Page 32 - 1912 May - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 151

certain products are carefully gathered and codified. The psy-
chology of the users and their conditions investigated and under-
stood. The manufacturer who is wise will discover whether there
is any true need for his product before making it, whether it is worth
while extending its sale through advertising and to what appeal its
users best respond.*

I t is true that not all advertisers have awakened to the value of
the wonderful instrument Mr. Balmer has put into their hands.
But his idea is taking root and growing. Apart from the new chance
it offers to the statistical mind and the service it does to advertisers,
I like to think what tremendous worth this accurate knowledge of the
needs and habits of consumers will be to the New Republic in the
days of which we Socialists dream. I t will be the means of trans-
forming advertising into an unadulterated public service.

7—The top notch of possibility in the advertising field is the
Advertising Director and Manager of Sales, and Business Counsel.
This position requires the highest ability. Very few men and no
women have yet filled it completely. Many advertising agents,
whose work is to place advertising in the proper media, perform
service of making advertisements and advising and planning cam-
paigns, but very few of them cover the largest field of the Advertis-
ing Director. No woman has yet attained to this point. There
is no reason why no woman should. But as it is not likely to be a
task meted out to any of you who read this for a little while to come,
it is not now necessary to examine the requirements exhaustively.

Briefly, this expert is an important factor in our present civil-
ization, a real agent of Exchange. He no longer looks upon himself
as a mere money-maker for the manufacturer. His it is to bring
together the demand and the knoAvledge of the best supply, with
the least possible waste and friction.

He must know and control all the factors previously outlined,
must understand trade conditions nationally and internationally,
must be an expert in efficiency, must know how products may reach
their fit destination through the line of least resistance, must plan
vast campaigns of advertising to this end, and be able to manage a
large force of assistants with discipline and dispatch. His chief
problem eliminating waste in his own office and in his clients'
expenditures and his success is largely the measure of that ability.

I cannot close this outline without again beseeching my sisters to
avoid entering into advertising, avoid it like a plague, i f they have
the least bit of superficiality in their composition; and to avoid —

•Anyone with any real interest in advertising should read Prof. Walter Dill Scott's
book. The Psychology of Advertising, which was inspired by M r . Balmer.