ADVERTISING

The gigantic proportions to which the periodical pre has grown in the United States bear eloquent witne to the extension of advertising no le than it does to the spread of national education. One is linked with the other. In no other country has advertising reached such a level and volume, or has exercised a ater instructive influence. It has eveloped an art, a field of knowledge covering everything mentioned in an encyclopedia, and far-reaching ramifications rank advertising specialists with those of the learned profe ions. Like other callings, advertising had the most primitive of beginnings. The first publicity medium was the public crier; he survives in Europe and in the cries of American newsboys on the streets today. Such criers, either making pubmation for the benefit of a trading citizen, were heard on the streets of towns in Palestine, Greece and in Rome. Beyond these cries were the pictorial signs with their appeal to the eye that time cannot dim. Modern advertising has never discarded the sign but has rather raised its drawing force to the nth power by an ingenious use of animated electric lights in an illuminating maze of mechanical effects as the leading streets of our cities nightly testify. Advertising by any other medium than the crier and the sign was not known till the advent of printing, yet even then it languished in a long infancy. Not until the development of modern industry in the last century was the printing pre largely availed of. It is true early newspapers were not without staid and prim little intimations from which doubtle served their purpose; but, anyhow, advertising had to wait for a free and untrammeled pre and mail facilities before coming into its own. Once meaning mere publication or an announcement relating to anything but the merits of merchandise. The word now embraces all the vehicles of publicity, printed and otherwise, utilizable by producers of commodities for distributing information regarding them. Through periodicals, circulars, catalogs, almanacs and calendars they reach millions near and far. ‘Those who read the advertised printed word benefit by its educative value, which is as great. as that of other knowledge imparted by books of instruction. Advertising in its broader aspects, in fact, has accumulated a vast literature of its own, and no one entering busine life can count upon being equipped to meet competition without making a penetrating study of its psychology and methods, not to mention its service in shedding light on things a reader did not know before, One phenomenal growth of newspapers and other mediums of publicity stimulated advertising to an extent that nece itated specialization and large organizations. Men of vision and great busine ability formed agencies backed by extensive capital. They gather advertising clienteles round them advising them as to mediums, and employ able writers and illustrators to produce work of the highest grade. On this head it may be said of advertising that it has created a lucrative field the exercise of literary and artistic abilities for which the po e ors such gifts find inadequate scope and ward in the more exclusive world of called literature and art. It is one many other elements that have endowed advertising with a mental power and persuasivene without which industry and commerce could not survive in their| present dimensions, since the disposal of their huge production depends upon the channel s (0) of sale it advertising i opens ms News value frequently enters into} advertisements, as in the announc ments made by retail merch an ts in daily pre , whether occupying full pages or smaller space. In fact, there are many readers of newspapers who buy them solely for the advertisements they contain, whether of retailers or other meri teagors devote, io popes of aor not chants. The same may be said zines, whose general advertising sections are frequently a storehouse of interests, country-wide and world-wide in scope. rac in Hc Dope neint by act ve illustrations, are vertisements clothing, plate, jewelry food products, complexion aids, soap, beverages, music-| al instruments. sanitary appliances house and office equipment, not to men-| tion the financial announcements great banks, and the advertising of steam and insurance companies. Mail order houses, which conduct most of their busine through the offico, depend largely for their succe on advertising in the magazines, farm and religious pre , the newspapers —notably a type of cheaply produced periodicals known as ‘mail order nals’—and on catalogs and other advertising matter transmitted by post. value of advertising is specially seen the rural sections, where makers of equipment and _ fertilizers, breeders farm stock, and producers or distributors of fodder, building matters and farm requireraents reach the farmers through the agricultural periodicals. A similar service, but over a much field, is rendered. by trade journal advertising, which through numerous special publications having a national circulation links up local merchants with manufacturers of or traders in commodities they can sell at retail. Trade journals advertising also factory executives garding new machinery, and is gether an invaluable medium by commodities ultimately reach the sumer. Advertising is the main support the periodical pre . The revenue it received by large newspapers | into millions of dollars annually. It has for | been such an open door te succe , that | it has led cautious busine houses, rock of bound in conservat ism, to utilize it to retheir immediate profit. It has expended so-| the revenue of publications to an extent of | that enables them to exercise a strict | censorship and bar out exploiters whose | advertisements wont bear investigation. | Pre vigilance and post office safeguards serve to protect advertising mediums | generally from their wrongful use by swindlers and charlatans. ad70care, to call one’s aid) is the name egiven in anct, Rome and in many modern the states, including Scotland, to a forensic orator. The Eng. term for this is barrister counsel. An A. of Aberdeen shire is | °° nota barriste r, but a solicitor, it having been decided by M’Pherson ». Watt 3 Cas. 254 that solicitors in that App. He hy We aren county Eth had a right to the appellation. a| £0 ene of Archoe, Dibimmag then, Dane | % to the risters have been admitted eccles. courts.