Advertising Costs
Sta,—In your review of the book by Mr. Hermann Levy on drink it is stated that in 1935 advertising expenditure was 7 per cent, of the sales of drink as compared with 42.6 per cent. of the turnover of " medical goods." This second figure seems incredible, and one wonders bnw it is arrived at. It is possible that in 1935 there were certain highly advertised proprietary remedies which could be said to spend such an amount on publicity, if they were carefully selected for the calculations, but that the sales of medicines in 1935 or in any other year provided more than two-fifths of their total retail value for publicity is unbeliev- able. It is possible that I may have misunderstood the review, and there may be some valid reason for selecting a pre-war year to illustrate the point in spite of the great change in conditions since then, not least in the trade in " medical goods."—Yours faithfully,
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