JUNE,
287
1944
scattered throughout OUT various plants and divisions, with a good representation in our Divisions of Technical Service and Sales. As the groups are selected for this special program they are chosen from a large variety of course work and different types of personalities. As they progress in the student training program it is very interesting to note how obvious it becomes that they will fit well into certain groups and types of work. Our department heads have become aware of this fact and look to the student group to find those with certain aptitudes and abilities for special assignment. The Educational Division has more requests than it can fill for men who have had the student training course; possibly that is sufficient testimonial of its value. Summarizing the outstanding values of the program to the student, they are:
The development of appreciation and a realization of the importance of every employee's work. By contact and work experience, learning the importance of conforming to standards. At an early date of employment, developing a knowledge of how things are done and the weighted value of aU classes of work. At an early date of employment, gaining an appreciation of the complexity of a large business enterprise and thereby developing a realization of the absolute necessity of individual cooperation and absolute necessity of division and department cooperation ill order to have a well-organized and wellsynchronized organization.
Values to the company are: Proper placement of technical and leadership staff made possible by many weeks of observation before final placement. Substantially shortening the period of time usually required before young men assume responsible positions. General improvement in all relationships as result of teaching appreciation of the other man's work.
Chemical Advertising' .. THEODORE MARVIN Hercules Powder Company, Inc., lJ7i.lmington, Delaware HE chemical industry is one of civilization's most usefully in every walk of life. The discovery of eacb dynamic of all time, and to stay up with its progress additional chemical and the development of eTery new requires conswerable effort. It isn't pace in growth use for an older material quickens public interest and alone which distinguishes the industry; it's the high makes "the man in the street" more chemically conrate of change which keeps the business whirling ahead. scious. The war, of course, has accelerated these movements. Tbis public interest obligates us to see that there is What effect do these cbaracteristics bave on the proper direction of what is written and said about us. subject of chemical advertising? In the first place. Too often, the public is led by irresponsible stories to a virile industry like chemistry must be adequately believe that we come by our advances through dreaminterpreted to the layman and to the scientist, and ing in alchemistic caverns, and too little is known of I am sure it is safe to assume that this interpretation the tremendous investments in research and plant is going to take place through the forms of expression before our often-called "black-magic" products can normally thought of as advertising. For purposes be made. So we find that educational public relations of clarity, let me define advertising as discussed herein in the form of lectures, institutional advertising, to include public relations, product publicity, mass . publicity stories, movies, and radio are particularly journal advertising, technical and trade advertising, helpful to long-range, satisfying progress of the chemical radio, exhibits, movies, lectures, direct mail. industry. These stories do more than improve public The second point that should be made immediately relations. They also sell, for often they are the means is that thi. business of interpreting chemistry to the of announcing to the consumer or to the business different groups of minds who are interested in the executive news of a fine chemical development and the subject for various reasons, is a young one of but a few promise of its use for public benefit. years of age. Therefore, it is not too experienced. and ADVERTISING IN UNIFORM it is not too adequately staffed. In a nutshell, there is But war is still the main function or chemical adplenty of need for chemically trained persons who can meet advertising's requirements of writing and imagi- vertising today. Throughout these months and years of combat it has been our duty to present inrormation nation. No industry could grow so fast and become so im- about our chemical products and services to all busi· portant in our national life and not arouse public nesses which might use them in their war production interest. This often bas been called the "chemical programs. This has not been as simple a job as age." and not without reason, for the products of the might seem, for these messages have had to reach two industry lead into almost every business and serve different groups of persons. We have had to keep in mind that. while in peacetime our customers and po1 Presented before the Division of Chemical Education of the tential customers usually are chemically experienced, American Chemical Society. 107th meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, . the war brought hundreds and hundreds of new comApril 3. 1944.
