Founder of 'Selfridge's, Ltd.
this word is meant much which is significant to the advertiser of the proprietary article, whether it be a medicine, food, or a preparation for household use. The great advertiser has his difficulties, although to the outsider his affairs may appear plain sailing, and substitu tion is possibly one of the worst difficulties with which he has to contend. A man may devise an excellent article for public sale, he may pack it in acceptable form and spend many years and much money in advertising it. As a result of his business policy he may practically stamp the value of his article on the public mind so that they realise that a certain line of goods of particular merit is made up in a particular form and is sold always at a fixed price.
In the earlier days of such a speciality the manufacturer's difficulties are numerous, but they are largely personal. His success is a question of ways and means. It is only when he has succeeded in stamping the merits of this speciality on the public that his difficulties begin to grow. When there is a universal demand for his article, substitution rears its head and adds com plications to a proposition which was apparently plain sailing. Substitution is, roughly speaking, an effort on the part of smaller traders to sell goods which are colourable imitations of the great and advertised successes. Directly a proprietary article is advertised into popularity, dozens of traders spring up who wish to share in its prosperity by offering something which they say is almost as good, or as they often put it, "practically the Fame thing." They imitate the goods themselves and they frequently pack them so that they look exactly like the thing they imitate. A man going into a chemist dealing in proprietary articles, asks for a certain thing, and he is offered something which the chemist says is virtually the same preparation, got up in the same form and charged at a cheaper rate.
Nearly all proprietary articles suffer from this form of competition, and it is to the manufacturer a particularly grievous form of trade. It is so
difficult to convince the people that the article which has made its mark and has an original claim on the approval of the public is quite different from a minor imitation. The evil of substitution has frequently called forth protests on behalf of the manufacturers of proprietary articles, but pro test does not stein the tide of substituting goods of a similar character to the ones advertised. The great advertiser creates the demand for a certain line of goods and he seems powerless to stop smaller traders coming in an I reaping the benefit. Remedies for substitution are few and by no means effective. It has been found possible in the past to secure the co operation of the newspaper in educating the public to demand the article advertised, bat this form of education has its weakness because it does not touch the trader who deliberately wishes to stand "between the public and the particular article involved. To prevent the evil is difficult, because a certain number of people will always be influenced by the salesman at the counter, rather than the advertising effect which produces sales for the pro prietary article The strongest preventive means are to register a trade mark ; to patent, where permissible, the preparation ; to register the label; and to adopt a trade-name and to fight with determination every colourable imitation which is placed upon the market in opposition to the proprietary speciality. This sounds excellent advice in principle, but in actual practice it is difficult, and one may say that the more popular a proprietary article is, the more liable it is to inroads on its popularity by the unwarranted substitution of the different trading agencies employed in its distribution. While substitution, or passing off, can be restrained at law, even though there is no patent, or registered trade-mark, or label name, the big adver tiser has to cope with so many attacks from individual traders bent on substitution, that it is almost impossible for him to meet the evil satis factorily by legal steps.