cinema as mediums, government-control of industry, and the advantages of college training were other topics elaborated. Professionally fond of catch-lines, the advertising men felt like applauding the following:

"If the books were closed today, the United States would go down in history as a people strangled by its own success." --Glenn Frank, president of University of Wisconsin.

"While all these rumors of wage reductions are rampant there isn't a chance of buying power creeping out from under the bed."--Gilbert Tennent Hodges, oldtime New York SMI man, past president of the Federation who was elected again last week.

"To get out of the depression simply means to get dollars into circulation."-- Kenneth Collins, executive vice president, R. H. Macy & Co., Inc.

"The saying now is. 'Be goodlooking and keep your husband.' "--Mrs. Anna Steese Richardson, director of Good Citizenship Bureau, Woman's Home Companion.

"The voice of the Church should be heard in your columns. Advertising is a golden opportunity and a stern duty to promote and protect the welfare of humanity."--Bruce Barton of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn.

"We find in our country that cowpaths lead to prosperity."--Charles F. Collisson, farm editor, Minneapolis Tribune.

"Advertising when creative is controlled by wisdom, by research, by common sense --otherwise it is merely publicity running wild."--Joseph Herbert Appel of John Wanamaker's.

Slump, A summary of newspaper advertising lineage, compiled by Media Records, Inc., last week showed the conventioners how great the slump in advertising has been. In Si cities the first-five-month totals for 226 daily and 113 Sunday papers was 11.4% below last year. The decline of different kinds of lineage was as follows:

Retail 6.2%

General 13.6

Automotive 32.4

Financial 25.8

Classified 12.7

Legal 4.2

* In his house are eleven Frigidaires; electric buttons to open and close bedroom windows. On his yacht each stateroom has a dial telephone, a catalog of numbered phonograph records. The occupant can dial the number of a record, hear it played by radio. If the phonograph is busy, he may tune in on whatever is being played.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.