CONFIDENCE in business is founded on fact and exact statement. Millions
upon millions of statements are made every day in all sorts of business
situations and by every possible medium of communication. Each occasion is
a test of the good faith that relates the individual's integrity to the
general prosperity. Of all such occasions, advertising is responsible for
the greatest number of statements with the most continuous impact on
public confidence. The vast sums spent for advertising—billions of dollars
a year in the United States alone—are easily justified by increased volume
of sales and consequent employment. More important than costs, however, is
the challenge contained in the question that should be applied rigorously
by every advertiser to his "copy": Is it the truth?
From time to time, a voice is heard crying in the wilderness that there is
still adequate selling-power in honest, straightforward advertising. The
average man has more common-sense and better taste than the advertiser
often credits him with having. People may succumb to the oft-repeated lie,
but slanted statements eventually produce in them apathy and
disillusionment. There is a resentful feeling that they are being pushed
around. They want desperately to know "what is going on." They are hungry
for the truth.
How such feelings may affect the response to advertising was dramatically
illustrated in a story told originally in a trade publication and
well-known to advertising men. The advertising manager of a department
store in Iowa was ill, and his new assistant was doing his best to keep
things going. The proprietor, noted for his bluntness of speech, walked
into the office.
"Young man," he said, "I want you to stir up some interest in the
water-proof garment department. The fact is, we have a lot of raincoats
that we've got to get rid of. They are shopworn and some of them are
cracked, and we're offering them for little or nothing. Now we've got to
get the people to buy them. There are some good ones in the lot, but if we can't
sell them, we might as well dump them in the river."
The young man assured the "boss" that he knew exactly how to do it. The
next morning the storm broke when the merchant opened his paper to read
the store's advertisement for the day. There they were —his own words in
bold-face type across the page.
"To tell the truth we have a lot of raincoats we've got to get rid of.
They are shopworn and some of them are cracked. We are offering them for
little or nothing.”
Down went his fist on the table, rattling the dishes, and spilling the
coffee.
He read on: "There are some good ones in the lot, but it we can't sell
them, we might as well dump them in the river.”
Arriving at the store, still fuming, the merchant headed for the
advertising office. His partner met him on the way and asked, "Have you
heard about the raincoats?"
"Have I? I'm on my way to kick that fool out!"
"Then you haven't heard',' remarked his partner. "We couldn't handle the
crowd. Every raincoat we advertised was sold thirty minutes after we
opened. That advertisement was a wonder. Seemed to please people by its
absolute frankness.”
The chance remark of an attorney in an American courtroom had wide
repercussions. It ignited the spark of a great movement. Brushing off a
charge of inaccuracy, he was heard to say: "Why of course all advertising
is exaggerated. Nobody really believes it.”
The utter absurdity of this statement impressed a listener in the
courtroom. If nobody really believes it, what's the use of advertising?
Yet, every exaggeration or distortion of tact does indeed tend to destroy
confidence not only in the advertisement but in all advertising and all
business. The millions of dollars spent in advertising are wasted if
nobody believes it. So began a long and successful campaign for truth in
advertising that led eventually to the Better Business Bureau with its
organized effort to unmask fraud and deception.
Truth is the primary purpose of the Better Business Bureau. Truth is its
weapon. The local branches of the bureau do not prosecute the swindler or
the deceptive
advertiser. They merely expose him. Investigation-analysis—publicity—is
the sequence which brings truth to light, and forces him to desist or
retract publicly. Extensive records are kept by the bureaus for the
protection of investors, customers, and newspapers who might be involved.
Through these powerful means, Better Business Bureaus in nearly a hundred
cities of the United States are .protecting the reputation of legitimate
business and helping to sustain the credibility of all advertising. Many
Rotary clubs have helped to bring them into existence. Many Rotarians are
active as managers or as members of their local boards.
Volumes would be required to catalogue the. tricks—some crude, some
subtle—through which advertising deviates from the truth. One common kind
of deception was illustrated in the radio program of the American
comedians, Amos and Andy. Exultantly, Andy brought home a fraudulent
insurance policy, impressive with its gold seal and blue ribbon. It
promised a thousand dollars to his heirs. Amos examined the policy
carefully, and then remarked sadly: "It's no good, Andy. The big type
gives it to you; and the little type takes it away.”
