The Salesmanship of Sacrifice

To wartime Washington, jostled thick with generals and job-polishers, clerks, clockwatchers and hard-working hands in the factories of Government, the mimeograph has always until now been the principal channel of communication with the people. But last week Washington saw examples of another way to marshal and move the millions--through the personal appeals and planned repetition of organized advertising.

Exhibited in the marble halls of the Commerce Building were more than a thousand specimens of advertising keyed to the war--magazine and newspaper pages, car cards and posters designed to confront the individual with the struggle in terms of war bonds, scrap drives and the conservation of U.S. resources.

This display of advertising in a Government building does not mean that Washington has become a hot prospect for an account executive, but it does reveal a willingness to recognize the usefulness of advertising. This fact is confirmed by another Washington move: short weeks ago Elmer Davis set up a new department in the Office of War Information--an advertising department, the Bureau of Campaigns. Its purpose: to coordinate the present advertising activities of the various Government departments. Its head: softspoken, thick-spectacled Ken Dyke, former head of the Association of National Advertisers, and now on leave from the National Broadcasting Co.

No high-pressure glamor boy, Dyke is a practical advertising man. He is more concerned with "the advertising approach" than with advertisments, with the orderly definition of the problem, the basic research and the step-by-step planning which have made advertising the machine tool for selling the products of mass production. He sees the job to be done as an advertising job, but with this big difference: in peace, advertising sold the people plenty and pleasure; in war, advertising must sell them understanding of sacrifice and harsh restriction.

His first project is a tough baby: sell the people the grim necessities of fuel-oil rationing. First will come a national campaign for conservation, then local campaigns in the rationed areas. Other national problems to be approached similarly include the coming squeezes in manpower and transportation, wartime changes in eating habits.

The Government has some money of its own to spend for leaflets, posters and motion pictures, but the great bulk of such advertising is supported by U.S. business firms which donate or share their space and time, by copywriters, artists, marketing men and other professionals who give their talent and experience. John Hamilton Morse of the Bureau of Foreign & Domestic Commerce estimates that more than $30,000,000 worth of white space alone was given to the Government for the bond campaigns in the 18 months through July.

Strong right arm of the Bureau of Campaigns is the non-Governmental Advertising Council, a wartime mobilization of national advertisers, agencies and media. Until OWI set up the Bureau, the Council dealt directly with the Government departments. Now the Bureau is official agent.

Said one prominent figure who knows both Government and business viewpoints: "The best lobby for advertising is a good job well done. The growing use of advertising methods to sell the war to the people will be an education in sound practice for both the Government and the business."

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