The farmer is in a class by himself. Yet he in turn may be a tenant farmer or the owner of an estate or of a small patch of tillable soil.
That group so vaguely called “the public” consists of all sorts and conditions of men, the particular kind or condition depending upon the point of view of the individual who is making the observation or classification. This is true likewise of great and small subdivisions of the public.
The public relations counsel must take into account that many groups exist, and that there is a very definite interlapping of groups. Because of this he is enabled to utilize many types of appeal in reaching any one group, which he sub-divides for his purposes.
The Federation for the Support of Jewish Charities recently instituted a campaign to raise millions of dollars for what it called its United Building Fund. The directors of that campaign might have subdivided society for their purpose into two groups, the Jewish and the non-Jewish group, or they might have decided that there were rich people who could give and poor people who could not give. But they realized the interlapping nature of the groups they wanted to reach. They analyzed these component groups closely and divided them into groups which had common business interests. For instance, they organized a group of dentists, a group of bankers, a group of real estate operators, a group of cloak-and-suit-house operators, a group of motion picture and theatrical owners and others.
Through an approach to each group on the strongest appeal to which the members of the group as a group would respond, the charity received the support of the individuals who made it up. The social aspirations of the group, the ambitions for leadership of the group, the competitive desires and philanthropic tendencies of the individuals who made up these groups were capitalized.