Business men whose behavior in their personal transactions is above
suspicion succumb sometimes to a sort of poetic or artistic license when
it comes to approving advertisements. Only a constant zeal for truth can
make them alert to discern possible deviations. The following questions
may help Rotarians to detect some of the misleading devices that creep
into advertisements:
Is the format of the advertisement used to underplay important, but less
attractive aspects, of the business offer?
Do pictures or descriptive phrases used, give an objective description of
the article?
Are terms like "scientific proof;' "cold facts',' "inside figures" used to
bolster loose statements?
Are testimonials by celebrities in other fields honest evidence of
technical superiority?
Should paid testimonials be used?
Do comparative statements such as "formerly $10" or "up to $100 values"
describe exactly the reduction in prices of individual articles that has
occurred?
Is every person concerned with issuing the advertisement thoroughly aware
of his responsibility to the whole public?
The responsibility of advertising is to inform the customer so that he may
purchase more intelligently. This purpose is not accomplished by claims or
implications that the advertiser is underselling his competitors. Such
aspersions are as unfair in respect of competitor relations as they are
generally inaccurate and misleading.
They cannot always be exposed, however, as readily as was the salesman who
boasted that "our paint is used on eighty per cent of the cars in
America."
Impatiently the buyer interrupted him: "Your rival says in his catalogue
that his paint is used on seventy per cent."
"What did I tell you?" retorted the salesman. "We've got him beat by ten
per cent."
Comparisons are stupid as well as odious if they distract attention from
the merits of the product advertised. Yet, how often this happens. Two
well-known department stores condescended to berate each other recently
over the merits of a new style of fountain pen. One store advertised that
it had been the "first in the world" with the great invention. The other
swung back: "Do you own a horse and buggy model?" Next week, the reply
came: "When Johnny-come-lately tries to put Johnny-on-the-spot on the
spot, what happens?" All very clever and amusing, but hardly encouraging
to the customer, whose confidence in the product ebbed with the rising
tide of competing recriminations.
Of course, there is no way of drawing up a balance-sheet to show the
losses to advertisers as a whole that result from misleading
advertisements. The incident of the shopworn raincoats was a parable—even
though it actually occurred. The misleading advertiser may trade for a
while on the confidence created by others, but his reputation is likely to
suffer more than theirs, so that in the end it will not pay him to
advertise at all. Indeed, there is evidence that in actual practice
crooked business shuns publicity of any kind.
But advertising after all is only one phase of business -an echo which
translates into public expression the pitch of integrity attained in plant
and office and other departments. The echo rebounds from one department to
another. A concern which tries to tool others is likely to end by tooling
itself. If the advertisement is untrustworthy, what can be expected of the
salesman's expense account or the stockroom inventory? If the pitch is
false throughout, it can mean ruin.
Many business men have realized the critical importance of integrity
throughout their organizations by making this question, "Is it the truth?"
- a test for every decision and transaction in their business. They have
instructed every employee to use it habitually. They have not allowed the
shitting sands of fashion nor the clamor of competition to divert them
from the need for plain facts and exact statements in every business
relationship. They know that it pays to be truthful. Nor are they
disturbed in this conviction by the play of subtle minds. ""What is
truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. The answer
is clear enough, for it is not honest error, but deliberate misstatement
and misrepresentation, that destroy confidence.
It is told of Socrates that one day when he was bathing, a young man came
to him and said, "Master, I have traveled a long distance to see you. Will
you teach me what is Truth?"
Socrates invited him into the water; then put his head under and held it
there until the young man struggled and gasped for breath. When he
indignantly demanded to know the reason for such treatment, Socrates
replied: "When you want Truth as much as you wanted air just now, you will
find it."
A passion for truth in every detail and every aspect of the daily round in
business or profession can only be cultivated slowly and methodically. Yet
how much the business or profession will benefit from it! Once the
subterfuges and misrepresentations are swept ruthlessly away, good faith
and confidence will lay open the path to greater service.
How could your club help to improve the standards of advertising in its
trading area?
