Students! One hundred and twenty-three of you will be delighted to know that the £3/5/- Students' Association fee you paid this year is about to be spent.

"Well, fair enough," you say, "that's what It's for." But wait a minute. That tidy sum of money, £400 in all, will be spent on one item—the advertising of Extravaganza.

Yes, to advertise one generally well-known annual show around one relatively small town (Wellington and the Hutt Valley) is to take £400 of your money, and furthermore this sum has been allocated to a student who admits to knowing nothing at all about advertising.

Now I would point out at this stage that I am not blaming Mr P. O'Brien, the advertising officer concerned, for this blunder, but I am blaming those responsible for allocating this sum, And I Accuse them of Gross Negligence and Irresponsibility in finding it necessary to expend £400 for this purpose.

And having arrived at this sum they proceed to put it at the disposal of a man who admits to knowing nothing about advertising.

When I expressed shock at this situation Mr O'Brien pointed out quite reasonably that (a) Extrav. never made a profit until a similar sum was spent on advertising; (b) Extrav. is thus expected to make a profit this year and pay back more than £400; (c) the help of a student who is employed by an advertising agency has been enlisted; and (d) he, Mr O'Brien, knows nothing about advertising.

Proves Nothing

This last point has been covered so I shall pass on to the other three. The fact that Extrav. never made a profit until a similar sum (£400) had been spent on advertising proves nothing. The sudden financial success of the show in the last year or so could be attributed to many other factors.

It appears that in the past bad advertising has been used and has been substituted for a "big push" in the Extrav. advertising campaigns.

On the second point I would submit that regardless of the fact that Extrav. will almost surely make a profit of well over £400 this year, there is no justification for wasting student money. By spending less, but on the right media, Extrav. can make a greater profit.

Finally, the fact that a student from an advertising agency has assisted is surely an unfavourable sign, for it is well-known that N.Z. advertising agencies are 20 years behind the times in their practise and outlook and are generally pretty useless.

The logical question is: "How should the advertising be done?" As many people who attend Extrav. as spectators are regulars, it seems most important to use informative advertising, i.e., classified columns in the newspapers showing the time and dates of the show.

The next requirement appears to be the one most lacking: namely, Original Thinking. (This, please note, is not only effective but free.) If Cappicade can run a publicity stunt by having 20 students pull an old cart through the main streets of Wellington during the lunch-hour or issue blue parking stickers as they did in '58, Why Can't Extrav. Do Something Similar?

The whole issue points to the necessity for establishing a permanent publicity committee to fulfil all student advertising needs, with an emphasis on unusual and cheap media.

—R. E. Jones.