Business screen magazine (1946)

Films: The Best Way To Reach America's Consumers The consumer movement in America is all of us. concerned with the problems and the potentials of an increasingly urbanized sixriety and an industrialized economy and now turning inward after a decade of division over the nation's role in Viet Nam. And yet the "consumer movement" is organized only in protest: taking to the streets over high meat prices while driving over jammed freeways in clouds of self-induced pollution. The American consumer quaffs millions of gallons of sw.-etjned pap and fills the highway environs and city dumps with unmanageable solid wastes. We want freedom to roum at will: freedom to get our share of the buck and freedom to litter, to waste and to "get" without giving. We want to turn our collectively-bargained backs on productivity whilj crying for lower incomes on thj farm. This land of ours has television networks that fill our evenings with escapism: the networks' supportive sponsors try to cope with answers they know the public needs: sources of energy sans pollution: the public health beyond the aspirins and how good (and bad) we had it in the "good old days." It can't be done well enough in oneminute or less "capsules" via televised commercials. It can and should be done through whal is organized: the millions of our fellow citizens active in community forums, the "joiners" and "doL-rs" of women's clubs, lodges, fraternal and other organizations. And in programming of factual documentaries for the mass television audience: in theatrical short subjects for both drive-in and hard-top cinemas. It can't be done with assurance in those long, hard-to-read, oil company president messages on the energy crisis. But concerned American industry can do the job with less waste, more effectively with direct -to -the mind films which dissect such problems as more and lower-cost lumber through tree farming: more energy with less dependence of Middle-East '>urccs through an American energy program . . . more food through a free and well-paid farm economy. San Francisco ad executive K. L. by OTT COELLN "Jim" Rice, pointing up advertising's challenged roL in America, has listed these areas where he believes the consumer is at odds with the marketer: Consumers feel that business has too much freedom to decide what to make. Consumers feel that business predisposes the country to materialism, and thus to declining moral values. Consumers want the quality of our society to be a part of every marketing decision. Consumers feel marketing should reflect all of today's life-style options. And Consumers feel that broadcast advertising may be just too powerful and pervasive to remain unregulated. Jim Rice calls for marketing, advertising and all business people to join together in a movement he calls "businessism" . . . not to combat consumerism, but to balance it and work side by side with it for an improved society within a productive economy. Henry Ford II has called upon 1,300 largest U.S. companies to support an organization called the Committee for Constructive Consumerism. Leo C. Beebe, executive vice-chairman of thj Committee says it was started b.-cause "the image of American business is so low you can hardly sec it." "Consumerism started from poor goods and services has become a fire that has got to be put out," he says. But his view on how to quench it "is by better performance by American business, rather than Government intervention in the market place." Who's doing what about the American consumer's quest for factual guidance? Are there any "object lessons" in how to get the truth about products, services to broad segments of the American people? These are some of the "positives" for business to consider: One man's example, in the single area of our environment, is especially noteworthy. Film maker Stuart Finley, of Falls Church. Virginia merits "man of the year" honors in this category for his filmed contributions to better understanding of such subjects as air, water and land pollution, recycling of wastes and solid waste management. One company's example of enlightened self-interest, reaching out to millions of viewers with informative, useful 16mni sound films, is the Caterpillar Tractor Company. With titles like The Trouble With Trash; Something in the Air and There Will I • ■■M Karen Keys takes temperature of Sugarland Run as part of stream testing program conducted by Herndon. Va., High School. Scene from environment film by Stuart Finley, Inc. .as ■:iSI ' II 'A Sil :i III :5XI ibb K ns ill tng 30 May/June. 1973 — BUSINESS SCREEN