TY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA TY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA TY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY IP $ S$i @ cjs \\'YM ^ V. ...... ;S >\ A /C x* -? I ^^^^vC^^M, i ' m>g>^6; r^ = fr^~ ~V/S> L> H^ ..^.-. ^' / 7/ SITY OF CALIFORNIA ' LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA g: SELLING FORCES BbliMMl ( >J / f ,r ,>/' , ///<' ' >' > -SELLING FORCES A THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY INDEPENDENCE SQUARE PHILADELPHIA Copyright, 1913, by The Curtis Publishing Company PREPARED BY RICHARD J. WALSH, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT Advertising Department THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY Philadelphia, Pennsylvania EDWARD W. HAZEN Advertising Director 1 Madison Avenue, New York S. R. LATSHAW Assistant Advertising Dim-tor 1 Madison Avenue, New York STAFF W. A. Patterson, Manager NKW YORK, 1 MADISON AVKNUE William Boyd, Manager CHICAGO, 1101 HOME INSURANCE BUILDING Robt. L. Barrows, Manager PHILADELPHIA, INDEPENDENCE SQUARE Melville H. Smith, Manager BOSTON, MERCHANTS NATIONAL BANK BUILDING Charles G. Hall, Manager DIVISION OF DETAIL, PHILADELPHIA San Francisco office to be opened in the fall of 1913, under the management of Mr. Everett Sisxon ORD The most intricate machinery, the most startling invention, the most success- ful government, the profoundest philosophy, all are merely applied common sense the logical use and combination of simple axiomatic truths THIS book is addressed to manufacturers by manufacturers who have successfully employed the methods which it discusses. It has three objects : To present to those who can make profitable use thereof, our views on the subject of efficient national advertising. To contribute, so far as we may, to the litera- ture of an aspect of modern business life which, in spite of its manifest significance, is at present too little understood. To place in convenient and readable form the actual facts about the advertising facilities which our publications have to offer. The book is directed chiefly to the man who, knowing little about this great force of modern merchandising, wants to know more. It is not for the expert or for the advertising fraternity. We do not presume that it will be of importance to the man who has given careful study to advertising, nor can it contain much that is new to him. If, however, it should in any way be helpful to those who already know, we shall be very glad. 270323 CONTENTS Foreword 3 List of Illustrations 7 PART I Advertising Today 13 The Development of Advertising 23 The Efficacy of Advertising 13 The Machinery of Advertising 55 The Advertising Agent 67 Advertising and the Consumer Advertising and the Retailer 103 Advertising and the Jobber 133 The Results of Advertising 145 ' ' Reasons' ' for Not A dvertising 1 (> 7 Getting the Facts at First Hand 177 The Future of Advertising 193 PART II Prefatory Note 207 Ten Million Dollars a Year 209 Advertising to Women 229 Advertising to Business Men 21^3 Advertising to Farmers 263 A Monument to Advertising 275 ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece Familiar trade-marks 15 A famous advertisement 19 Boston News-Letter 26 A striking Leyendecker 21 Advertisements from the Spectator, 1711 29 Twenty years ago, and today 35 Contrasts in clothing copy 37 Schools advertising for students 41 Mail-order copy 4? Business of 100 leading retail stores (chart) 49 The channels of demand 53 Organization of a sales department (chart) 59 American advertising abroad 63 An advertising agency organization (chart) 66 Making the mouth water 71 An effective package 75 Daring use of space 79 The news type of advertisement 87 True general advertising 89 Infringements of a well-known trade-mark 93 Types of return coupons 99 How to check mail-order results (chart) 101 Volume of retail business by sections (chart) 106 Volume of retail business by sections (table) 107 Retail service 111 The trade-mark in the window 113 Window display prepared by manufacturer 118 A well-known window display 121 Action in the dealer's window 123 Display with simultaneous demonstration 125 Newspaper use of national advertising 127 Listing the names of retailers 129 The jobbing of textiles (chart) 135 A much discussed advertisement 139 Attitudes toward advertising (chart) 141 Heart-throbs in the sausage business 147 Educative advertising that succeeded 151 Inspiration 155 The pull of the consumer 157 Advertising to the dealer 165 Advertising a staple 171 Costs of retail business (chart) 178 Costs of retail business (table) 179 Manufacture of farm implements (map) 185 Fac-simile page from a notable report 189 A new note 192 Frankness from a corporation 197 How the telephone company advertises 201 Population growth of United States (map) 211 Circulation-getting literature 217 Stock for ten million publications a month 219 Human-interest copy 223 In the shadow of the Coliseum 231 And of the Sphinx 233 Going after dealers 239 First issue of a 185-year-old periodical 21>5 In the streets of Tokio 21tf The value of a trade-mark 251 Concentration of farm implement manu- facture (chart) 259 Merchandizing farm implements (chart) 265 A modern pressroom 271 A monument to advertising 21 '4 A Curtis advertisement 277 Improving the effectiveness of cuts 279 Suggestion through illustration PART ONE I Advertising Today IN the year 1759 Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote in his weekly Idler: "The trade of adver- tising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement." That was a century and a half ago. Advertising meant announcements a few lines long a fresh cargo of tea in from the East, or a new book in the stalls. And advertising was "a perfected trade." In the twentieth century, a certain company which manufactured coal tar products wanted to advertise them. Coal-tar pitch and felt are used in the laying of the familiar "tar and gravel" roof. Now such a roof cannot be bought ready made. It must be laid on the job by a local builder or roofer. Which is not only the reason why it was difficult to advertise, but is also the reason why it was desirable to advertise. Roofers had many different ideas about the right way to lay a roof. The result was that there was no generally accepted standard for the use of coal-tar roofing materials. Some builders found the roof an easy place to save a little money, be- cause a cheaply laid roof did not give itself away until after the weather had had a chance at it. 13 Roofs were, therefore, not as well made as they might be. The manufacturers suffered from not selling as many materials as they should, and the public suffered through not knowing how to get the best results from the materials used. This was the problem which advertising was expected to solve. The firm sought far and wide for advice and everywhere met with discourage- ment. Then a certain advertising man was called in. He went on the road for two months, inter- viewing nearly 500 builders, architects, dealers, workmen, and came back to report no plan. Soon after, this advertising man was attacked by a malarial fever, of which, after many courses of treatment had failed, he was cured by a pre- scription filled at a drug store nearby. He was curious to know what the remedy was. He was told "When Henry M. Stanley went into Africa to find Livingston, his party was harassed by fevers. The physician of the party then and there discovered a certain specific which was success- ful in combating these fevers. When he returned, he gave the prescription to the world. It has been accepted by medical science and appears in various pharmacopoeias. All doctors know how to write it and it can be filled by any druggist. It is that prescription which cured you." That night the advertising man had his idea. He conceived the plan of a standard prescription 14 Trade-marks representing millions of dollars worth of good-will for laying tar and gravel roofs, which any owner or architect could specify and which any roofer could follow, buying his materials from any builder. Roofs laid according to such a specifica- tion would be laid right and would last as good tar and gravel roofs should. It was easy to find such a prescription. En- gineers and architects were consulted and the best methods and proportions of materials set down in black and white. And so, after some hesitancy it was decided to advertise "The Bar- rett Specification." This specification did not call for materials made by the Barrett Company. That would have been fatal. There were other materials on the market, as architects and builders knew, and to limit the requirements to the goods of any one manufacturer would have excited sus- picion that there was an axe to grind. The Bar- rett Company handled so large a proportion of the coal tar that it could afford to promote the whole industry, allowing competitors to reap a share of the advantage, and further, the fact that the name Barrett was attached to the specification would naturally suggest Barrett materials. The sum of $12,000 was appropriated for the first year's advertising advertising not of a par- ticular product, but of a method, calculated to re- sult in a good job. Advertisements were placed in trade and technical papers going to architects 16 and engineers, and in one publication of wide general circulation to reach the consumer. Circu- lar letters and other mail matter y^ere sent to architects and builders. Such men are quick to adopt any plan based, asvthis was, on scientific methods. They gladly tried the specification, and finding that it pro- duced better and longer lasting roofs, used it again. The increase in the consumption of coal tar roofing materials was noticeable. A few years later architects and engineers be- gan to ask : "How can we be sure of getting stand- ard materials? Why don't you supply them with the name 'Barrett' on them, as a guarantee that they are what the specification calls for?" Thus the "Barrett Specification" brands were introduced and the campaign rounded out. To- day, while there are many specifications that do not call for the "brands," there are very few that do not bear the earmarks of that campaign, either in the weight and quantity of materials or the method of application. And so a great improve- ment in the conditions of the coal-tar roofing in- dustry was brought about. The same method was applied to the introduc- tion of other specialties in which coal tar was used. Today the campaign, which began with $12,000, has been enlarged to the extent of a quarter of a million dollars a year. And it is worth 17 while to note that whereas in England a very large proportion of the coal tar is directly or indirectly used for fuel purposes, in America only a very small proportion is so used, and in no year more than five per cent. What then, has advertising done in this case? First, it corrected a condition in the business of a group of manufacturers who were suffering be- cause of the misuse of their product. Second, it found a way to make sure that owners of buildings would get good roofs instead of poor ones. Third, it increased the use, for an economical and a bene- ficial purpose, of a product which in other coun- tries is used for less valuable purposes. And it was an advertising man who devised the plan by which this was accomplished. Certainly, advertising has gone far since the days of Samuel Johnson. Now, it is estimated $600,000,000 annually is spent in this country on printed advertising. Advertising has taught us to cook without fire, to sweep without brooms, to make music with a disk, to add up figures by machinery. It has fitted us to ready-made clothing. It has sold us automo- biles. It has revolutionized our breakfast table. It has trained a nation to new labor-saving, time- saving, money-saving habits and desires. It has raised merchandizing standards to a high degree of honesty. It has taught the consumer where to 18 PEARS' SOAP Beautifies the complexion, keeps the hands white and imparts a constant bloom of freshness to the skin. A famous advertisement, painted by Sir John Millais, R.A. look for quality, and how to know quality when he sees it. Yet in these days of brilliant achievement even its most skilled exponents refuse to consider ad- vertising as anywhere near perfection. They hesi- tate even to classify it. They don't know whether to call it a trade, a science, an art or a profession. We all do know that it has become a great force in our national life. It has developed, as some one says, from a timid, unsystematic hope-it- will-pay - me venture into one of the greatest of commercial certainties. Its record is so full of convincing evidence that no merchant, no manufacturer, large or small, can wisely regard it with indifference. No business man should let a rich by-product go to waste before his very eyes. Neither should he refuse to make at least a careful survey of the possibilities of advertising for his particular use. Perhaps he may not be able to use it just now. It is not a panacea, and it has reached that proud degree of strength where it need not be treated as such. You see advertising every day. You know what it is. But can you define it? Even those who handle it in the millions cannot phrase it briefly. We are told that it is "printed salesmanship" "extending your neighborhood" "making un- concerned people take notice." Or "Wlien we look a fellow-man straight in the eye, and tell him 20 that we have something that he ought to possess, and ask