1940: Advertising

Despite many unfavorable conditions, the volume of advertising in the United States for 1940 showed a satisfactory increase over 1939, and reached the highest peak since 1937. Gains were small in most classes of media, but the expenditure for radio advertising was at least 15 per cent larger than in any previous year. In the latter part of the year the authorization of huge Government expenditures for the defense program stimulated business activity and had some effect upon advertising, particularly in the heavy industries that had lagged behind during the depression.

Newspaper Advertising.

In most classes of general media, the leading publications maintained their positions with little change. An interesting experiment in the newspaper field was the appearance in New York City of the daily PM, a high-grade tabloid which attempted to maintain itself without paid advertising. It did include a summary of the more important retail advertisements in other newspapers, and thus gave further evidence of the fact that such news is of high utility to consumers. The promoters did not expect PM to become self-supporting immediately, but its losses the first few months were greater than they expected, and refinancing became necessary. At the end of the year the outcome of the experiment was still uncertain.

Radio Advertising.

Although radio again proved itself the fastest-growing advertising medium, accurate figures for expenditures are not available. Time-on-the-air is but one element of cost. Program talent and other expenses probably added at least 30 per cent more. Cost of time on the large networks can be obtained with reasonable accuracy, but not for 'spot' and local broadcasting. Moreover, it is sometimes difficult to determine what part of purchased time is properly chargeable as advertising, since some of it is used for other than commercial purposes. For example, over one million dollars worth of time in October was used for political broadcasts.

Political Advertising.

The presidential campaign in the Autumn months called for the use of an exceptionally large amount of advertising space in newspapers, periodicals, and other media, probably larger than in any previous campaign. Here again it is difficult to secure even approximations of the amounts spent or the accounts to which they were properly chargeable. Only a relatively small proportion of the advertisements were inserted by the major political parties. Many were sponsored by groups or individuals who advocated the cause of some candidate or principle, but in some instances may have hoped for results beneficial to themselves. Moreover, the positions taken in these advertisements varied from a middle-of-the road neutrality to the most violent partisanship.

Some political advertisements on both sides warranted the most severe criticisms that have ever been made against commercial advertisers: namely, that they were negative attacks, highly emotional appeals to fear, and unfair to competitors. In commercial advertising, attacks on competitors had been recognized as unsound strategy and voluntarily discontinued in most fields even before the Federal Trade Commission began its vigorous suppression of unfair competition. Some of the political advertisements contained garbled quotations and other flagrant examples of unfairness. Nevertheless, the few newspapers that declined to publish such advertisements were themselves accused of unfairness. The chief redeeming feature of the situation was the fact that the extensive use of political advertisements indicated the existence of the healthy spirit of democracy upon which advertising depends. In none of the dictator-ridden countries of Europe would such a campaign have been possible.

Institutional Advertising.

During the year, an increasing number of advertisers used their space to educate the public regarding their business policies. Some of these institutional advertisements dealt only with the relations of the individual company to its employees, stockholders, and customers. Others had the broader purpose of explaining the virtues of the American system of enterprise, or some of its essential elements — including advertising. Cooperative campaigns for the railroads and the petroleum industry, among others, and campaigns by such leaders as United States Steel and the Aluminum Company of America helped to refute propaganda and forestall hostile legislation. Taxation was the theme of some effective institutional campaigns. Public utilities, tobacco companies, and others were able to show how their contributions to the Government greatly overshadowed their own share in the profits of their operations. Some of this educational work was done by newspaper and magazine advertising, but booklets and other direct mail material were also used.

Advertising Copy.

As popular thinking centered more and more around the problems of national defense, these topics became increasingly prominent in advertising copy. National defense problems formed the theme of advertisements of companies engaged in the production of airplanes and other equipment. Such advertisements were most numerous in the industrial magazines, but some appeared in general magazines. House organs had special issues dealing with the services of industries that were essential in national defense.

For advertisers of consumption goods, various aspects of the defense problem served as convenient points of contact, even where the product advertised had no direct connection with national defense. Army and navy uniforms appeared in many illustrations, and the increased air-mindedness of the public was reflected in the numerous advertisements featuring airplanes. Few American advertisers referred directly to the war itself, but some of British origin did so, usually for the purpose of showing that their customary methods of manufacture and distribution were being maintained in the face of difficulties.

Except for the war influence, no positive trends in copy slants were clearly marked. Comic strip copy and other humorous slants had already passed the peak of their popularity in general magazines, but were still prominent in the comic supplements of Sunday newspapers, where they had a more congenial background. A new wave of verse copy appeared to be rising, and recipe and other informative copy also came back into favor.

Copy Testing.

Various factors inside and outside the advertising business helped to influence the substance of advertising appeals and the manner of presenting them. Many advertisers benefited by the results of copy-testing, done by themselves, their agencies, or independent research organizations. At least ten different methods of testing copy were used, but of the newer methods the most favored were tests of 'readership' (i.e., percentage of persons seeing and reading the advertisement) by recognition and identification. Some advertisers preferred 'hidden offer' tests for the same purpose. Opinion tests, even in the elaborate form of check lists, seemed to be losing ground. A substantial minority of advertisers, according to a survey by Printers' Ink, were skeptical of the value of all copy-testing. Nevertheless, the Jury for the Advertising and Selling Awards announced that weight would be given to the results of copy tests, where available, in selecting the winners of the 1940 Awards.

These Advertising and Selling Awards, which carried on the policy originally established by Edward Bok in the Harvard Awards in 1924, had become a powerful influence in raising standards of performance, and had won the almost unanimous support of advertising agencies, some of which had stood aloof in earlier years. Other awards by associations of advertisers, such as the Public Utilities Association and the Insurance Association had become important influences in securing better copy.

Of the outside forces affecting advertising, the most powerful was the Federal Trade Commission, which had acquired a virtual censorship over national advertising. Although its rulings were often irksome to advertisers and occasionally considered unjust, it had sufficiently standardized its procedure and had established enough precedents to enable advertisers and agencies to know about what to expect. Whether the modification of claims for advertising products actually reduced advertising effectiveness is a debatable question.

The Department of Justice made some pointed references to advertising as an instrument of monopoly. A slight change of front, however, was indicated by its acceptance of advertising itself as economically sound, with the reservation that it might contribute to monopolistic practices if used as a leverage to force acceptance of a manufacturer's entire line or to dictate an unduly low margin of profit to distributors. Test cases on these questions were still undecided at the end of the year.

Radio Research.

Much time and effort was devoted to research in the field of radio advertising. The periodic surveys of program popularity were made more accurate by improved technique. Progress was made toward better measurement of rural audiences and more reliable estimates of the coverage of stations. Not so much progress was made toward the widespread use of mechanical recorders for observing listening habits, although the instruments were available, and their efficiency had been demonstrated on an experimental scale.

Changes in Technique.

Some new wrinkles in technique appeared during the year. By a ruling of the Post Office Department near the close of 1939, it became possible for magazines to include advertising inserts 'larger than page size but folded to size thereto.' A few advertisers took advantage of this opportunity to use 'fold-outs.' Some magazines permitted the use of new units of space. The American Magazine offered five new space shapes, including zig-zag and staggered layouts occupying the upper part of one page and the lower part of the facing page, with the remainder of the two pages left for editorial matter. By these arrangements the advertiser buying space only slightly greater than a single page might expect to obtain dominance approximating a double-page spread, with the advantage of being next to reading matter.