IN DEFENSE OF THE "HUCKSTERS"
Riis, Roger William
In Defense of the "Hucksters" Advertising Men Working Day and Night to Create Heaven on Earth By Roger William Riis Well-known Exposer of Social Frauds, Currently « Freelance Writer THERE'* been...
...Lyons, and Phillips Milk of Magneala .pending 1,1,000,000 a year on radio time alona to help us brighten our teeth, sweeten our breaths, strengthen our gums, remove our Alms...
...Advertising executive Ralph Smith says that people who don't like commercials are either healthy or well-to-do...
...Think of the unselfish nobility that remark reveals...
...And the Association goes on dourly to insist that Teel, instead of living up to its advertising, actually makes the teeth of many people yellow or black...
...Not they...
...How in the world could you And that out without advertising...
...Serutan gives "tonus" to your body...
...The advertialng men explained frankly that if they had to ¦tick to tha truth, they would have to go out of business...
...You can do it with the right kind of hand lotion, shampoo, lipstick, comb, razor, shaving cream, hearing aid, foot powder, canned soup, or deodorant...
...The union Legionnaire* held that this stand "is anti-labor and aa such ha* n« place in the American Legion...
...If you want a perky lather, use Dus...
...And it is the advertising men was will bring it to us, and don't you ever forget that...
...Fitch's Shampoo helps put any girl over with any man...
...Maxwell House coffee is "radiant" roasted...
...There's an...
...So Tugwell, aa he deserved, was exiled to Porto Rico, where he got a pit...
...It means that advertising men are doing all their work on behalf of the sick and the poor...
...and asserted that "veterans should be given preferential treatment in employment, both private and public...
...He actually went so far as to urge a bill in Congress, the "truthin-advertising" bill...
...They do, too...
...You probably used to think you had to go around all day feeling dull and logy because you had to wait till night to take a laxative...
...They personally went out and cut down the trees...
...who wants to read the truth...
...That's why, in courteous deference to your squeamishness, the advertising of Bisodol promotes "American stomach," which is whatever sour stomach ia and double, and let's see you criticise that patriotic ailment If you dare...
...that Dr...
...Why, neither does anyone else...
...But that'a just it I Who wants strict speaking fro.n the advertising men...
...While there are several strong objections to the composition of unaccepted dentifrices," says the unplayful ADA, "the principal objection to them is their advertising...
...Furthermore, claimed the laboritea, the stand "goes against a recent decision of the United States Supreme Court which outlawed 'super seniority'," and finally, "that it will do nothing more than pit veterans against organised labor and .veteran against veteran for a Job...
...In Defense of the "Hucksters" Advertising Men Working Day and Night to Create Heaven on Earth By Roger William Riis Well-known Exposer of Social Frauds, Currently « Freelance Writer THERE'* been much, too much, picking on the advertising fraternity...
...The trouble really is with the manufacturers, who don't deliver the goods as advertised...
...SuppoM President Truman were to say, "I want a salary equal to 15 percent of the Federal budget" People rightly would shout in dismay...
...Why, there will be no more need for advertising, because heaven will have arrived on earth...
...Well, 7 out of 10 of ua whose soul-mates avoid us because of bad breath can fix that easily by usinu...
...Why be confused ? Think always ,on the jolly side,.the asset side of life.' Look, how radio plugs have informed us of the practical value of certain soaps: If you want a soft, white, fluffy lather (not the hard, black, coarse lather), use Camay...
...Once you doubtless didn't realise that you have so many yards—or is it miles—of kidney tubes, and that you have to keep tho whole mileage flushed out and fresh with this or that make of kidney pills...
...Also that "it is untruthful in its statements, since most international unions both la AFL and CIO did away with initiation feaa lor returned veterans...
...But Mother Nature couldn't do it all...
...If the product isn't what they say it is, it's the product's fault...
...For rich lather, use Swan Suds...
...Do you know how to hooa the man (or woman) of your choice...
...It deserves them...
...Woodbury's soap gives your skin oomph...
...AnEMIC critics should remember Rexford Tugwell...
...If you should happen to want a lather that will make you sing "Bubber bub bing blng," use Super Suds...
...Gargling with Listerine protects you against wet feet...
...The advertising man explains thnt there are many proved methods...
...The health of the public is in jeopardy...
...AMERICAN LEGION LAIORITIS OPPOSE LEGION LABOR STAND • At a meeting of the Strategy Com) mittee of the National Conference of Union Labor Legionnaires, representing the trade union members of the American Legion, held December 2!» at Chicago, it was decided to "use every effort at its command to defeat the recent actions of the American Legion's National Executive Committee in adopting strong anti-labor policies" and trying to enact them into law...
...TllIS whole matter of dentrifrice servea to expose the anti-social motives of those who criticise advertising...
...he shares it with the proletariat...
...What if a silly survey published by Temple University shows that only 8 percent of listeners believe advertising claims...
...Foremost among the virtues of the advertising men is their enlivening influence on the world...
...Nor are the advertising men narrow in their proclamations of merit, Take the shape of toothbrushes—tuft at the end, tuft in the middle, bend forward, bend backwards—the advertising says that every one of those shapes is the best for cleaning the teeth...
...How can anyone quarrel with so bright a worldt And dog foods and insecticides, too...
...Surely they give it virtues enough to live up to...
...Welch's grape juice takes 7 pounds a month off your avoirdupois, right along, month after month...
...Leaser men might Insist that one kind was better than another, but not the advertising gentry...
