BOOKS OF THE DAY
Aspects of Advertising
The Economics of Advertising. By F. P. Bishop. (Robert Hale. 7s. 6d.) IN the new mood it is inevitable and proper that advertising should come in question—its economics, its good faith and its manners. Mr. Thompson in Voice of Civilization made an all-out attack ; Mr. Bishop in the book under review delivers not a counter-attack, but something more useful—an unpolemical examination of the casus belli. Mr. Thompson's book was disingenuous, for his true enemy is the system of competitive commerce, with advertisements of a ridiculous, pompous or worthless type, carefully chosen as an easy Aunt-Sally. Mr. Bishop's book, somewhat too definitely called The Economics of Advertising, is in the main a tentative exposition of material for judgement: even his final chapter is called " Towards Conclusions." There can be no question that the first book makes for rumbustious enjoyment : that its " consumer-appeal " is artful and immense, that it is in fact high-powered advertising or printed salesmanship, though Mr. Thompson must abjure this form of praise. Mr. Thompson is so persistent in his assault that he will rejoice at the " failure " of the Ministry of Food's advertising of National Wheatmeal bread (but was it a failure?—it surely made the com- pulsory change-over acceptable), while elsewhere, to scold the cigar- ette manufacturers who went on advertising brands during the shortage, he declares that " competitive advertising always increases the total demand for a product." As you can see, advertising is therefore both impotent and powerful. , . . Mr. Bishop avoids such contradictions. Like the clergyman at the political meeting, he is "neither partial nor impartial." "If competitive advertising merely switches demand from one article to another (he says) without in- creasing its total volume, then no doubt it is wasteful. But if it can be shown to increase the total demand for consumer goods, and at the same time to stimulate experiment, then a new vista is opened up." According to Mr. Thompson, this is what happens— though he is peevish about the result because it is " private enter- prise." It is idle for us to bemoan the fact that in Athens they saw the human and economic problem as one of securing not labour but leisure : for our choice is between fully-supplied employment and under-supplied unemployment. In seeking fully-supplied employment, Mr. Bishop is not so simple as to offer advertising as a cure-all : " Advertising cannot alone ensure full employment. There are many obstacles and impediments that only Government action can remove, and the social conscience of today rightly demands Govern- ment intervention in many forms to secure fair distribution of the products of labour, capital and enterprise. Moreover there is a proper sphere for public enterprise as well as for private enterprise, and there is a borderland within which the best results may be obtained by public and private enterprise pulling together in double harness."
Mr. Bishop quotes the late Sir John Pybus's argument from the purely competitive advertising of the gas and electricity industries, both of which thereby vastly increased consumption. It is example of his measured manner that he says, " Perhaps Sir Jo was inclined to deduce too much from a single example." He off pthers in the same tentative spirit—rail transport and private c ownership, vacuum cleaners and brooms.
Mr. Bishop (himself trained for a barrister) " leads " fairly, for both sides. Two admirable chapters • summarise the case f and the case against advertising, another attempts to make a keep the peace between economists and business men, and anoth approaches the problem of unemployment in terms of what Lot Keynes calls "the propensity to consume" or (in reverse) the d ficiency of effective demand. It is a pity that much miscellaneo matter comes between the reader and his arrival at these excelle statements: a new and cheaper edition- should begin at page 106.. Mr. Bishop is inevitably less satisfactory (it is not within thesis proper) when he touches on obnoxious advertising. M people judge advertising by patent-medicine advertisements, whey the half-truth and even downright lie flourish. In America a rev lution of this type of advertising has taken place through the censo ship newly imposed by the Federal Trade Commission, which ha affected not merely the " claims " but the products themselves. A important American agency told me that as products could not any longer offered with false description or suggestion (outlaw by the F.T.C.), the manufacturer has had to improve his produ in order to be able to make a claim for it both attractive and justifi But the published lie invites a case against false advertising, no against advertising—it would be as reasonable to blame popul education and the power to read for Hitler's propaganda power.
I don't think people are bothered by the economics of adver tising nearly as much as they are by false claims and inappropriat intrusions (such as posters in the country). Voluntary contr within the trade or by the "media" has failed to stop the former lack of rural and civic pride and the clumsy mechanics of loc powers have left us unprotected from the latter. (I still see th poster in the Underground which tells me that all skin diseases ca be cured, many in a night, by the use of a certain ointment ; an the claim for a shaving-cream that it will remove all wrinkles.. . All this, I say, is not within Mr. Bishop's thesis ; but he is excellen on the other major complaint, that even honest advertising may mak the consumer "choose wrong," pointing out that this "expresses doubt about the wisdom and safety of freedom itself."
" Of course, freedom is dangerous, and free competitive adver tising is strong meat, not always easily digestible by delicate stomach For that reason it is rightly to be regarded with caution, and us with a sense of responsibility. But freedom to persuade, in economi as in religious or political matters, is the right food for a free society Its benefits certainly cannot be fully measured in pounds, shillin and pence."
If we are to be defended against the " wrong " choice, who w make the " right " choice for us, and by what standards? And wh he has so chosen, will he impose the choice by fine and by imprison ment or by persuasion? And if by persuasion, wouldn't he hay
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