[00:04.27]1995 Passage1

[00:11.93]Money spent on advertising is money spent

[00:14.56]as well as any I know of.

[00:17.19]It serves directly to assist a rapid distribution of goods

[00:21.22]at reasonable price,

[00:23.03]thereby establishing a firm home market

[00:25.65]and so making it possible to provide for export

[00:29.28]at competitive prices.

[00:31.91]By drawing attention to new ideas

[00:34.32]it helps enormously to raise standards of living.

[00:37.55]By helping to increase demand it ensures

[00:40.57]an increased need for labour,

[00:42.79]and is therefore an effective way to fight unemployment.

[00:46.73]It lowers the costs of many services:

[00:49.62]without advertisements your daily newspaper

[00:52.20]would cost four times as much,

[00:54.81]the price of your television licence would need to be doubled,

[00:58.24]and travel by bus or tube would cost 20 per cent more.

[01:03.92]And perhaps most important of all,

[01:06.34]advertising provides a guarantee of reasonable value

[01:09.96]in the products and services you buy.

[01:12.98]Apart from the fact

[01:14.30]that twenty-seven acts of Parliament govern

[01:17.02]the terms of advertising,

[01:18.53]no regular advertiser dare promote a product

[01:22.26]that fails to live up to the promise of his advertisements.

[01:26.80]He might fool some people for a little while through

[01:29.83]misleading advertising.

[01:31.54]He will not do so for long,

[01:33.45]for mercifully the public has the good sense not to

[01:36.78]buy the inferior article more than once.

[01:40.62]If you see an article consistently advertised,

[01:44.15]it is the surest proof I know that the article does

[01:47.48]what is claimed for it, and that it represents good value.

[01:52.61]Advertising does more for the material benefit of the community

[01:56.95]than any other force I can think of.

[02:00.17]There is one more point I feel I ought to touch on.

[02:03.39]Recently I heard a well-known television personality declare

[02:07.58]that he was against advertising

[02:10.01]because it persuades rather than informs.

[02:13.34]He was drawing excessively fine distinctions.

[02:16.48]Of course advertising seeks to persuade.

[02:20.52]If its message were confined merely to information

[02:24.04]--and that in itself would be difficult

[02:26.13]if not impossible to achieve,

[02:29.20]for even a detail such as the choice of the colour of

[02:32.45]a shirt is subtly persuasive

[02:35.17]--advertising would be so boring

[02:37.15]that no one would pay any attention.

[02:40.37]But perhaps that is what

[02:42.27]the well-known television personality wants.