him to buy it, that is advertising." Advertising sells a certain thing to a certain person, once. But it does more. It makes, if the goods are worthy, a more or less permanent cus- tomer out of that person. It creates good-will. It promises him that he can come round and get the same thing again. It gives that thing an added value in his eyes. It guarantees a degree of quality that he could not be sure of finding in some name- less brand. It spurs the maker and all who work for him, to do their level best to hold up or improve the standard. It dignifies. It educates whole com- munities to new needs and new pleasures. Advertising is not only printing things in mag- azines, newspapers, circulars, booklets. It is hang- ing a shingle from your office window, tacking a card in a street car, pasting a poster on the side of a barn, sprawling twenty-foot letters across the face of a cliff, flashing colored lights against the night sky. It is building the biggest ocean liner, giving organ recitals in your department store, sending up balloons. It is making speeches, going on a hunting trip through Africa, or always wear- ing a carnation in your buttonhole. Advertising is making folks take notice of what you are or what you do or what you have, the idea being to get them, at some later period, to do something that you want them to do. It may be 21 to elect you President of the United States. It may be to buy your make of toothpick. The paths of publicity are myriad and devious. But the one perhaps most lately blazed, and which has made good as the chief high road to success, is printed advertising in nationally read periodicals. Ask the first man you meet what pic- tures rise in his mind when you say " advertis- ing." Nine out of ten will see the Gold Dust Twins, the Victor Dog, a layered mattress, the Quaker, the Cream of Wheat Chef, the Dutch Painter Boy, the Old Dutch Cleanser Woman, or some other figure made pleasantly familiar by the pages of the widely read periodicals of the day. The basic reason for national magazine adver- tising lies in the fact that the commercial objective of today is immense production on a narrow margin of profit. To sell such a volume of goods wide dis- tribution is necessary. Advertising is the natural method by which to reach large masses of people. The economical way to advertise to the mass of our population in all parts of the country is in nationally circulated periodicals. They are the solid bed-rock upon which great advertising struct- ures are reared. Upon this foundation rests the more intensive work of newspaper, booklet and other "follow-up" publicity. This volume will trace the selling forces gener- ated by advertising in national periodicals. 22 II The Development of Advertising NATIONAL advertising is a development, not a discovery. It is not a fad, but a natural outgrowth of economic condi- tions. Hundreds of manufacturers who feel its in- fluence in competitive enterprise do not even yet perceive that it is nothing less than the inevitable. Just after the Civil War our people gave vent to their pent-up energies by populating the West, opening up mines, and laying railroad tracks to- ward the Pacific. Then came the spread of indus- try, great factories beginning to rise up beyond the hills, wresting the monopoly of manufacture from the East. Volume grew. Competition strength- ened. Profits diminished. The manufacturer who was to win must have greater inventive genius than his rival, and must be quicker to adopt new devices. At the beginning of the twentieth century the new conditions crystallized. Manufacturing had become a fine art. Distribution and selling, little understood, offered new scope to genius in com- petition. No longer was it a problem solely of manufacture, with an eager public waiting to consume. It became necessary to find ways of 23 reaching more effectively and more quickly great masses of customers. Advertising offered the way, and that it was seized upon is a tribute to the wisdom of American manufacturers. An economic need had arisen which had to be met if progress were to continue. The growth of advertising since 1900 is sufficient testimony to the correctness of the solution. The development finally brought about the transfer of advertising activity from the hands of those whose products were non-essential, to the hands of those who manufacture the most staple necessities of our national life. Many of the early advertisers of modern times had been charlatans, selling goods which, because they were worthless, were best sold at long distance. Incidentally they made fortunes by it. But a minority of honest ad- vertisers, in those early days, formed the nucleus around which was built the solid structure of today. Advertising itself is as old as property. People have always had to let other people know what they had for barter or sale. Johnson, who in 1759 declared that the trade of advertising had reached perfection, wrote in the same essay : "The man who first took advantage of the general curiosity that was excited by a siege or battle to betray the readers of news into the 24 II II 111 w -I ^^ l_g'^J fc 8 S ..a "s *^5 T S fr5? ^ fi w tf fjr i ^ *3 25 ' f ** . ~ S3 5 SS knowledge of the shop where the best puffs and powder were to be sold was undoubtedly a man of great sagacity and profound skill in the nature of men." There is said to be in the British Museum a bit of papyrus 3,000 years old bearing the advertise- ment of an Egyptian land-owner for the return of a runaway slave the oldest advertisement extant.* On the walls of disinterred Pompeii still stand the announcements of baths and other ap- peals for patronage, and down through history we find occasional traces of an understanding of the possibilities of publicity in print. But advertising could not really get a start so long as a majority of people were illiterate. In 1642 there were 400 town criers in Paris. Because the Parisians of the day were unable to read, they had to have their advertising shouted at them. The first miscellaneous newspaper advertise- ments of which we have record appeared in a Dutch newspaper dated November 21, 1623. A treatise by John Milton "On the best means to remove hirelings from the church " was advertised in London in 1652. Addison wrote in 1711, "It is my custom in a Dearth of News to entertain myself with those * For historical information in this chapter, acknowledgment is made to "Ads and Sales," by Herbert N. Casson, and to "Forty Years an Ad- vertising Agent," by George P. Rowell. 26 collections of advertisements that appear at the End of all publick Prints." Addison's own Spec- tator was a good medium, circulating as it did among the elite of London, and provoking end- less discussion at the coffee-houses. In America the earliest advertising like the ancient Egyptian relic was for the return of runaway slaves, and the trading companies also advertised indentured labor. In the first issue of the first American newspaper,* in 1704, appeared a publisher's notice soliciting what we now know as "classified advertising." By 1776 there were thirteen newspapers in the United States, among them Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Ga- zette, which later became The Saturday Evening Post. These carried a moderate amount of adver- tising. "But, like every other unknown force, adver- tising was at first looked upon with suspicion," says H. N. Casson. "It was penalized as though it were half a crime. As late as 1836, in England, there was a tax of eighty-four cents on every ad- vertisement. Even in the United States, sixty years ago, it was held to be dishonorable for a merchant to entice a customer away from another merchant. The prevailing idea was that taking away another man's customers was like putting your hand in his till and taking away his money." "The Boston News Letter. See page 24. 28 of 3 tie. Note, The BuyeV* arc denied io appear punctually at the Br appointed, the Sale being to be com pleated without adjourning, ALargeBrickHoufe. with a Tarrafe and Back-dooy **u '9L. JBBimS HtrW,HMIff%M'lfoW Ground* ttow 5r > th e Tenor of the Honourable Robert Benfon, Eta- the toft Hovfein Qween ftreH, on the RightHand, i*to be fold. It>- Co as the Scholar in three Wm /HH be f>f for BuGrefs (hts eonftanl Acterje)ander in Devoreux Court by the Middle Temple, Watchmaker, without any Qycftions to be asked they (hail receive 3 Guinea* reward for each, or if either of them proportionable. N. E. There U a r>ew Invention by the faid Daniel JDelander of a Spring^ vhJch is very neatly fixed to the inftd* of theCafe> which prevents the Cafe to be either loft or ftohl Verdier's Hummumsis in Bel ton-fir ee at te ons mayprvAt- Jyb Sweated, Bathed or Cupped with the Tame InHrumerji he him - (elf Brft Invented, and exceeds all other*, and is ufd no where lf but at the faid Widow Verdier's, tho' fev.eral have and do ftiDendtt- . vour to Counterfeit tht Tame. AUPerfonj who dcfjre to be Cupped afc their own Houfe> fhaU be care fully attended by Her Partner {aQiman) XtanUlHahn, who hwpra&ifed itthefemanyYearapaft, not as it is mar liciouOy reported the Houfeis Jeft off. A Child ofrninej reduced under extream SufTer- bg and Banger*, by the Violent breeding of hb T**ih, Received Immediate help on^y by Rufebingv his Gm$ with a Rmdy I had of Mr. Perronet Surgeon in Dyot ftrettt Btaotmbury, \vhirem>on he Cut fever*! Teeth, with aburfance of Eafe and Salety. Witn& my Hand, Abraham ?op, in White Lion Court, Pteetflreet, CoUfmith. i&.Sold at 2 s. 6 d. p.rVi'al> by .the' Author aforaajd Mr' Advertisements from^Addisons "' Spectator. ^^ Found" curative with testimonials , real estate* etc. About 1840 newspapers began to spring up everywhere, and wise men began to see the vast possibilities of selling goods by advertising so as to reach many people at once, using the news- papers as the only mediums of the time. The patent-medicine makers were the first great advertisers. Publicity was the chief factor in sell- ing their wares. The more widely they advertised the more they sold. Many of these men were un- principled, many of their medicines pure or im- pure fakes, and their ways of doing business were dark and dishonest. The newspaper proprie- tors responded in turn, and for a long time it was on both sides simply a problem of getting as much as possible for your money or your space. Up to the time of the Civil War, it is said, the largest and most daring expenditure was $3000 for one advertisement, which appeared in the New York Tribune and other newspapers. Strangely enough, this was not for a patent medicine; it was for Fairbank's scales. This was one of the earliest indications of the magnificent future of legitimate publicity. The United States Government w r as among the first to undertake a national advertising cam- paign. In 1864 Jay Cooke, appointed by Lincoln to sell war bonds, advertised in every good paper in the North. He sold bonds to the amount of $1,240,000,000. 30 Just after the war patent-medicine advertising reached the splendid zenith of its optimism. For- tunes were made. Fortunes were also lost. Turner's Tic Doloreux and Neuralgia Pills wouldn't sell even after $400,000 had been put into advertis- ing them. Robert Bonner, publisher of the New York Ledger, was the first sensational advertiser. He spent as high as $27,000 in one week to announce the fact that Edward Everett was writing for his paper. Bonner used to say that having accumu- lated all the money he could find and thrown it into advertising, before he could get back to his office it would be there again and a lot more with it. Pierre Lorillard built a fortune of $20,- 000,000 by advertising; in 1868 this firm was sell- ing $5,000,000 worth of tobacco and snuff yearly. Meanwhile, advertising was being transformed from a retail to a wholesale business. About 1847 the advertising agent came. He brought system. Many years later he brought service. He began as a broker of space. His first function was to induce the manufacturers to advertise. His second was to place their advertisements with newspa- pers anywhere, getting whatever price he could and buying the new spaper space as low as he could. Sometimes the agent received as much as 50 per cent, of the cost of the space for his share in the transaction. 