Berlin Jamboree

Five thousand advertising potentates from 20 countries left Berlin last week after four days of concentrated speech-applauding, back-patting, beer-quaffing, sightseeing. Contours of the International Advertising Convention included:

World Peace. As at all conventions nowadays, World Peace was popular. International Advertising Association President Charles Clark Younggreen led it down the aisle opening day when he said: "We have come here to present the credo that human and national differences can be settled otherwise than by appeal to arms." England's Lord George Allardice Riddell, newspaper bigwig, gave it a seat when he said: "Who of us sitting here today would twelve years ago have predicted that Americans, Frenchmen and Englishmen would meet in Berlin to discuss advertising methods?" France's Dr. Marcel Knecht, secretary of Le Matin, gave it a place on the platform when he spoke on "Advertising and World Peace," suggested that if ever a United States of Europe should be formed, it would be to collaborate with the U. S. A., with everybody working in unison, bound together, of course, by advertising. Finally world peace was made a prime member of the convention by a resolution: "That this Congress . . . solemnly declares peace and international goodwill are essential to industrial progress and commercial success."

Col. Percy C. Burton of the London Press Exchange gave a voice to the business of Peace. His suggestion: let the League of Nations spend $10,000,000 advertising itself. Shouted he: "I accuse the League of Nations of stupidity in hiding its light under a bushel and of profoundly misunderstanding the psychology of the masses of mankind in failing to take advantage of the magnificent opportunities which it has of popularizing its doings. . . . !"

Boosters. In the U. S., approximately $1,500,000,000 is annually expended on advertising. Natural was it for the Greatest Advertising Country to tell the Lesser Advertising Countries how to advertise. Prime among U. S. boosters was dynamic, hard-plugging, big-thinking President Younggreen.

Much has he traveled, many are the famed people he has met. In Milwaukee, where he has an agency, he headed the Lindbergh reception committee two years ago. The policemen there call him "C. C." Though not feeling well one day in Rome, he won a bet by getting an audience with the Pope on 24-hours' notice. He has hand-shaken Mussolini. He also tells how, slipping into an exclusive London night club, he and Mrs. Younggreen came face to face with Edward of Wales. "My wife," says Mr. Younggreen, "touched the Prince."

In Berlin, Mr. Younggreen made a ringing speech in which he called advertising "the Mercury of the Gods of Industry."

Reorganization. The International Advertising Association reorganized itself "to fit existing conditions." Its constitution was amended so that there will by three governing bodies: Advertising Federation of America, the Advertising Association, Inc. (British), the Union Continentale de la Publicite (European). Affairs of the association henceforth will be council-administered. Equal financial responsibilities will be assumed by each of the governing bodies. A main divisional board was appointed, Charles Kingsley Woodbridge, onetime I. A. A. president, made its chairman.

Pot to Kettle. In the U. S. $80,000,000 is annually spent on billboard advertising. Last week U. S. delegate Herbert Sherman Houston, onetime president of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, flayed European billboard advertising. U. S. tourists, he said, will soon stop traveling through Europe if the beautiful scenery of the Alps, the Rhine, continues to be "spoiled" by billboards. "Is it not therefore a timely question," he questioned, "whether Europe, with her billboards, should lessen the productive value of this great [tourist] asset?"

Churches. In Germany churches do not advertise. One meeting last week was devoted to church advertising. Germans attending chattered instead about general welfare work among orphans, invalids, cripples, tuberculosis victims. U. S. delegates explained what advertising can do for religion.* Dr. Ellwood Rowsey, pastor of Toledo's First Presbyterian Church, speaking on "Ethical Values in Church Advertising," called advertising the "13th apostle." He said the day had passed when "holy memories and empty pews" could be permitted. In closing, he pointed with pride to the fact that his church was erecting a 15-story skyscraper. Women delegates to the convention were plentiful and loquacious. Miss Josephine Dart, Philadelphia advertising agency executive, was elected president of the Federation of Women's Advertising Clubs of the World, while retiring President Hazel Ludwig of St. Louis was presented with a platinum wrist watch.

Banquet. German newspapers, the morning after the "international evening," proclaimed it a "gastronomic record." Two hundred and fifty calves, 35,000 crabs, 4,000 bottles of wine were consumed by 2,500 diners. "50% of the wine," said one newspaper, "was drunk by the American delegates." What with the veal, the wine and the bad acoustics of the Wintergarten's mammoth restaurant, the evening's speeches were no huge success. Several U. S. delegates who had quaffed a few sidels of beer before the banquet began clapped their hands when foreign delegates spoke too long, cheered them when they were finished, impatiently waited for the dancing to commence. Twice Toastmaster Hans Luther, onetime German Chancellor, sharply rapped for order, pleaded in three languages: "We can't have a successful evening unless you are quiet." The palm-clapping continued as U. S. Ambassador Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman rose to speak. All during his talk on the diplomatic relation of advertising the noise and clatter continued. Quiet was only restored when the saturnine, sarcastic Earl of Birkenhead, onetime Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, onetime Secretary of State for India, was introduced. Title-respecters, the delegates listened while he talked frankly on European-U. S. relations. Said he: "Europe, with all due regard for what America has done for us . . . must win its fortune by its own force. We in Europe must free ourselves from illusions in connection with the United States. Our guests from abroad will value European co-operation more if they realize that Europe does not lean on them, but that we rely on ourselves."

*For a champion church advertisement, the New York Advertising Club last week awarded a prize of $1,000.