Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/434

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disapproval.


fundamentally concerned in the records it presents, in the evi

dence it gives of conditions not elsewhere made known, in the revelations unconsciously made of social and business ideals and of the deviations from them . The advertisement has developed from the mere simple announcement of articles lost, apprentices disappeared , and auctions to take place, into elaborate publicity

agencies covering every field of human endeavor. The individual commercialadvertiser is being absorbed in collective advertising,

the local advertisement has become national, and the national has developed into the international advertisement. The imme

diate psychologicalreaction of theadvertisement on the individual prospectivebuyer is being supplanted by the appeal to the remote past ; the simple object of putting before the public the merits of commercial articles is being superseded by complex competitive advertising that has all of the characteristics of a race. Much of

the present commercial advertising, begun in the interests of

efficiency, has so far overreached itself as to have developed into such an extreme inefficiency, that " an advertiser is willing to spend $500,000 in advertising if his balance sheet shows a gain of $ 5 ,000 ;" more than one business has been wrecked by over

advertising rather than by over-production or under-selling. Advertising appeals to thrift and economy are side-tracked by

wasteful competitive advertising.107 107 Many times the question is asked , “ How much is spent for advertis ing? ” Robert Mackay, in Success, under the heading " How $ 1,284,000 ,000 Was Spent for Advertising in 1920," gives the following figures: HOW THE MONEY WAS DIVIDED Newspapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $600 ,000 ,000 Direct Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 ,000 ,000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 ,000 ,000 Trade Papers

Novelties

. .

. . . .

.

. . .

. .

. . .

. .

. .

Electric and Painted Signs . . . . . . . . . . . Farm Papers

: : : : : :

Demonstrating and Sampling . Window and Store Display . . . Bill- Posting . . . . . . . . . .

Street-Car Cards . . . . . . . . grams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Motion Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

70 , 000 ,000

30 ,000 ,000 30 , 000 ,000 27,000,000 24 ,000 ,000 20 ,000 ,000 12,000 ,000 11,000 ,000 5 ,000 ,000 5 ,000 , 000

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