T
288
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAl. EDUCATION
pauies into the production line-up. Processing industries still are swollen with converted firms who, for the first time, were faced with the purchase and use of chemicals of strange names and applications. Ad vertising has had to aid in schooling these new manufacturing units in safe and efficient application of chemicals, and much of our copy, technical and general, has had to be written so that the newcomers to our industry could readily understand our instructions. Even before Pearl Harbor this production of chemical ittfonnation was a war program "must." Then, data had to be available to help fit chemicals into defense roles. As preparation for war swept into full speed ahead, priorities and exhausted supplies of strategic materials, both chemical and nonchemical, placed tremendous demands on our industry. Substitutes for substitutes were the order of the day. OUT research laboratories spawned new products in increasing number, and these. being put into production, were rushed to the industrial front. Along with them went factual advertising battalions, for it was equally important that there should not be "too little, too late" in specific data to fit these chemicals for their wartime duties. These production lines still are the front lines of the chemical business, and the infonnation we provide our customers with is ammunition. It is the kind of ammunition which General Arnold recently said is helping mightily to win this war. I have often used the allegory that chemical infonnation of the type referred to is chemical advertising in uniform. It is essential in the manufacture of materiel and machines superior to the enemy's. If this is so, and [ could take you behind the scenes to show you many examples. then those who produce these information soldiers have an important responsibility in our industry now and, I might add, after the war. CHEMICAL ADVERTISING NOT OLD
Chemical information for the public is only a few years old, while the business world has known of it in volume only since the '30's. This is not surprising, for actually our industry is relatively new. Secondly, the industry's products have rated a seller's market during most of the years since World War I, and there has been little need to do other than to make the products and to present their characteristics. There was once only one plastic material. Now? You know the story. Then it didn't matter if more than the original fabricator knew about the base of a plastic gadget, but now. in many instances. its story is told from kettle to consumer, through many different advertising strata. CHEMICAL ADVERTISING'S REQUIREMENTS
What are the requirements of today's chemical infonnation which goes out to all classes of trades, engineers, and consumers? The first is truthfulness and here we have no ill past to rise up to trouble us.
A search through chemical literature will reveal an astonishing adherence to facts. There are bad examples, but the industry is not plagued with patent medicine exhortations. In your general condemnation of advertising-if you are given to that-you should realize that your branch of the profession deserves considerable credit for sticking close to the "straight and narrow." As a result, there is little disbelief of orthodox chemical publicity and advertising by the public or by technical members of the industry. Thoroughness is another necessary attribute of today's good chemical advertising, which not only sticks to facts but is based on an amazingly large quantity of them. with treatises usually on hand to cover the needs of the user. Fairness toward competitors is a characteristic of today's chemical advertising. Few Federal Trade Commission admonishments have been administered to our industry; this is only as would be expected. By that I mean that the industry has always been content to stand or fall on the qualities of the products our companies make. Stunts of consumer copy have little place here. We do use salesmanship and showmanship in technical advertising and selling, for the facts must be brought to your attention and to the attention of the public. But the "pay-off" is on the stuff we build into the product or into the chemical service which is for sale. IMAGINATION ESSENTIAL
Wbat of the persons who do these jobs? Ideally, they should be factual artists. They must have imagination, for that is the moving spirit not only of our advertising but also of the chemical industry. Tbey should be able to foresee the penetration of chemicals from one application to another in business and to be able to look beyond to the ultimate effect upon consumers. Should these persons have chemical training? Yes, if possible, but they must possess the ability of expression, for after all, that is our business-to interpret facts so that the different groups in industry and the public who use or influence the use of chemicals. can understand the infonnation they need. The problems of presenting these facts to technical, business, or consumer groups is no more or less complicated than that facing advertisers in any other kind of business. How well do we do it? I believe it can be honestly stated that chemical advertising has won a high estate for itself in the comparatively short' time it has been used in any reasonable volume. To check this, the next time you look through your national. business. and trade publications, take note of your industry's advertising. Study it for design, illustration, type arrangement, style of writing, and plausibility of statement. When next you receive a technical bulletin from a chemical company, note how little argument you can honestly have with the statements presented therein. I think you will agree that the job is done in a way that complements the (Continued on page 293)
293
CHEMICAL ADVERTISING (Continued from page 288) helping to finish this war faster, its import is increasing daily as we seem to approach the time of military decision. POSTWAR A GROWING CHALLENGE We can have every confidence that advertising's Any discussion of advertising, public relations, and postwar job will be taken in stride in the same successsales promotion activities in the chemical industry ful way that advertisers handled the industry's getwould be incomplete without reference to postwar. ready-for-war-problems. It will be an exciting period Already, we are doing what we can to prepare for the and you can scarcely get much closer to the postwar flood of requests for technical literature which will firing line than in a phase of advertising. If you can rise higher and higher as V-Day approaches. Al- qualify, now is the time to make this move toward though this work still is secondary to the main job of helping to win the peace.
one your products are doing on both the home front and along the firing line.