31 W. B. Palmer, S. M. Pettingill and George P. Rowell are remembered as among the most nota- ble of the early agents. The last named was the first to secure complete lists of papers for cover- ing a given territory, and the first to estimate the cost of space and to render some of the service which later became characteristic of the general agencies. The larger development of this service did not come until after advertising had ap- proached more nearly an exact science, and until the great national publications arrived. The magazine as an advertising medium de- veloped slowly during this early period. Maga- zine advertising consisted chiefly of announce- ments of books issued by the same publishers, and of a few small cards for novelties of one kind or another. A page or two an issue was a credit- able showing up to the 60's. Godey's Lady Book and Peterson's, leading publications of the time, each had on its back cover a full page of The At- lantic and Pacific Tea Company. Other than this, they had between them only a quarter of a page of general advertising. J. Walter Thompson, entering in 1864 a field crowded with newspaper advertising agents and newspaper solicitors, soon determined to be a general advertising agent. He was the first to urge the advantage of advertising in the magazines, and found that the idea was favorably received 32 by manufacturers who had previously been using only the newspapers. For the Christmas issue of Peterson's, in 1868, he sent in orders for twenty- four pages in addition to the second and third covers. Mr. Peterson protested vigorously, saying that he printed only ninety-six pages, and that his literary space was being encroached upon. Mr. Thompson replied with a suggestion that more pages be added, at which Mr. Peterson ex- claimed, "But think of the cost!" The advertis- ing was printed. Harper's Weekly, however, was at this time getting $35 an inch for its back page. Harper's Magazine was then solely a medium for advertising the Harper books, and in the early 70's Fletcher Harper refused $18,000 offered by the New Home Sewing Machine Company for the use of the back page for a year. The first food advertising appeared in 1870, and breakfast foods later very large users of space were first exploited in 1872, although con- sistent advertising of breakfast foods did not be- gin until twenty years later. Not, however, until toward the end of the cen- tury w T as there any national market, and until there was a national market advertising as we know it today not only was unnecessary but was out of the question. The first period in the growth of advertising be- gan with the coming of literacy. 33 The second with the multiplication of newspa- pers. The third with the development of transconti- nental transportation. When facilities for the speedy and thorough distribution of both goods and publications ar- rived, the day of the magazine and magazine ad- vertising was at hand. The Ladies' Home Journal, which was destined to revolutionize the magazinebusiness,was started in 1883, and in three years had 400,000 subscribers. In October, 1893, Frank A. Munsey reduced the price of his magazine to ten cents a copy, the first venture of the kind. The circulation responded at once, going in a short time from 20,000 to more than half a million. The owners of The Ladies' Home Journal in 1897 purchased The Saturday Evening Post, which had been published continuously for 169 years. It then had a circulation of 3,000. Ten years later this publication passed the million mark, and in five years more, the two million. Other periodicals developed with rapidity al- most as striking, and by 1910 a circulation of half a million or more was no longer a rarity. The day of giant circulations had come, and with it the day of advertising for every sort of gener- ally used commodity clothing, food, shelter, lux- uries, conveniences for young and old, for men, 34 Yale Sales Forecast A Volume Bigger Than The Bicycle BB I 7- > H. P Twin, $275- F. O. B. Toledo -Yale 5.6 M, P Singl, 1 1 The Yale To \burself $Wn ., > Twenty years ago, and today women and children; every sort of goods, from automobiles to shoe-strings. Thus at the opening of the present century ad- vertising was established as a great force in busi- ness, worth the thought of every manufacturer. With the widening of the field came a realization of increased responsibility on the part of publish- ers. The majority of publishers, up to this time, had apparently regarded their mediums as com- mon carriers. They accepted practically any sort of advertising freight that was offered. Yet the public was putting its faith in the advertising. Wise publishers discerned that this confidence was too precious to be lightly destroyed. They decided that it was needful for them to clean up their columns. A policy of censorship was established. Grad- ually, during the last ten years, the code has been tightened up, but by no means are all publications in line. The vendor of patent medicines and bo- nanzas, and the advertiser who revels in brass- band rather than brass-tack statements, can still find an audience. But the wise and would-be-per- manent publishers realize that to make advertising more trustworthy, and therefore more effective* is of vital interest to the advertiser, the pub- lisher and the consumer. To bar the coal-black offender is comparatively easy. But if advertising is to have believability, the 36 Unusual overcoat styles ~\\ niKX you call on a clothier who sclh our goods, f T he will show you something new in overcoat stvles.- ; - ; : li ,' r - Full I) resx Suits \cv. features in belt-backs pp| >m .1 i)r,,m,Ht.H ttar.irc it, ovt-j lf^ CP h.v.c the bdt-btuk in on< - r.!/: Hart Schaffner &. BHBBB . i -:---'-": Styles in clothing advertising have changed in twenty years minor offenses of overexaggeration, of misleading comparison and invidious statements should also be censored. Competitors in business should not be permitted to engage in public "mud-slinging" through the columns of a reputable publication. To illustrate the care with which advertising is censored, The Ladies' Home Journal and The Sat- urday Evening Post accept no advertisements : (1) Of medical or curative agents of any kind. (2} Of alcoholic beverages. (3) Of subjects immorally suggestive. (4) Of a nature unduly cheap or vulgar, or that is too unpleasant either in subject or treatment. (5) Of a "blind" character that is to say, adver- tising which in purpose and intent is obscure or misleading. (6) Of "free" articles unless the article is actually free. (A thing is not free if the reader is obliged to perform some service or buy some other ar- ticle in order to obtain it.) (7) Of a financial nature, if highly speculative. (8) "Knocking" competitors. They do not accept advertising of stocks, un- less they have proven earning power and a good market. Bond advertising is only acceptable if in favor of a sound issue, put forth by a bond house of undoubted standing, and financial ad- vertisers of all kinds must avoid the use of the ex- 38 pressions "absolutely safe" or "absolute safety" as applying to any investment. Nor is it enough that an advertiser means well. He must also be in a position financially and otherwise to carry out his good intentions to the public's satisfaction. As a further development, some of the leading publishers are accustomed to advise against ad- vertising which, while not harmful in itself, they feel would be unwise from the advertiser's point of view. Unless the advertisement is likely to re- sult in profit to the advertiser it is not desired.* This is not wholly altruistic. It is good business. Apart from the consideration of honesty as a principle it is self-evident that such an unswerv- ing standard benefits the public, the advertisers and the publishers. Whenever an advertisement fails to produce results the man who pays for it not only ceases to patronize the publication which he has been using, but often loses faith in the principle of advertising although the article it- self, the distribution, the manner of presentation or some other important factor may really have been to blame. And when the day comes when all advertising is strictly truthful and strictly con- structive the purchasing public will be quick to *Some trade and technical papers will not accept advertising for products which are not naturally demanded by their readers for office or factory purposes. 39 appreciate it and in the response will make all advertising more profitable. Meanwhile, it is significant that the publica- tions which were pioneers in the strict supervision of their advertising columns are today carrying the heaviest advertising of all. Today there are 6,000 national advertisers. They spend millions. The total expense of all advertising is variously estimated. Some say a billion dollars a year including not merely printed but all kinds of advertising. The estimate which seems to be most reliable is $616,000,000. Says a recent writer: "The mightiest corpora- tions are using it. Banks are advertising for de- posits. Universities are advertising for students. Cities are advertising for citizens. Churches are advertising for converts. Governments are ad- vertising for immigrants. Whether we know it or not, advertising has become one of our national characteristics." Advertising has its faults, but they are fast being remedied. It has its limits, but they are daily being extended. It has its fakers, but they are being eliminated by the force of public opin- ion. It has its failures, but we are learning that they are chargeable to the mistakes of men and not to the wavering of a principle. And we are learning how to minimize them. 40 :Stl,uk< I V Hi je Ely School 5 UOLUNS COL J ,EGE SOUTHERN SEMINAR iRVlNC I SCHOOL for Boys '',...:-; COT Coin 5 Schools are advertising for students Advertising is a natural force because it is founded on the laws of human nature. It cannot be safely perverted. It has proved itself, and spells success for those who use it rightly. When the era of consolidation in industry ar- rived many looked for a serious lessening in the volume of advertising. On the contrary, it forged on more steadily than ever. Its application, in greater or less degree, to the operations of every business man today, is coming to be more clearly realized; and the results of the realization will strongly influence the future of all merchandizing. When we consider that the activity of today is actually the growth of a quarter century, the ac- tivity of a generation hence may only be con- jectured. Ill The Efficacy of Advertising WITHIN ten years the total circulation of national publications has doubled. In 1912 the leading 57 periodicals had a combined circulation of 21,000,000. The total ex- penditure for advertising in these was more than twenty -nine millions of dollars. The service which these publications are pre- pared to render is a necessity for the manufac- turer who makes honest goods, for which there is or ought to be a country- wide demand, and who would like to sell them to every man or woman who could use them and pay for them. If his goods are not honest, he had better not advertise. In the first place, many publications will refuse his advertising. In the second place, those which take it will simply call forth for him a lot of buyers who, once having tried his product and found it wanting, will thereafter not only cease to buy his goods but will actually be preju- diced against them. For just as advertising makes the merits of good goods conspicuous, so, too, does it make conspicuous the faults of poor goods. The maker of dishonest products will last longer without advertising. 43 In the comparatively brief period since the nation began to consult it in its marketing, periodical advertising has created volumes of evidence for its efficacy. To prove to your own satisfaction that it is an evolution, a fundamental of a large market, take any well-known publication and look through its pages. Note first the firms with years of merchandiz- ing history behind them Pears, Ivory, Royal, Waltham, Regal, Lowney, Ingersoll, Apollinaris firms whose advertising has covered decades. Then note how many commodities there are which have recently been invented and have quickly found place in every-day life by the help of advertising automobiles, vacuum cleaners, electric irons, talking machines, rubber heels, bread mixers, kodaks, washing machines. Then see how many of the great staples of life are being persistently advertised flour, sugar, clothing, shoes, furniture, roofing, varnish, starch. If you still need further evidence if you want the real stories of success make a personal trip to interview some of these successful advertisers and get their experiences from their own lips. Nippers and pliers would not suggest them- selves as especially susceptible to popular adver- tising, and yet Utica pliers, after years of un- branded distribution through agents, were placed on the market under their new name and adver- 44 tised. A $4,000 expenditure in one publication in six months brought 50 per cent, more business than the company had done during the previous six months under their old selling plan. At the end of two years they could not keep up with their orders, and are now extending their plant. A great food-product company ten years ago spent $3,000 in two publications. The results were so satisfactory that last year this company spent $113,500 in the same two publications alone. The experience in each of those ten years must have been satisfactory to bring about an aggregate increase of four thousand per cent* Such returns as are brought by these expendi- tures in national periodical advertising come in several ways. (1) The reader may be impelled to write to the manufacturer, enclosing his money for the article advertised. That is mail-order adver- tising. (2) He may be sent to the retail store, which will in anticipation or in consequence of the de- mand stock the article, buying either direct from the manufacturer or from a jobber. Or (3) the advertising may be planned essentially to interest a wide circle of dealers in selling the product. This last is commonly called "influencing the dealer." * As a matter of fact, this company makes its appropriation for ad- vertising each year strictly according to the total business of the previous twelve months, increasing or decreasing it pro rata. 45 Here is a case of a typical mail-order business. It sells clothing to women exclusively by advertis- ing in the magazines. It has no agencies what- ever, and never sells to retailers. Twenty-one years ago this firm started with a $300 appropriation for advertising. Its policy was a new one to fit clothing to women without even seeing the women. The idea