Author

John N. Hein

Date of Award

6-1-1967

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Economics & Finance

Abstract

This thesis describes and analyzes the advertising practices of selected North Dakota advertising agencies. Much of the data was obtained from personal interviews with executives of five North Dakota advertising agencies. Such agency topics as clients, services, media used, billings, and false and misleading advertising laws adhered to by North Dakota agencies were described.

A total of 65 advertisers were represented by North Dakota advertising agencies in 1966. The large national and regional advertisers were most profitable in terms of billings to agencies. Knowledge and familiarity of markets and media of North Dakota and the surrounding area were probably the primary reasons why these relatively large advertisers purchased the services of North Dakota agencies. The small size of North Dakota agencies caused a heavy workload to be placed on all agency personnel in the performance of agency services. All services of agencies were dependent upon the amount of funds obtained from advertising accounts and the limited amount of time available to service these accounts by agency personnel.

Newspapers were the most popular commissionable medium used by North Dakota agencies. The large agencies required a minimum amount of billings in commissionable media, per year, of #5,000 and the small agencies #1,000 respectively for a client to be profitable. The mean billings per North Dakota agency in 1966 were #443,000.

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