JOHN ITASSALL, PRESS ADVERTISING.—Of the vast sums of money spent in adver tising every year in the United Kingdom, by far the largest portion is spent through the medium of the general press.
The main reason for this is very probably that of all methods of advertising, press advertising is the most economical. It is certain, that for a given sum, more good can be done through the medium of the general press than through any other medium. Although it is not contended for a moment that an advertising campaign is complete, if it expresses itself through the medium of the press only.
Everybody reads newspapers and periodicals nowadays : publications of all sorts penetrate into every nook and corner of the kingdom, so that quite apart from the question of economy, press advertising can go farther than any other method. It can cover more territory ; it is practically un limited in its scope. Whilst other methods of advertising can only accom plish certain definite things, press advertising can accomplish almost anything when used in conjunction with other methods.
As the press acts as a distributor of news, knowledge, and opinion, so does the press act as a distributor of knowledge regarding advertised goods. Press advertising does its work ali the time—everywhere. It is the cheapest means afforded the advertiser of bringing the notices concerning his wares directly into the place where they are most likely to be read and to do good —into the home. - It would be a rare thing to find an instance of an adver tiser who had won a big market for his goods without using the medium of the press at some time or other.
Press advertising enables the advertiser to direct his appeal with a certain amount of intelligence into the channel into which it should be directed, because the character of circulation of any given publication is fairly well defined—which cannot be said of many other methods of advertis ing, such as poster advertising, for instance, which makes its appeal alike to the millionaire, the mechanic, and the mendicant. This is another reason
of its popularity.
The press, therefore, has generally become to be recognised as the cheapest means of exploiting goods by advertising, and it is press advertising, there fore, which claims the major part of attention from advertisers and those engaged in the profession of advertising generally.
The general press might be classified broadly as follows:— 1. The Daily Newspaper. Daily newspapers both morning and evening. * * tinder this denomination may be included the many W-weekly and tri-weekly news publications.
This section of the general press is subdivided by advertisers in accord ance with the character of people to whom they wish to make their appeal.
Thus the halfpenny press appeals as a general rule to different sections of the public to those which the penny press appeals to.
Again there are papers which appeal mainly to a sporting class of reader. Others base their claims to consideration on their financial and business news, which appeals to business men mostly. Others give most of their attention to politics, but all of these have large sections of general news and may be said to appeal generally. There are daily papers which make a special appeal to motorists, such as The Standard, The Morning Post, The Daily Telegraph. Papers like The Sportsman and Sporting Lift appeal to sportsmen only as a rule, although they contain other news. Papers like The Financial Times and The Financial News appeal to financial men only, and so on right down through the list.
Whatever appeal the advertiser desires to make, whatever circulation he desires to attract, whatever class of people whom he appeals to to buy his goods, he can get an indication of the character of the circula tion of any daily paper by carefully studying its columns, and it will be generally noticed that there will be a preponderance of patronage given to that particular publication by advertisers who make their appeal to certain distinct classes.