itself was ridiculed, to say nothing of the plan of using advertising as the sole selling force. Today that firm has a mailing list of 6,000,000 women. It receives 5,000,000 letters a year has received as high as 37,000 in one day. It uses more than $90,000 worth of fabrics annually for samples sent to inquirers. It ships out considerably more than a million packages a year spends $520,000 for postage, $460,000 for expressage. It maintains five printing shops just to turn out its catalogs, and keeps seventeen clerks, under bond, to do nothing but open mail. The annual investment of this firm in periodical advertising is now $350,000. This is an instance of success due not, as many successes are, to a combination of advertising with other good sales methods, but wholly to adver- tising backed, of course, by consistently good goods. An example of a "small-space" mail-order suc- cess is that of Elmer C. Rice, of Mel rose, Mas- sachusetts. He began in 1900 with a one-inch "card" in two periodicals and one Sunday news- 46 Our YEAR BOOK Helps in the Art of Giving (H- Our. YEAR BOOK cgnlaim the Mail-order copy, containing complete information, illustra- tions and prices of articles paper, offering a free booklet about the raising of squabs. This booklet in turn, without other fol- low-up, leads to the sale of a large manual, and then of pigeons and supplies, with which the in- quirer may set up in business. Today, over 1,000,- 000 birds have been sold. The cost per inquiry varies from 15 to 25 cents. Distribution directly and exclusively through the retailer is illustrated by a great Chicago house dealing in men's clothing. The advertising is for the purpose of influencing men to go into their clothing stores predisposed to buy this firm's suits. When the advertising began, the company was doing a $3,500,000 business annually. The sell- ing cost was 8 percent. The business now amounts to more than $14,000,000 a year, and the selling cost including the "additional expense" of the advertising is down to 5 per cent. The traveling salesmen individually make more money with less effort, notwithstanding the fact that they receive only %}/2 per cent, commission on their sales in- stead of 5 per cent, as formerly. The usual type of distribution is through the jobber. Some manufacturers have an erroneous impression that when the distribution is of this character national advertising is not feasible. A telling illustration, however, of the effect of periodical advertising upon a jobber distribution is found in the experience of a certain textile mill. 48 LARGEST $26Q74O,OOO 28% OTHER LARGE DRY GOODS STORES $2I8,435,OOO 23% FIFTH $69,735,000 7% SECOND $166,100,OOO 18% FOURTH $9Z680,000 THIRD $130,561,000 14% This mill hesitated to advertise because it was selling all its goods, unmarked, to wholesalers who, before reselling them to retailers, placed their own marks on them. Goods so marked are known as "private brands." The mill feared to jeopardize its existing business through the job- bers by the introduction of a nationally adver- tised mill brand. It was believed that the jobbers would refuse to continue to handle the goods ex- cept under their own names, because the jobber usually prefers to stand before the retailer on his own reputation, not on the reputation of the mill- brand of a manufacturer. The plan finally adopted was to advertise the line under a trade-mark the jobber being given his choice between the trade-marked goods or the same goods under their private tickets as be- fore. It was understood that the two kinds of goods were identical. Here was the result: Sold to jobber for his Sold to jobber with "private brand" mill trade-mark Before Advertising 1 00% 0% 1910 86% 14% 1911 61% 39% 1912 50% 50% In other words, the stimulating effect of the advertising, plus its attendant service features, upon the consumer, the retailer, and upon the 50 or th a t jobb^i n of the mill itself, was reflected upon rs. They &fcfirfd thacit wA^moilefto their antage with half/thejfr tragffe to handle the fc e-mafked goods th^n to push the same goods bearing their own m^rks. During this period the total sales of the mill increased more than thirtjy per cent. The power of national advertising to secure dealer cooperation is less obvious, but frequently very important. Many a worthy commodity has failed to get a start because of the lack of proper distribu- tion, while an article less deserving has swept the sea of trade because it had the dealers with it. To enlist the support of merchants and agents has come to be one of the primary duties of national advertising. This is frequently done by indirect appeal. The message to the consumer catches the quick ear of the retailer, and the retailer "taps the wire." Realizing that a desire is about to be stimulated in his own community by the ad- vertising of the manufacturer, the dealer seizes the opportunity to "cash in" on it for himself. This is just what both want a mutually advan- tageous alliance. An automobile company from a large adver- tisement, for instance, received 6,837 replies in thirty-three days, of which nearly 3,000 were from dealers. 51 A hosiery firm from a small advertisement, in addition to 1,000 cash sales, made new connec- tions with 50 dealers. A piano company reached 250 dealers through its advertising. These random instances go to show that dealer advertising need not be a separate effort, but may run side by side with advertising to the consumer. Whatever the distribution mail-order, jobber, retailer or agent the leverage of advertising is exerted on the consumer. People buy goods be- cause they want them. A great many buy what- ever clerks persuade them to, but a far greater and constantly increasing number enter a store persuaded by advertising to buy certain goods identified by a name. No dealer can afford to pay his clerks to spend their time convincing a cus- tomer that he should buy one thing \vhen he wants another. No jobber will long refuse to sell what the retailer continually needs. No prospective dealer will be blind to the demand created in his own territory. It is advertising which has developed this great selling force. Advertising, moreover, is as much for the little fellow as for the great corporation. The further one pushes it, the more perfect one's organization, the greater the capital invested, the more power- 52 ful it becomes. Yet, if rightly conducted, it can have the smallest beginning and develop naturally, side by side, with the business it is helping. It is a giant for a giant; but it goes hand in hand with the youth, if the youth has ability and ambition. Advertising is gradually receiving greater cre- dence, and is, as a whole, more worthy of such credence. Guided by trained hands, conducted systematically and conscientiously, it has come to be no more hazardous and is surely far more profitable than ordinary ventures upon which manufacturers enter daily. "Advertising," said a speaker at a great busi- ness men's dinner, "is merchandizing by wire- less suggesting comforts and necessities before the need is born, creating new markets, building new factories, selling the surplus. "Advertising makes for better furnished homes, better dressed people, purer food, better health, greater comfort, bigger life; and, incidentally, ad- vertising makes the advertiser a bigger, broader man a national figure." IV The Machinery of Advertising A MANUFACTURER does not ejaculate before lunch, "I believe I'll use a page in The Ladies' Home Journal," after lunch dash off a clever bit of copy, and telephone to the magazine to send a messenger for it before five o'clock, so that he can see the proof tomorrow. Advertising passes through an intricate mill that grinds slowly but exceedingly fine. The four-color display which makes the back cover as attractive and as forceful as the front, has much history behind it. To begin with, the space it occupies was ordered a year or more ago for there is keen competition among advertisers to obtain the cover positions of leading publica- tions. The idea of this particular advertisement, as a part of an extensive campaign, was con- ceived perhaps a year ago. Six months ago a highly trained artist was commissioned to begin the painting, and soon after, the copy man was at work, writing and rewriting. As long as three months ago the magazine insisted on receiving the design and copy in order that its mechanical staff might begin the process of reproduction. Between the first suggestion of a campaign and 55 the cash-in on the last of the resultant sales, per- haps years after, there stretches an orderly series of shafting, pulleys and gears possessed of tre- mendous man-power. Like a newspaper press, each advertising ma- chine is constructed individually to meet particu- lar needs. The inventor who sells, by mail, a line of little household conveniences turns out his own one-inch advertisement in a couple of evenings at home, and mails it direct to the publication, while the large advertiser, spending considerable sums, sets a huge mechanism moving in well-oiled and balanced revolution. This machine has as its main features: (1) The firm. () The sales manager. (3) The advertising manager. (4) The advertising agent. (5) The publisher's representative. (6) The publishing house. Under one or the other of these six divisions fall all the numerous supplementary heads the copy writer, the illustrator, the space buyer, investi- gators and statisticians, follow-up men, engravers, designers, printers, clerks to check up results and answer inquiries. It is, of course, the firm, the board of directors or other management, which is ultimately respon- sible for the advertising. But seldom does the ini- 56 tiative proceed directly from these sources. A new national advertiser is born of the suggestion of a publisher or an agent, the energy of some one far-sighted member of the firm, or the progressive- ness of the advertising manager (who may for years have been restricted to small local, circular or trade-paper publicity). Many large advertisers are graduates from trade-paper advertising. The best trade and technical papers not only fill an important place by helping many advertisers to reach their distributors simultaneously with con- sumer publicity, but they also serve as a prepara- tory school for wider efforts. No manufacturer, however, can afford to judge the probable value of national advertising by the results which he has been getting through specialized mediums. In the first place, direct and tangible returns are admittedly not the province of many trade papers. Their function is to build and retain good- will. Second, the manufacturer who employs trade papers unfortunately does not always accord to his copy there the serious attention which it de- serves. Third, there is of course no influence ex- erted by the trade paper upon the ultimate con- sumer, who in the last analysis controls the course of commerce. Generally, the advertiser who goes into the national field after using trade papers will be astonished by the increased response, both direct and through his trade itself. 57 It is the firm which authorizes the spending of the money and makes the appropriation. It also approves the general plan and scope of the cam- paign whether the methods shall be general or mail-order, the keynote, to what classes the ap- peal shall be directed, and what type of publica- tion shall be used. The firm also very often, with the advice and cooperation of a publisher in whom he has confidence, selects the agent who seems best qualified to handle the account. When the day comes that these "men higher up," the men who now so often either ignorantly handle a good advertising plan or give too free rein to an inefficient * ' expert," when the directors and officers of the firm themselves try to know more about advertising, then we may expect an even greater average of success than is being at- tained today. The second factor is the sales manager. His connection with the advertising varies widely with different types of organization. In some he has authority over the advertising manager; sometimes the two offices are combined in one; often the two have equal power and pull together in double harness. There is much divergence of opinion as to the most efficient relation. H. H. Bigelow, president of the National Sales Man- agers' Association of America, writes: "In my judgment, the advertising department should be 58 under the direct supervision of the sales depart- ment. Advertising departments are only one form of selling . . . and the advertising department not in close connection with, and not having the hearty support of the sales manager, and, through him, of the salesmen, is a failure." Others will tell you that because advertising strikes the dominant note of the sales policy the relation should be reversed. There is at least no disagreement as to the need of close connection and the hearty support of the advertising by the whole selling organization. From the sales manager must come the data as to what kind of help he most needs, in what locali- ties and at what times. From him will emanate many of the arguments to be used in the copy - although not always the most powerful ones. It is his responsibility to enthuse the salesmen, to keep them informed about the advertising and to insist that they take best advantage of the favorable attitude which it fosters. His department will also handle the incoming inquiries, and in some firms attend to the follow-up methods of reaching dealer and consumer. The advertising manager, the third factor, may be a big man or a little one, a help or a hindrance. His efficiency or inefficiency may have much to do with success or failure, according to the amount of responsibility given him. 60 "An advertising manager's success," according to "Modern Advertising,"* "depends upon his knowledge of what to do and what not to do. His freedom to carry out his plans also depends upon his relation to his company. Many a well-planned campaign is spoiled by the efforts of various mem- bers of a company who insist upon the exploitation of their own ideas. On the other hand, many com- panies have been wrecked by allowing an incom- petent advertising manager full scope. Probably no other business depends so fully upon the tempera- ment and disposition of the man doing the work." In some concerns the advertising manager does little more than interview solicitors, transmit in- structions to the agent, read proofs and report upon results. In others he works in constant touch with the agent, controlling the progress of the campaign, ferreting out ideas, planning and writing some of the copy. Usually a manager of this calibre has much to do with the selection of the agent. Still another kind of advertising man- ager has broader duties, conducting a large depart- ment which plans campaigns, writes and illustrates all copy, and attends to the primary dealer-work and the follow-up, leaving only the actual purchase of space, distribution of copy and checking of in- sertions and results to the agent. Such a system often signifies insufficient service on the part of * By Calkins & Holden. 