ADVERTISING. - The word p. is used in two different senses: 1) as an instrument of public control over governmental activities or the management of large industrial enterprises; 2) as a technique for directing the demands and decisions of the public with regard to men, political and social institutions, and large commercial firms.
I. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CONTACTS
There is advertising where there is a public, that is to say, in large societies. To understand this well, one must recall the distinction made by sociologists between primary and secondary contacts. Primary social contacts are those that are formed within the sphere of a more or less restricted and defined community (family, neighborhood, municipality) and embrace human life in its totality. It is these contacts that form the customs and usages of the collectivity. The public, on the other hand, is a gathering of men without structure (that is, outside their primary community of life) in the presence of a group that is politically or economically organized, which on the one hand depends on the public but on which the public in turn also depends. The contact between the public and this group specialized in a social function is not formed in a community of continuous life, but rather through special acts that provoke an attitude of acceptance or rejection, according to the dispositions of the public. These social contacts are called secondary. The principal instrument of such contacts is advertising.
But at the same time this contact established by advertising has a character of conscious control. The public finds itself in the presence of certain persons or of a group on which it depends for its vital needs, but toward which it preserves a certain distance in discussing their acts and in forming opinions about them. Customs are not formed by discussing them, but impose themselves slowly and spontaneously through the adaptation of a vital community to the conditions of social life. Public opinion (v. PUBBLICA OPINIONE), on the other hand, is always the fruit of a discussion, of a taking of a position with respect to facts that derive from the management of public affairs. Consequently, advertising is an instrument of public opinion. The task of advertising is not to transform habits or customs, but to inform the public or to impose a fashion on it, that is, to direct its needs in the direction of production.
Public control on the part of advertising is therefore realized in two ways. The public demands advertising since it thinks that on it depends the determination of its own adherence to the social action of the government, and that its demand directs the economic mechanism. In a certain sense this is true. One cannot govern for long against the will of one's subjects, and a production fails if it does not correspond to the needs of the public. It is therefore through advertising that the public exercises a control over its leaders, that it obtains the improvement of social conditions by exploiting existing ones for its own purposes, that it can protest against the abuses of officials or of politicians; just as it is also through advertising that it in turn allows itself to be drawn into exceptional sacrifices, as in the case of special contributions and especially in time of war.
Public opinion therefore has an incontestable force: but only organized and directed public opinion possesses this power. For this reason it is extremely important for all those who have to deal with the public to dominate its opinion and to direct it in their own favor. And so advertising, which is a means of control over the management of leaders, becomes an instrument of control over the public itself. The public is in agreement with these individuals and with these groups occupying a special social position, if advertising is directed by them; but it is in disagreement should advertising be directed by elements opposed to them.
II. TECHNIQUE OF ADVERTISING
As techniques of propaganda one may designate all the means that reach the public in part or as a whole. Under modern conditions the primacy belongs to the press (newspapers and magazines), the official or semi-official publications of bodies that have a hold on the public, the publications of scientific research on the economic and social situation, statistics, official documents justifying the intentions of the propaganda, posters and simple inscriptions on the streets, radio broadcasting, mass demonstrations, etc.
Propaganda can be open or clandestine. The means of clandestine propaganda are the clandestine press, the radio broadcasting of information and notices, the spreading of news and also the humorous sallies circulated among the public, which have an incredible force especially in oppressive totalitarian regimes.
Commercial a. aims above all at creating fashion by always introducing new needs, a fashion that creates differences within the uniformity of demands. Advertising must persuade the public that an article of common use has qualities different from the others and therefore corresponds to special needs, and consequently guarantees the demand for it on their part.
One can therefore say that a. is a means of social contact to provoke an attitude of approval or rejection on the part of part of the public with regard to individuals or institutions that hold a directive position in society.
III. MORAL EVALUATION
The moral evaluation of advertising follows from the fact that it is a means of forming public opinion. "Public opinion is in effect," says Pius XII in his address of 18 February 1950, "the appanage of every normal society... Where no manifestation of public opinion appears, one should see in that a lack, an infirmity, a disease of social life." Now advertising, as a means of public opinion, is necessary and good insofar as it provokes attitudes conforming to true social principles or draws attention to the true needs of man and of production. It is reprehensible when it excites disordered or subversive demands. Consequently, in given circumstances a certain control over advertising must be exercised by society, socially and economically organized.