persuade, not the few now but the millions, to make the additional effort to attain to the standard of life which requires the use of his product and, having gotten enough to gain that standard and the use of his product, he must keep them from falling from that standard and into the disuse of his article.
This in the simplest terms is the economic and social action of modern advertising. And take a simple illustration of that action in the recent advertising of a soap.
Not long ago toilet soap was a luxury, manufactured for and used by the few. It seldom occurred even to makers of soap—certainly it did not generally occur to their social class—that soap was for them. It was above their standard of living. Soap is now and has been one of the most widely advertised products. Much present soap advertising is not essentially modern advertising, but is more of the ancient peddling-in-print which has been mentioned before. However, enough of present day soap advertising is modern, and soap was one of the first products to be advertised in a modern way. The perfumed and delicate soaps, while illustrating the process of modern advertising as well, belong rather to the realm of æsthetics. But Hand Sapolio—a mixture of soap and fine grit—is beautifully elemental in its illustration of advertising soap for its prime service, cleansing.