61 the agent. The best agencies refuse to accept an account where their duties are to be limited solely to "placing" or "clearing." In general, the true position of the advertising manager is between the agent and the firm ; repre- senting the latter and directing the former. He should be a man with a thorough comprehension of advertising methods, and, at the same time, closely concerned with the policies of the com- pany. To the board of directors or the firm, made up of men unfamiliar with advertising, he inter- prets the plans and campaigns of the agent. Upon the enthusiastic agent he impresses the viewpoint of the firm, and exercises the check of conserva- tism. To this chief function he may add such of the duties and prerogatives of either party as ne- cessity or policy may dictate or permit. The next factor, the agent, is the transmission in the machinery of advertising. His function is so all-pervading that it deserves consideration in a separate chapter. The fifth factor is the publisher's representa- tive. An even wider diversity of types occurs in this classification than in that of advertising manager. The representative ranges from the ac- complished semi- blackmailer for a useless sheet who often receives as much as 50 per cent, commis- sion, to the high-salaried expert with years of merchandizing experience, who can sit across the 62 Dcr GILLETTE Rasier-Apparat ist u grenzt haltbar. Le Rasoir de Sfiret AutoStrop vous rase de tr&s pr&* parce que a lame est toujours parfai- tement aiguisee c'et le seul rasoir de qui se repasse Iui-m6me. American advertising pushing its characteristic way into foreign publications table from the president of a great corporation and advise with him. We are dealing here, only with the kind of man who represents the leading reputable pub- lications. The ideal representative, and the one who will prevail, is no mere "copy-chaser," to follow up firms already advertising and attend to petty details. He is not a space seller not simply a brilliant salesman qualified to hypnotize the manufacturer into writing his name on the dotted line while still only half convinced. He is not a "pinch-hitter," dashing in to sell a page here, a cover position there. He is a business builder. The ideal representative never solicits an ac- count until he knows enough of the man's business, selling conditions and markets to be reasonably sure that success will follow. Frequent consulta- tion with other members of the staff of his pub- lication fortifies him with the fullest information. His duties include not only the selling of space but often the suggestion of how to fill it and how to follow it up, and at times the recommendation of the proper agent. Such a representative is quite likely to be a graduate of commercial traveling or to have had other previous business experience. Invariably he is a welcome visitor in the offices of many an important company, because he helps them sell their goods. 64 The final factor is the publishing house. The old idea, and one that even today prevails in many quarters, was that the sole duty of the publisher was to print the advertisement and ac- cept a check for it. This is far from enough. A large percentage of the revenue of any publication is derived from advertising. It is highly to the publisher's interest that all advertising reach a maximum of effectiveness, that it be ethically and commercially on the highest possible plane. From the leading publications should emanate the policies which influence advertising progress. A few of them have accepted the task. The cen- sorship of copy, the basic principle of publishing only advertising which promises to bring results, the willingness to guide advertisers to agents who can render the most efficient service these and similar efforts to direct the course of printed mer- chandizing into straighter channels stand to the credit of the far-sighted publisher. Consumer, manufacturer and agent must look to the pub- lisher for the unifying force in advertising. This topic will be discussed more at length in later chapters, with examples drawn from the experi- ence of one publishing house which has succeeded by the employment of these methods. ADVISORY DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT TRADE INVESTI- PRINTING DEPART- MENT / REPRE- SENTATIVE ORDER \ / CHECK BOOR ING HKEEPIN DEPT. A DEPT. DEPART- MENT ORGANIZATION of a MODERN ADVERTISING AGENCY V The Advertising Agent IT has been said that there are two things that every man thinks he knows how to do. One is to play Hamlet. The other is to advertise. Perhaps this is true. There certainly are a lot of poor Hamlets and a lot of poor advertisements in existence. The manufacturer who contemplates advertis- ing is in sore need of the services of a stage man- ager. Often he needs to be shown how to do it. Often he needs to be shown why not to do it. He needs an advertising agent. This need arises long before the actual adver- tising begins. What the market is, whether it is ready for ad- vertising, whether the quality of the goods is high enough, what the channels of sales shall be, to whom the appeal shall be addressed, how the article shall be named, marked, packed, priced, distributed, these are some of the preliminary questions to be answered. What publications shall be used, what space and what will it cost, what arguments, how to write and illustrate the advertisements, how to get them into the hands of publishers, how to 67 check results these are a few of the later prob- lems requiring a trained hand and many trained brains. It is for this reason that the prospective adver- tiser needs an advertising agent, and that more than 90 per cent, of the advertising in leading periodicals today is placed through agents. The agent has a very real place in the world of advertising. Publishers "recognize" certain efficient and reliable firms whose business it is to conduct advertising campaigns. They allow these "recognized" agencies, a commission on business placed through them. Even though this means a reduction in the direct income of the publications, they urge advertisers to avail themselves of the services of an agent, because the loss is counter- balanced by the permanency and the natural in- crease in expenditures which will result from in- creased sales made possible by the aid of a skilled man or organization. The good advertising agent is a high-grade business adviser. He offers the customer ideas and practical aid born of experience, together with a real concern as to the customer's success. Upon the choice of agent may depend the whole out- come of any advertising campaign. Some knowl- edge of what the agent is, what he does, and how he does it, is therefore of vital importance to the prospective advertiser. 68 Whether the agent as we know him today is the cause or the result of modern business methods in advertising is perhaps a matter for debate. His present status is probably born of competition and the growing consciousness of a need. At any rate, it is far removed from the space- trading of twenty years ago. Then, advertising space was bargained for like city paving contracts. The agent existed just as any old-time jobber existed. He merely bought space at wholesale and resold it. The man who could get the lowest prices from publishers and could resell at the highest prices to advertisers was the most successful agent. As a large buyer the agent could get lower rates and better treatment than the individual adver- tiser, and he had the necessary information and equipment to relieve the advertiser of the per- plexing details of insertion in many widely scat- tered mediums. No consciousness of responsibility ever entered his head. The advertiser wrote his own copy, de- cided where to run it and took all the credit or blame for the results. This conception of advertising was, of course, crude and limited. But in spite of the resultant waste and loss, and of the many gross abuses of the day, advertising made good. It could not help but make good eventually, because it was a natural force. That it made good as quickly as it has, is due primarily to the enthusiasm and effort of the advertising agent, who forced the business public to recognize its power, even though at first he did little to direct the application of that power. Some ten years ago certain agencies began to write copy and to prepare illustrations for their clients, because they found that by this means they could more readily induce men who dreaded the technical details, to advertise. To do this they began to find it necessary to inquire into the client's problems, and to find out what his lines of argument were. Then they began to suggest selling arguments. Next they saw ways of corre- lating other selling plans with the advertising, and more or less timidly and apologetically pre- sented them. Thus step by step grew the well- equipped agency of today, competent to render service in every department the newest and in many respects the least understood factor in ad- vertising. The factor, indeed, which is beginning to make the word "advertising agent" a misnomer. For "advertising" is today but one feature of the work of a real agency. Having begun as a promoter, whose real jobs were to get people to advertise and to haggle with publishers over the price of space, the agent had as his most important employee, the solicitor. Clerks attended to the petty details which followed 70 BEECH -NUT PEANUT BUTTER at bread am A generation ago the kids a \vithsugaronit. Today they with Beech-Nut Peanut Butt This -j? the Beech-Nut age, \ strong on the pen nut butt Beech- Nut Peanut Butter. Comes oniv in glass jars airless-seaied. Made by the maker? of famous Beech-Nut Bacon. Visit the clean, sunny Beech-Nut plant in the picturesque Mohawk V*Hey. Beech-Nut Packing Company, Canajoharie, New York "Playing up" the taste the "landing" of an account. Today conditions are entirely changed. Now the highest paid men are those who lay out and execute campaigns. An increasing number of agencies employ no so- licitors. Their energies are devoted not to getting new accounts, but to cultivating those they have and those that come to them as a patient comes to a physician. Some agencies employ a hundred men or more, maintain branch offices and handle business well into the millions. Others have modest quarters, small staffs and place much less business. Mere size is not conclusive. One agency may tend to- ward far-reaching, intricate campaigns; another to unique, highly artistic work; a third may show an aptitude for knotty merchandising problems where the force must often be applied through indirect channels. "What should I expect of my agent, provided I am willing to give him full confidence? What will a first-class agent do for me?" asks the manu- facturer. The answer to this question is a complete sur- vey of the preliminaries and details of any well- rounded advertising campaign. The agent's first step will be a thorough investi- gation of your situation. He will go fully into your business and your plant. He will ask you the true inside story of your own and your competitors' 72 goods. He will interview your salesmen and your branch managers. Then he will examine general selling conditions in your line. The buyers for the jobbing houses which distribute your line will be visited. If you have not already done so, he will carefully tabu- late your distribution and the number of dealers carrying your goods in each state. He will find out why you are weak here, why you are strong there, and what local difficulties need to be overcome. His men may go out into various cities and ask dealers such questions as "Why don't you carry A's goods?" "Why don't you sell more of A's goods?" "How do your sales this year compare with last?" "To whom do you sell?" "What seems to be the usual reason why people buy them?" "Would you appreciate assistance from the manu- facturer in selling them?" Upon the amount of time and money which it is necessary to devote to this study will depend whether the agent charges you a fee above his commissions. Many of the better agencies ask a retainer for such service as this. It is often a year or more before a firm is in shape to advertise, and, meantime, of course, no publishers' commissions are coming in to compensate the agent for his work. Intelligent, experienced and conscientious service, as with the architect, the engineer or the physician, adds to the value of the advice which 73 results. More than this, before the investigator has gone very far, he may advise you not to advertise at all. This is a service for which you can well afford to pay him, for obviously he has saved you large sums. By his study and analysis of you, your goods, your sales methods and those of your competitors the agent will determine (1) To whom your selling argument should be directed (this concerns the type or types of probable buyers). (2) What arguments are most appealing and effective to that constituency. (3} Therefore what national publications and other mediums are best suited to reach this class. (4) What size advertisements and what number of insertions these conditions require to be most effective. But he will not stop with this study. He may suggest an improvement in quality or methods of manufacture. Many a product has been made better through the necessity of living up to its advertising. He may advise the development of some fea- ture of your line not now emphasized.