PUBLIC SENTIMENT CAMPAIGNS 1. A new use for advertising.—Advertising to mold public sentiment is new. Only recently has the world begun to understand the great power of adver tising to accomplish things entirely outside the field of commerce. The public service corporation, the political party and even the government are gradu ally coming to realize that advertising may be per fectly dignified, that people are influenced by adver tising, and that, if a cause is just, a straightforward statement over the signature of a responsible indi vidual or company will more quickly change public sentiment than any other known means.
The most important requisite for such advertising is the same as the essential requisites of commercial advertising—there must be quality in the article ad vertised. The cause of the advertiser must be just. Advertising will only accelerate the failure of an organization if its product does not have quality; and advertising to create a certain public sentiment will only injure the advertiser if the judgment of the masses considers his cause unjust.
2. The campaign versus the press agent.—Before the days of the public sentiment campaign, the press agent often was used to get free publicity. The de sire of corporations, individuals, cities and political parties to mold public opinion is nothing new. Only the methods are new. Formerly it seemed to be the general opinion that it was the duty of the newspapers to give free publicity on any subject that had even the slightest claim to public interest. If a retail dealer bought a new counter, the local paper must mention* it in its news columns. If the charity or ganization wanted funds, a carefully planned ad vertising campaign in space bought and not begged, was seldom thought of. If a railroad had anything to say to the public, as a matter of course it told the editor to say it—and the editor usually did. At one time the use of brick as a building material was largely increased by a press agent campaign; news papers were flooded with stories about the great loss to the country occasioned by the burning of frame structures. Hundreds of different kinds of busi nesses have sought to wheedle editors into telling their story, instead of buying space in his paper to tell it.
The press agent still survives. Organized baseball and theaters still get tremendous amounts of free publicity. Automobiles are still "press agented" to some extent. There is scarcely a day that even the least influential editor is not urged to lend his news and editorial columns to the furthering of some pri vate interests or some public interests backed by an active organization. The press agent still has his place; and certainly the newspapers and magazines will always devote much space to worthy causes and to matters of real public interest. But the editor is getting wary. The individual or the corporation with an axe to grind i4 no longer made at home in the offices of publications.
Then, too, people who wish to influence public opinion are beginning to realize that a well-displayed advertisement is likely to be seen and read by more people than the same story told in the news columns.
It is this realization that has had most to do with the decreasing importance of the press agent and the in creasing number and importance of real advertising campaigns designed to sell ideas instead of goods. When carefully planned advertising campaigns are paid for and carried on successfully for such move ments as those represented by the National Security League and the Belgium Relief Committee, no one need hesitate to use advertising to accomplish any worthy purpose that depends fo'r its success on the acceptance of an idea by the multitude.
3. The decline of free publicity.----Many people believe that the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco would have been more largely attended if it had been advertised widely in paid space. Months be fore the exposition opened, a joint committee of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association and the Quoin Club, under the chairmanship of the presi dent of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, presented to the board of directors of the ex position a plan for an international advertising cam paign. It was rejected on the ground that the exposition was of international importance, and that newspapers would be glad to give all the publicity desired free. The management of the exposition estimated that the publicity would draw from one to two million visitors from the East. After the expo sition closed, railroad officials estimated that the travel to the exposition from east of the Rockies totaled only 400,000. The suggested advertising plan would have involved the investment of not more than $500, 000. The exposition is said to have spent almost $400,000 in obtaining free publicity. The chairman of the joint committee that drew up the plan for the advertising campaign believes that "if the exposition management had turned this very respectable amount of money over to one of our leading national advertis ing agents and dispensed entirely with its own pub licity department, it would have enjoyed fully as ef fective free publicity plus the advertising space that that considerable amount of money would have pur chased. And that advertising space would have doubled the attendance from the East." 4. Political advertising campaigns.—The Lincoln and Douglas debates of 1860 marked the end of the period when politicians relied chiefly on the human voice to sway public sentiment. Then came the era of free publicity. It is not yet at an end, but it is drawing to a close. Mark Hanna is said to have been the first political leader to buy advertising space for use in a presidential campaign. Since that time paid political advertising has greatly increased, until in the presidential campaign of 1916, it played an exceed ingly important part in the activities of both the great parties.