Business Cooperation

(Continued from Page 21) of an industry as a whole. If rve had to thresh out every question with all the individual units in an industry, the task would be, in most cases, gigantic and almost endless.

The strength that springs from union is nowhere more apparent than in the research activities of trade associations. Technical and market research, in these days, is apt to be expensive-often so extremely costly that a single firm, unless it be very opulent, could not dream of defraying the expense of procuring the vital facts it needs. But the pooling of such expense by dozens or hundreds of firms-the results to be made available to all alikeputs a totally different complexion on the matter.

And this is precisely what is done through most trade associations. Cooperat,ive research by such associations takes a variety of forms. There is, for instance, the collection of statistics-figures which give the industry a clear idea of its position-absolutely indispensable at this confused juncture of our business history. Then there is research of a strictly scientific character-discovering new principles, new applications of natural larvs, through which an entire industry mav reduce costs, increase efi6ciency, strengthen sales-appeal, or develop new uses for its prod- ucts. Can anything be more vital to industry ,in these days of sudden, even dramatic changes in buying habits, living conditions, etc.?

Here are still other examples of the countless u'ays in which the work of such organizations affects you and me. We all use Turkish towels (or ought to). How many varieties of these-not designs, of course, but grades and sizes-do you think there used to lte? No fewer than 74-but now they have been reduced to 6, through the cooperation of the interested trade association, namely, the Cotton-Textile Institute, and the Department of Commerce, because there was practically no demand for the remaining 68 varieties, though you and I had to pay for making and keeping them in stock. We all handle tin cans very frequently; the newspaper funny men accuse Mrs. Newlywed of l,iving out of them, or in them, or something of the sort. Until just recently she had to accustom her dainty fingers to hundreds of different varieties of such cans, but now the number has been cut to 27, through the cooperation of the National Canners' Association. Thus money has been saved for retailers and for the consuming public. The success of that splendid movement which we know as "simplified practics"-meaning the collective effort of an industry to reduce ll'aste in the production and distribution of its products, through eliminating unnecessary varieties in sizes, d'imensions, grades, or qualities- has been made possible only "by trade associations. You simply could not bring about such extensive revisions of old-established practices without concerted, well-directed drives.

Really remarkable results have been achieved through cooperative advertising by trade associations. Such associations spend each year more than 1O million dollars on institutional or group-trade advertising. Some exceedingly profitable slogans and ideas have been popularized that way. And, through such activity, industries have been made alive to the possibilities of creating business rather than merely "srvapping customers."

There can be a great protective or restorative value in such'advertising. Here are one or two examples of rvhat I mean by that: Some time ago, just after we had had such extensive publicity on pure-food legislation, the canners of food products were faced with the problem of restoring public confidence in canned goods. The findings of intensive laboratory research by their association formed

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