* * The idea of making the Big Ben alarm clock, for example, origi- nated with an advertising man, as did the plan of selling tar-and-gravel roofing materials by advertising the "Barrett Specification." 74 IFifthAve NewYo Two views of a hat-box, showing effective treatment of the package If you have not a good trade-mark, he will cer- tainly have to help you find one. Your package may be old-fashioned, unattrac- tive, impossible to illustrate and to display effec- tively on the dealers' shelves. He must get you a new one. He may want you to standardize your price, put out a greater variety of sizes or quantities, make a free sample size. Your relations with jobbers and retailers, the organization of your sales force, may seem to him to demand revision. Actual conditions discovered, needful changes made, the general line of argument and the extent of expenditure determined, the agent will get down to your advertising. He will suggest what publications and other mediums you should use, and tell you just what they will cost. He will write your magazine and newspaper copy, your "follow-up " booklets, circulars to deal- ers, and form letters. He will obtain the illustrations and arrange for the printing. He will design street-car cards and billboard posters, get up window displays for dealers; hire, train and send forth demonstrators. He will get out your new catalogue. He will talk to your salesmen. 76 If you want novelty advertising, he will get it; a house organ, he will found it; prize contests, he will invent them; a new plant or building, he will advise you how to get the most publicity out of it.* How far he will go depends solely upon the thoroughness with which you wish to advertise. This all may sound terrifying, but it is not. To the man just learning to play bridge, the multi- plicity of signals, the variety of plays, the almost incalculable number of possible errors are be- wildering. And yet, once he has tried a few hands, if he possesses moderate intelligence, the appar- ently complex detail becomes clear and reasonable and the pitfalls disappear. So with advertising. The process of advertising itself is logical and relatively simple. The things that you would have to do before advertising, and which the agent is trained to help you do, are for the most part things which any business must undergo before it becomes a national success, irrespective of whether it is advertised or not. These steps are taken not for the sake of advertising, but for the sake of better merchandizing. It just so happens that advertising frequently plays the leading part in good merchandizing. It is because of this that the agent, as the spon- sor for advertising, must concern himself with all * The opening of the New Grand Central Terminal in New York City, February 2, 1913, was effectively exploited. 77 branches of your business. In order to be sold right, a product must be conceived right, made right, priced right and distributed right. In the selection of an agent to conduct your ad- vertising, then, you should consider more than honesty. Experience, ability, business judgment, all as applying to your special needs, are quite as important. The good agent must combine in his person or organization usually the latter the qualities of business adviser, salesman, manufac- turer, artist and writer. Inefficient agency service is the greatest waste of a good appropriation. To select your agency for sentimental or social rea- sons, it is hardly necessary to remark, is much worse than buying raw material above the mar- ket. In the latter case you can at least estimate your loss with some degree of accuracy. The selection of an agent on a cut-rate basis is a serious error. The device by which an agent cuts rates is rebating to the client a part of the com- mission paid him by the publishers or in the common phrase, "splitting commissions." The business man who prides himself on being a shrewd buyer is frequently deceived into sanc- tioning such an arrangement. If cut rates merely implied cut service, as in- evitably they must here as elsewhere, the prac- tice would not be so serious a matter. But it involves a moral issue as well. The agent receives 78 Think! Think what a great part the following nine commercial wonders of the world are playing in the prosperity which you are enjoying: Thin* what Gutenberg did tor civilization when he invented the movable type priming prew. and enabled the human race to educate themitelvet Ttun* what George Stephen*.,, did !< the world when he thought ol the , uve which made powble cheap tranaportation ot n much for civilization TJtink how Robert Fulton brought the count ne of the world together by thinking of the fteamboAt Trantpnrranon on ea IB (M( and cheap because Fulton thought JTtutk what Samuel Morae did tor the world when he thought ol the telegraph, which hai annihilated durance and brought the endi of the earth together TT.OT* ol what Elui Howe. Jr. did lot mi limn, ol women when he thought ot the ruing machine-one ol the greateat bleanngi to the human nee 7*iA what C H McCormick did lot the world when he thought of the harveatinf machine The mne-hillion-dollar crop of today would not be potable without H TTun* what Alexander Graham Bell did when he thought of the telephone, which enable! you to talk hundred* ol mile*, expediting butineaa and bringing your racial fhendi within lound of vour voice Thin* what Thomat A Ediion did when he thought of the incandeacent light, and hu other electrical appliancn. and how they have facilitated nunneaa and added to the cnmforn of the home TTun* > hu Jacob Ritty did for the world when he invented the cash regKter It n atnog time and money in store* all over the world, and benefiting million* of pcopl. Think of the amount of capital, labor and management that has been put into the development of these inventions. Novel, and psychologically very effective. Just one incon- spicuous reference to the article by name his commission for the performance of a specific duty. Failure to perform that duty while accept- ing payment argues a moral turpitude which at once discredits the honesty of even the limited service which the agent engages to render. The necessity of skilled counsel in employing the far-reaching influence of advertising is recog- nized by the publisher in the creation of the agent. So vital a force should be directed by the most experienced advice obtainable. The employ- ment of a counsellor whose honesty may be so readily impugned is an inexplicable folly. To have any but the best advice involves a wholly unnec- essary risk. The rate of commission is fixed by the leading publishers at a figure sufficient to cover the mini- mum service that an agent must render to ensure the success of the advertiser and is paid solely because the stability of the publisher's business must depend on the measure of success which ad- vertisers obtain. It is frequently necessary that the agent's serv- ice shall include a great variety of activities for which the commission in no way compensates him. He customarily makes additional charges to cover these extra services. Another mistaken idea which deludes the manufacturer in selecting his agent is that of "plans submitted in advance." Some agents will 80 offer, some manufacturers will demand, an antic- ipatory plan of campaign, with a complete proph- ecy of what should be done. Accounts are some- times placed on such a basis. It is always easy to get reports, elaborate as you wish, apparently profound, heavy with tabulation and charts, and ringing with recommendations which are to the initiated more or less trite. But the fallacy of try- ing to prescribe a course of treatment for a patient whose condition is not yet diagnosed should be clear. No lawyer submits a brief before he is chosen as counsel. It is quite as unlikely that an adver- tising campaign could be properly laid out by a person who has never been inside your busi- ness. Those national advertisers who do not employ an advertising agent, representing less than 10 per cent, of the total expenditures for advertising, make no saving by conducting their business di- rect. In most cases they are actually losing by it, because an agent would presumably be able through his broader experience to increase the effectiveness of what they are doing. The pub- lisher, knowing that the agent can and does add to the value of his space, must be consistent and charge the advertiser who does not take advan- tage of the service to which he is entitled, the full rate. No reputable publication allows any rebate to such advertisers. 81 To the man who is bewildered by the difficulty of finding the right agent the publisher offers his aid. Large publishers naturally have better oppor- tunities to know the work of all agents than any one else. They are able to recommend the agents who seem best equipped to serve any particular business. This recommendation will be conscientious. For it is to the interest of the publishers to have each advertising campaign in the most capable hands possible. The agent is paid by the publisher to see that the power of advertising is efficiently used, thus promoting the permanency of adver- tising. As in any other business, reorders come only through satisfaction given. The publisher's attitude may be selfish, but it is logical and entirely legitimate, for the success of the client must be paramount, both with the publisher and the agent. The interests of all are one and the same. Although paid by the publisher, the agent serves the advertiser. He is responsible to no one pub- lisher, and can place the advertising of any account in any of the thousands of publications. He deals, on the other hand, with individual advertisers. The conscientious agent generally accepts only non- competing accounts. He will identify himself with only one manufacturer in one line and give him the best he has. 82 There is continual debate about the true status of the advertising agent, and frequently agita- tion for a change in the methods by which he is paid. Such agitation should not be accepted too seri- ously. It will not change present relations. It will, in fact, cement them closer, and result in greater discrimination in the search for real service, and in a greater sense of responsibility on the part of the agent. Thus it will result in more uniformly good service. A change in the present system would increase the cost of advertising to the advertiser and to the publisher. If the agent were paid by the ad- vertiser, he would have far less incentive than he has now to do promotive work, and would have far less range of experience. The result would be less efficient service and a consequent decrease in the amount of advertising. Agents, advertising managers and publishers alike owe their present advertising success di- rectly to the work done in the past by the agency. Any movement for progress must be based upon a recognition of the present tri-partite relation, and improvement must be sought through an evo- lution which will have the sole purpose of bring- ing about a fuller understanding of the force of advertising, and how it may be utilized to the best advantage of the advertiser. Necessarily, this also 83 means to the best advantage of the publisher and the advertising agent. After all, the agent is the real advertising man. Those agencies which are inefficient are worth far less than they are receiving, and will disappear by a natural process of elimination. Those which are honest and fearless, and which render intelli- gent, effective service to both advertisers and publishers, are underpaid. They give advice and do work of immense importance, advice and work which very often spell the whole success of a busi- ness or a publication. And yet, because their call- ing is so young and the abuses have been so much more apparent then the merits, they still have to apologize for their calling. They are not credited with the brains they have. Let the prospective advertiser approach his agent with the same respect which he accords to the engineer who designs his power-house, the lawyer who draws up his articles of incorporation, the banker who floats his securities. The agent's work is to the advertiser more basic than a brick foundation, more intricate than a legal brief, more vital than any stock-selling campaign ever de- vised. Selected with wise precaution, then given free rein, he may become a silent partner in your busi- ness, and worthy your highest respect as such. VI Advertising and the Consumer PEOPLE read advertising. That is why it pays. Usually people read it because they like to. Experts say that we study street-car cards be- cause if we didn't we'd be staring at either the faces or the feet of our fellow passengers opposite. Billboards, electric signs and the like are thrust upon our vision. Circular letters insinuate them- selves into our attention by posing as personal. Booklets attract us by their novelty or beauty. Newspaper advertising catches our eye as we skim the day's news frequently it is part of the day's news.