...No small matter, that...
...No trouble is too great for them in pursuing this goal...
...Lota of valuable knowledge like that we" owe to the unselfish thoughtfulness of advertising men...
...To anyone finicky enough to criticize those sweeping assertions, I say: I'd like to see one of the critics set out to sell . product...
...and that, "strictly speaking," milk of magnesia dentifrices do not exist...
...All four are best...
...Well, then, retort the effete Plug Shrinkers, it's the sour part of sour stomach we don't like...
...Unco of a salary, maybe 216,000 a year...
...but that would be to imply that a competing brand is less meritorious, and any degree of "less" is unthinkable in advertising...
...That's throwing business into the doctors' laps...
...He'd probably say just that about it, and the public would aay: "Oh, yeahT" Bat the expert advertising man uses brain cells and thinks up "emusitite," a product or a conception so sterling as to justify this, in the newspaper that prints all the news that'a At to print: "Mother Nature provided many safeguards to protect mothers and babies, thouaands of years ago...
...But he is not selfish about this charming world of his...
...One of the best traits of advertising men is their utter devotion to their mission of advertising...
...and "organisations controlling employment in many industries," that have deprived veteran* of »uitable employment...
...How many of us can claim similar merit...
...Lyons' powder is an abrasive that scratches glass...
...Colgate's tooth paste...
...The advertising agency man lives not in the humdrum world of monotonea which you and I inhabit, but in a wonder world, where the smallest peas are jumbo, the average site is colossal, and the big ones are titanic...
...Now you do know it, happily...
...Lots of patent medicines, like headache powders, go out of their way to remind you that they are made up "just like a doctor's prescription,' and that if by chance they should fail to curt, your headache, you should see a doctor...
...There are 280,000,000 kidneya in the United States and, at 10 cents per, it's a market that makes even automobiles look like pikers.' * * * The doctors have no real complaint, Advertising men are constantly paying them compliments and giving them a lot of free advrtising, without which the doctors might eaaily have dwindled from public notice* Camels says doctors prefer Camels, and Philip Morris and Raleigh are just as kind to them...
...But science developed emusitite, which banished the problem...
...It reports that women are confused by hearing from a soap manufacturers at 10 a. m. that one of his soap powders is the best, and from the same manufacturer at 10:15 a. m. that another of his soap powders is the best...
...Advertising men get paid well because the public trusts them...
...Of course they • would...
...Which shows what kind of people the ADA are...
...On one hand we have Kolynos, Pepaodent, Teel, Forhans, Colgate's, Dr...
...That'a good news, and we owe it to the advertising man, "l.o told us about it with four times as many words as Lincoln took for his Gettysburg address...
...The moral is plain...
...we wouldn't feel we could trust him not to keep on pushing the Federal budget up and up and up, as long as there is room up...
...What if the 78,000 Plug Shrinkers say they are confident that "Americans do not suffer, to anything like the extent that advertisers assert, from bile, kidney tubes, itching skin, sour stomach, bad breath, dirty teeth, body odor, sluggish bowels, etc...
...When the city of Memphis planted some elms in honor of the war dead, they carelessly planted them so that they obscured certain billboards...
...Now you know full well that Sal llepajica sweetens an upset stomach by helping reduce excess gastric acidity, right at dawn, if need be...
...It ia time we appreciated their public -orvices...
...The kidney market is an Eldorado," he says...
...that Pepsodent's divinely heralded irium is only a soap substitute whose advertising "attempts to endow it with extraordinary virtues it does not possess...
...How dull the world would be without such stimulating little gems as— Vogt's Philadelphia Scrapgle teaches children patriotism...
...unorganised organisation called Plug Shrinkers, which exists with the wistful dream of shrinking the commercial radio plugs...
...Three out of 10 are unfortunately beyond auch help...
...Stacked up against that fact, what are we to think of a complainant like Dr...
...Ten out of every twenty printed advertisements, 18 out of every 20 radio commercials, 20 out of 20 billboards illustrate this...
...But the advertising men are paid 15 percent of their clients' advertising budgets, which just shows what confidence we place ia advertising men as compared with politicians...
...Meanwhile, thousands of advertising men work happily within a stone's throw of Madison Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, and most get sev...
...else why the advertialng...
...Kill-joys like tha American Dental Association state that these claims are not true...
...They are working then.selves out of jobs, in the interest of the public What of the day when all the people have read and heeded the advertising campaigns, when no more women have dry, clinging flskei on their forearms and faces, when all men and all women smell sweet under the arms, when everyone's breath is intoxicatingly alluring, and everyone hat kidney tubes through which the wind can whistle...
...Diapers are still with us...
...Did the advertising men complain...
...Small-minded men, writing copy for these products, would say that one dog food makes your dog happier than another dog food, one bug powder is more deadly...
...You, prebably, were the dumb kind of person who thought your girl wouldn't notice your under arm perspiration, or your bad breath...
...The official Legion stand opposed existing labor union* with execssiva initiation fees...
...Plug Shrinkers...
...eral timea 216,000 a year...
...But the finest proof of the nobility of the advertising profession lies in tht fact that they are, in utter selflessness, deliberately killing the goose that lays their golden <gga...
...And until very recently, it looked as if 'the diaper problem' was here to stay...
...Morris Fishbein, editor of the American Medical Journal, who says the advertising motive therein is low and sordid...
...What would he do, for instance, with Diaperwite, something that cleans didies...
Vol. 30 • January 1947 • No. 3
