1942: Advertising

War Influence.

During 1942 advertising in the United States became almost completely converted to the needs of a war economy. The change was gradual and less drastic than had occurred earlier in Great Britain. It did not involve any great reduction in the volume of advertising, and the bulk of this continued to be financed by private business houses, although much of it was designed for public benefit rather than private profit. No serious shortages of paper and printing materials developed, and hence there was no great pressure for curtailment of the size of newspapers and magazines. Toward the end of the year some publishers of fast-growing magazines announced a voluntary limitation of the number of pages per issue for 1943, regardless of the amount of advertising that might be offered them.

Total expenditures for advertising were probably within 10 per cent of those for 1941. Only a relatively small proportion represented Government expenditures. Some departments, of course, advertised more heavily than in normal times, notably the Navy Department for recruiting purposes. Most of the space devoted to such Government policies as conservation, salvage, and sale of War Bonds, was donated by advertisers, agencies, and media to a total value estimated at $60,000,000. The Advertising Council, composed of experts representing the important advertising associations, cooperated with the Office of War Information and other Governmental agencies in planning and executing the campaigns.

The effectiveness of this combination of forces was first shown in the nation-wide salvage campaign which resulted in the free contribution by citizens of hundreds of thousands of tons of valuable scrap metal and rubber. Before the end of the year at least sixty-five campaigns with win-the-war objectives were under way or planned. The Advertising Council received official commendation for its help in the Victory Fund Campaign by which the Government borrowed nearly $13,000,000,000 in December.

National Advertisers.

National advertisers were of three main classes: (1) those whose facilities were entirely absorbed in war production; (2) those who were still producing some items for civilian use, or who had sufficient stock of them to warrant sales promotion; (3) those whose products were for general consumption, and who were not seriously restricted by shortage of materials, priorities, and rationing.

This third class was large at the beginning of the year, but more and more of them found themselves in the second class, as new fields of foods and beverages were affected by rationing. At the close of the year few large advertisers could have continued a policy of aggressive sales promotion, even if they had desired to do so.

Actually the advertisers of popular brands of low-priced luxury articles had generally exercised restraint and had devoted much of their space to the promotion of war bonds. Their merchandise appeals had also tended toward the rational and utilitarian.

Some manufacturers of the second class were able to use advertising for its normal objectives of increasing demand. Usually the items thus promoted were of substitute materials or in changed packages. Many, however, put the machinery of advertising into reverse, and used it to discourage unnecessary buying or to prolong the life of articles already in use. Some even advertised to buy back for government use privately-owned articles like typewriters and field glasses.

The third class of manufacturers, notably those in the automotive and electrical appliance fields, also used advertising to teach conservation, often with the additional objective of increasing the service and repair business of their dealers. Most of the corporations owning valuable trade-marks used some sort of institutional advertising to keep them alive in the public mind. The earlier methods of doing this by featuring their share in the war effort were gradually displaced by more constructive information, such as the development of new products to be made available after the war. Some also aimed to provide the enabling factor of post-war consumer demand by urging the purchase of War Bonds ear-marked for the future purchase of durable consumer goods. While the bulk of institutional advertising was concentrated on winning the war, a substantial proportion looked beyond to the winning of the peace and the maintenance of the American system of free enterprise. An increased amount of advertising was used to maintain internal morale and stimulate the efforts of war-workers.

Retail Advertising.

The 1942 catalogues of the Chicago mail-order houses gave a graphic indication of the difficulties of retail advertisers. They had several thousand fewer items than in the previous year, and some of the usual sections were almost entirely eliminated. Although department stores likewise were unable to offer some of the merchandise that was customarily featured in their advertising, the omissions were partly offset by substitute articles. And as the retailers also contributed space generously to Government objectives the total volume of retail advertising held up well in most cities. Toward the end of the year shortages and rationing of the many additional kinds of merchandise operated to limit still further the fields that could benefit by active sales promotion.

Media.

Changes in living habits bore with unequal severity upon the different classes of media. Outdoor advertising suffered most from the restriction of automobile travel, and its dollar volume was estimated to be at least 20 per cent below that of 1941. General magazines lost more heavily than weeklies or newspapers, according to Printers' Ink Advertising Index. Industrial magazines continued the advance begun in 1941. Some of them showed gains as high as 40 per cent over the previous year. The increasing importance of the vocational 'bread-and-butter' publications was also reflected in other fields, such as farm papers.

Radio advertising more than held its own, despite a number of difficulties, among them an increase in agitation against the number and character of the commercials. The performers, in some instances, supported the objections and at least one popular program was reported to have declined to renew its contract with its sponsor because of disagreement on this question. Research in the measurement of the radio audience increased in importance, and the mechanical recorder was offered on a commercial basis.

Copy.

The level of advertising copy was far above average in both substance and style. Much of it was genuinely informative, and was so regarded by the public. Studies of readership by Starch indicated a higher degree of readability and effectiveness for the wartime advertisements than for similar peacetime advertisements of twelve months earlier. Part of the credit is doubtless due to the work of the Federal Trade Commission, in eliminating objectionable elements. The lessening of the pressure of competition and of the necessity for aggressive sales promotion also gave the agency executives and copy-writers a freer hand.

As might be expected with a serious-minded audience, a majority of advertisements were presented as direct appeals or exhortations. Other copy slants, however, such as the story, the drama, verse, and even the humorous skit, were not neglected. Several advertisers attempted to adopt their message to the background of the medium. Possibly the most extensive application of this principle ever adopted was the campaign in December for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, Random Harvest, which used thirteen different pieces of full-page copy in thirteen magazines. With three exceptions, each of these featured an appreciation of the film by one of the authors whose work customarily appeared in that magazine. The extra expense involved was reported to be about $130,000.

That advertisers were proud of the high quality of their copy was indicated by the fact that the entries submitted for the 1942 Advertising and Selling awards were reported to be the most numerous in the history of these competitions.

Agencies.

Several important changes in advertising agencies occurred because of the withdrawal of their leading executives to engage in war work. One of the oldest and largest agencies announced a reorganization and change of name, for this reason. Several agencies disbanded or were amalgamated with others. Shifts of large accounts or comparative inactivity cut down the volume of business of many agencies. Frequently these losses were more than counterbalanced by losses in personnel, as a large proportion, sometimes 40 per cent or more, of the male employees entered the armed services. The shortage of trained man-power threatened to become more serious, because of the greatly reduced number of students preparing for advertising in the colleges and schools of business.

Research of all kinds, not excluding research into post-war marketing problems, was continued on an increased scale. An indication of the broader scope of advertising agencies was the proposal that their name be changed to business agencies.