* Magazine advertising we invariably read be- v cause it interests us. Many of us scan the adver- tising pages before we read the stories and articles. We read our magazine at times when no important matters are pressing for attention, in moments that might otherwise be idle, in slippered ease at evening, or on the long railway * It is said that a Philadelphia paper upon losing Wanamaker's big daily announcements suffered an immediate drop of 20,000 in circula- tion. The story of the day's shopping was as important to prospective shoppers as the story of yesterday's happenings. 85 journey. We have paid for the privilege of reading it, and all its contents deserve our best perusal. Mr. Dooley says, "What I object to is whin I pay tin or fifteen cents f'r a magazine expectin' to spind me avenin' improvin' me mind with th' latest thoughts in advertisin', to find more thin a quarter if th' whole book devoted to lithrachoor." Rudyard Kipling wrote to a friend who sent him an American magazine with the advertising pages torn out to save postage: "Next time you keep the front part and send me the ads. I can write stories myself." Advertising is news news for the house- keeper and the home owner, for the man who wants an automobile, the woman who is buying new clothing or any one of a hundred daily neces- sities and luxuries. It is up to the minute. The leading fiction may deal with the Court of King Arthur; the back cover advertisement must deal with tomorrow. It has been said that " some folks find the cereal advertisements as interesting as the serial stories." Anne O'Hagan makes one of her characters say : "I learn of new inventions before the shops begin to handle them. I receive whole, copious courses of instruction in household arts merely by ' writ- ing for booklet.' I learned how to take off varnish, how to paint, enamel, stain and finish woodwork, and how to do over furniture by writing to the 86 All Eyes are on Baltimo^^ These Days ^*^^ As Hostess to the Democratic National Convention Baltimore is Making Political History these days. For the last six months Baltimore has been making clothing history that has effectively and permanently revolu- tionized the values in medium-priced clothes. SfylepIus>> Styleplus dealer it; vour t\v, write fur style fi-Ukr and vwnplc* of Stykplus f.sbrits. HENRY SONNEBORN & CO. Baltimore, Md. Timely the news type of adver- tisement paint makers for their booklets. Take advertise- ments seriously? Of course I do. It's the only way for any woman to take them who ever buys any- thing." How to make this phenomenal interest of mil- lions of consumers in the advertising pages result in the purchase of his own particular wares is the problem of the manufacturer. With what success he has been doing it all the world knows. The thing runs in a circle unless advertisements were read they would not be successful, and unless they were successful they would not be read. The individual advertiser entering the field today may be confident that his advertisement will get all the attention it deserves. The rest depends upon him. As stated earlier, there are two ways of getting returns from advertising; one by inducing the customer to take your goods off the dealers' shelves; the other by inducing the consumer to write to you direct and have you send him the article by mail, freight or express. The first is called " general publicity"; the second, "mail order" business. When we speak of advertising we are usually thinking of general advertising. By far the greater part of national publicity is a message to the reader asking him to go to the retailer for the ad- vertiser's product, and much of the retail adver- tising hinges upon this. 88 Here is an Advertisement that is not trying to sell you anything The Delco Electric System Cranking Lighting Ignition fhe Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, Dayton, Ohie - .__, | HI A true type of general advertising. You couldn't buy the article direct if you tried The largest general advertisers in the country are the packing houses, soap makers, breakfast food manufacturers, cracker bakers and baking powder companies, the makers of automobiles and their accessories, tobacco, men's clothing and one or two other products. It is worthy of note that this is not because these goods are more sus- ceptible of advertising, but generally because one manufacturer in each of these lines has been a pioneer and has proved that great profits can be derived from publicity. A first essential of general advertising is a trade-mark. If you are to teach people to "de- mand" your goods you must give these goods a distinctive personality, a name by which they can be called for over the counter a trade-mark. The determination to buy what you yourself can identify is the great "outside selling force" with which modern producers must reckon. Your own family is buying ten trade-marked products now for every one they bought ten years ago. The trade-mark must be advertised as well as the product. There are few exceptions to this rule. The National Cash Register Company has found it worth while to advertise without saying much about National registers. "See that hump" dis- appeared from the DeLong advertising when seven-eighths of the hook-and-eye trade had been captured. Recently a striking campaign was car- 90 ried on in trade papers to promote a vogue for button shoes as against laced shoes, but the ad- vertisements bore no indication of their origin. In such bread-upon-the-waters publicity few are privileged to indulge, for most of us have our competitors, or at least our imitators. The trade-mark then even if it be only the name of the firm is a necessary preliminary to a general advertising campaign. It is the constant growth of the trade-mark buying habit that has transformed advertising from a gamble to an in- vestment. The reason for this growth is the con- fidence which people put in an article upon which a manufacturer is willing to fix his name. Trade- marking and advertising are twin pledges of good faith. When a manufacturer advertises he volun- tarily goes into a glass house. The product, the process of manufacture, the method of sale, the price every detail is thrown into high relief. The public, like children, fear the dark. To our people a firm that advertises is constantly in sight and cannot be an object of suspicion or distrust. Every advertiser gives a bond. His very adver- tising makes his market increasingly critical. It has always been true that every fraudulent sale makes an enemy while every honorable sale makes a friend. Advertising changes that rule only in greatly intensifying it. It is the trade- 91 mark which serves as the means of "spotting" the product next time. This is what builds good-will technically known as "consumer demand." When the corner grocery changes hands the location and the sign over the door stand for the "good- will" of the neighborhood trade, on which the retiring owner sets a very real value. With the national adver- tiser the trade-mark is the symbol, and its value in many cases becomes enormous. Many a firm would rather have all its buildings and its stock on hand wiped out by fire, and all its standing orders cancelled, than lose its trade-mark. The trade-mark "Uneeda," of which there have been over 400 imitations and infringements, is valued at more than a million dollars a letter, or over $6,000,000 in all. The monetary value of the Vic- tor Talking Machine Company's trade-mark the familiar dog and "His Master's Voice" could hardly be overestimated. N. K. Fairbank is quoted as saying that $10,000,000 could not buy the Gold Dust Twins and the little Fairy. How many of us realize that "Kodak" and "Vaseline" are names controlled by individual manufacturers? These words never existed until they were coined as trade-marks, and attained their present popularity through advertising. It is advertising backed up, of course, by hon- est quality which has built the immense values 92 National Biscuit In-er-Seal trade-mark and some imitations (From "The Law of Advertising and Sales," by dowry Chapman) of such trade-marks as these. The inference is unmistakable. The manufacturer who is about to advertise should seek above all to obtain a good trade- mark. It is difficult, but worth while. He should enlist the aid of his agent, of the publications which he intends to use, the men with whom he does business, his employees, and all his clever acquaintances. He wants something striking to the eye, easy to pronounce, hard to forget, and inevitably suggestive of the use and the quality of the goods. The trade-name Sapolio, perhaps the best of the kind ever invented, was suggested by the family physician of Mr. Enoch Morgan. Many trade- marks, however, have been sought and found far afield some even by public prize contests. There have been good trade-marks which have become widely known but which have failed to sell the goods because not closely enough tied up to them. Many advertising men believe that the " Sunny Jim " campaign of a decade ago failed in this respect. We all knew "Sunny Jim," but do we know what he stood for? As a result unfortu- nately for the publishers of the "Yellow Kid" series of Sunday comics the disparaging term "yellow journalism" became current. By which it may be seen that the trade-mark idea has its variations. 94 Having obtained a good trade-mark idea or, better, a number of ideas the manufacturer should do nothing else until he has called upon his lawyers for aid. For the race for a good trade- mark is so keen and the racers so numerous that many men are likely to hit upon the same idea. Twenty applications a day for the registration of trade-marks are made at the United States Patent Office. There were 5,020 new trade-marks registered in 1912, and more than 12,000 cases are pending. One-half of the existing trade-marks were regis- tered during the past five years. From this it may be inferred how difficult it is going to be five or ten years hence for the manufacturer who does not very soon set about obtaining a proper iden- tification for his goods. Of course, it is most unwise, if any extended campaign is contemplated, not to obtain through registration, protection against infringement and assurance that you are not infringing others. From 15 to 20 per cent, of all applications for trade-marks are rejected for one reason or another. They may duplicate names already registered. They may use descriptive terms which no one has a right to monopolize, they may use geographical names or names of living celebrities under wrong conditions. In these and other re- spects the law of trade-marking is so complex and 95 full of pitfalls that the wise course is always to consult the advertising agent and the lawyer. An illustration of the need of care is found in the experience of the New Haven Clock Com- pany. When this firm first brought out its "Tat- too" alarm it made the mistake of popularizing the word "intermittent," which cannot be regis- tered because it is descriptive, with the result that competitors were able to cash in heavily on the idea and the advertising of this new feature. National advertising, entered upon with cau- tion and vigorously followed out to its logical end, is a powerful weapon against unfair competition. To the protection which the law gives, it adds the surety of public support. The second broad classification of magazine advertising is mail-order. The mail-order method of merchandizing is so direct and intimate that it allows a minimum of debate as to the profits from the advertising or as to the relative value of the publications used. Its results are apparent, so that the advertiser can at once and with considerable accuracy estimate the actual results of any given advertisement or of the whole campaign. The amount of mail-order business appearing year after year in the adver- tising pages of any leading periodical is pretty conclusive evidence that this advertising is effec- tive and profitable. 96 From the infinite variety of goods regularly sold by this method it would seem that mail- order advertising reaches every class. The field is so large and so specialized that a generalization is of little value. Toys worth ten cents and hand- some drawn-linen shirtwaists worth $100 have been advertised successfully. Reorders the result of satisfaction are, as a rule, as necessary in the mail-order business as in any other. One old and successful mail-order advertiser, for instance, sells goods at five dollars. His gross profit is one dollar, and it costs him three dollars to make every first sale. His initial loss, therefore, is two dollars per customer. Ob- viously, reorders are imperative. Unless the advertiser has a product which is likely to be worn out and replaced soon, or unless he has a "line" of other articles with which he can follow up his first customers, mail-order ad- vertising is usually unsuccessful. The mail-order advertiser using magazines and weeklies carefully "keys" his copy in order to find out which publications or which particular advertisements are bringing the best results, and which are failing to draw trade. There are many ways of keying an advertisement. It may be done by a variation of the street address or the "de- partment" to which the customer is asked to write. It is often done by a coupon printed in the 97 advertisement and designed to be cut off, filled in and mailed as an order. The coupon invented by Ralph Tilton when advertising the Century Dictionary has the double advantage of indi- cating the publication which produced the in- quiry and of encouraging the customer to order, by saving him the trouble of writing a letter. The results shown by the replies are tabulated for comparison and guidance in future advertising. But the mail-order advertiser labors under a heavy disadvantage. He must get direct and im- mediate returns. He can hope to get only a small percentage of the people he interests, as he has no local dealers to follow it up. Of every hundred people who read your adver- tisement one, let us say, sends you an order direct. Out of the remaining ninety-nine there must be some, say twenty-five, that need your product, but are not convinced to the point of sending you the money. If you are depending entirely on direct orders you may never hear from these other twenty -five people; but if your goods are distrib- uted in stores many of these twenty -five people will sooner or later purchase your goods. We all know how it is. Constant repetition im- presses us more than an initially eloquent plea. The insurance agent gets us on his tenth call much more often than he does his first. Col. Roosevelt's "bully" became worthy of comment 98 Accept "Model Kitchen Book" Free Si. Tim CO.PO. Good for on, "Model Kitchrc Bo,*." Irlk ho. In arrangr you' The Hoosier Manufacturing Company OAKLAND MOTOR CAR COMPANY Pontiac. Mich Please send me your 1913 Oakland Catalog TYPES of COUPONS. Note variation in size and styl Nos. 2.6. 7and 9 are keyed. No.9 is unique in tkat it utilizes th , igiving me inquirer plenty of room in destroying the matter which hacks it up only after he had said it repeatedly. I may notice a certain advertisement one week and pass it by. The next week I see it again, and say, " Oh, yes, I've read about that before." Seven days later it comes along, and I wonder if that isn't worth in- vestigating. The larger the space it occupies, the more nearly certain it is to come to my attention again. About the fourth or fifth time I see it, it seems as if I'd known it all my life, and when I need such an article that's the one I buy. It may be seen that the mail-order advertiser wastes a lot of his powder, and raises the first sell- ing cost of each article. For this reason every in- quiry must be worked to the limit to produce a sale, and every sale calculated to produce more sales and reduce the ultimate selling expense. Furthermore, mail-order advertising is not so likely to produce other customers. It has to take the place of salesmen, retailer and jobber. In con- sequence it has not the complementary aid of these other forces in reaching its fullest efficiency. Shipping goods direct to the consumer arouses in- terest in no one except that consumer. Distribu- tion of a trade-marked article through the usual channels arouses considerable interest by means of window and counter displays, and by the mouth- to-mouth advertising of the shopping public. For this reason, too, the direct returns from general advertising are not only undependable 100 METHOD o^ CHECKING RESULTS in a MAIL ORDER BUSINESS but actually misleading if used as the sole crite- rion by which to judge the results of national ad- vertising. An estimate of the amount of adver- tised goods sold by a given advertisement, where these are sold through the trade, cannot be ar- rived at by comparing the number of inquiries received from corresponding space by mail-order advertisers. Such comparisons are the result of wrong analyses. In all general advertising most of the effective force of an advertisement, in some cases all of it, is exerted indirectly. A reader will not write you if you have a live dealer in his town. You don't want him to. In such advertising few of the resulting sales can ever be traced di- rectly to the advertisement. It is only by aggre- gates over comparatively long periods that the true effects of publicity can be judged. The nub of the matter is this : If one is adver- tising his business on a sufficiently broad basis, and for a long enough pull, very little of his adver- tising goes to waste. Evidence is bound to show up some day and prove how copy which he thought dead long ago, has been working over- time for him. Mail-order advertising builds comparatively little good-will. General advertising specializes in good-will. The man who uses the latter is in a position more nearly to utilize the entire strength of the great force which he sets in motion. 102 VII Advertising and the Retailer OF the millions spent in general national advertising every year the greater por- tion must flow back over the counters of the retail merchant. Very few manufacturers spend as much as 10 per cent, of their income for advertising. That means that hundreds of mil- lions of dollars must be paid annually by consum- ers to retail merchants in purchases of nationally advertised goods. All goods sold by general advertising reach the customer through the retailer. The producer de- velops his own public, and simultaneously seeks the dealers who sell to that public. Adequate re- tail representation and dealer cooperation in push- ing your line are necessary adjuncts to a national campaign. The retailer has the strategic position, and his aid must be obtained. His interest must be aroused and carefully continued. There are in this country three-quarters of a million retail stores of all classes, many, of course, handling goods of kinds not now advertised. There are 1,700 department stores and 148,000 general stores which carry goods of many de- 103 scriptions and deserve the attention of almost every national advertiser. The number of stores in the principal retail lines is astonishingly large: Dry Goods 28,000 Groceries 56,000 Clothing #0,000 Furniture 27,000 Boots and Shoes 18,000 Drugs 42,000 Jewelry 20,000 Hardware 30,000 Men's Furnishings . . . . * 8,000 Books and Stationery 12,000 These stores are "indexes of the business situ- ation. " When they feel hopeful, business booms and Wall Street smiles. When they feel depressed, they curtail their buying and factories run on part time. They are the heart of American commerce. Whether it be the giant department store, which is as much an institution as the great thor- oughfare of the city, or whether it be the general store in the village where the farmer goes for his pitchfork and the barefoot child for his taffy, the retail store commands the selling situation. The retailer speaks with a voice of authority to the people of his community. They look to him for that refinement of merchandizing service. 104 He is nearest the consumer. He extends credit to customers who would be unknown to the manu- facturer. He makes possible small purchases. He shows goods in alluring display. He performs di- rect service, aiding in selection and making ex- changes readily. His boys carry baskets to the neighboring farms, or his motor trucks deliver swiftly for miles around. The importance of adequate retail distribution cannot be overestimated. With it every dollar ex- pended in national advertising will yield its maxi- mum return; without it, in the long run, national advertising will fail. The retailer's cooperation depends entirely upon the desirability of your goods, the strength of your advertising campaign, and on the assurance given him that if he works for you you will work for him. The retailer is not to be coerced. Representa- tion and distribution may be in whole or in part obtained by national advertising, but they cannot be retained by that alone. Only an intelligent, liberal, painstaking dealer policy can retain them. There are people who believe that advertising is a compelling power, to be used as a means of saving a part of the retailer's profit, or of forcing powerful stores to carry goods which they do not want to carry. They believe that having devel- oped an irresistible demand the manufacturer is in the enviable position where the dealer must 105 W tf (M CO tfiliitf* iiitir\.. Ifsss 5 - pa Secti I x I carry his goods, in spite of everything, to hold customers. They believe that they can throw to the four winds not only all regard for the retailer's just profits but even all ordinary business pre- cautions and courtesies. It has been done is now, here and there. Any retail merchant, whether he be proprietor of a great department store or of a corner grocery, can cite instances where a manufacturer, over- secure of his entrenchment in public demand, be- came domineering, disregarded the details of or- ders, sent sizes, patterns or qualities different from those the retailer wanted, or refused to allow the needed margin of profit. A man is in business for a life-time, not a year. Short-sighted policies mean short-lived prosper- ity. The retailer's hold is constant, and his turn comes sooner or later. "Substitution" has been one of his methods of cutting into the sales of the arrogant or penurious manufacturer. He can adopt a more or less studied policy of not selling any particular brand of goods unless they are de- manded, and, when customers do ask for them, of recommending some other brand, the quality and supply of which are certain and upon which a fair profit can be obtained. The net result of such conflict is needless waste. Waste of the manufacturer's effort, because he drives the retailer to counteract the good impres- 108 sion created by his advertising in the minds of hundreds of customers waste of the retailer's effort, because he is pulling against the stream of popular demand instead of accelerating his own progress by rowing with it. From the point of view of the retailer national advertising creates a valuable partnership. The advertiser, by putting his name on his goods, guarantees the maintenance of their quality, for advertising makes unforgetable and unavoidable every virtue and every fault, and inevitably pins the responsibility for either upon the maker. The advertising of the manufacturer quickens the movement of trade to the store of the retailer, searching out for him new customers. It links his store in the minds of hundreds with the leading national producers. It often establishes a retail price for the advertised commodity, a protection against the cut-rater who makes theatrical and often deceptive reductions. It creates in the re- tailer's own community new wants which his cus- tomers might not discover for themselves. A jeweler whose business in 1908 was $25,000, in- creased his sales in four years, by featuring na- tionally advertised clocks, watches and jewelry, to $127,000.* A haberdasher who threw out a line of unadvertised collars and replaced it with the * Each year the profit on new business alone paid all the cost of his local publicity. 109 Arrow brand increased his sales twenty times in one year. Experiences like this may be encoun- tered in almost any city or town. When a retailer buys a stock of advertised goods he invests in standardized merchandize. Selling them is easy, for to his customers they are already half sold. An ordinary retail store turns over its stock two and one-quarter to two and one-half times a. year. The quick sale of advertised goods can be made to increase such a rate of turn- over to three or four times, or more, thus getting more return on each dollar of capital invested. One of the largest retail grocers in the United States is quoted as saying: "If I should throw out the advertised brands and handle only the private or non-branded goods I would need twice as many clerks to serve the same number of customers." The retailer knows that in buying advertised trade-marked products he is investing in goods of quality and reliability. Here is what a prominent retail merchant, after twenty years of refusal to "push" any advertised goods, wrote finally to the Holeproof Hosiery Company: "It is decidedly to my advantage to have people know that I carry Holeproof, and nothing but my stupidity prevented me from do- ing it years ago. . . . By mentioning your name I am forcing you to advertise my business. ... It is absolutely immaterial to me how much you profit 110 The New Filene Store A Men's Store Fantasy That Is Bated Upon Facts ]y|R. MAINE comes to Boston for a day. He has traveled all night by train. Must depart for home by night boat Busy man! retoforc he stopped at a But he has heard of the New Filene Store, and he swings off the car at Wa.' Be hotel. A he staru for the street a mirror point* oal the need at glow and a Fall hat They are Be carries a bag that bulges An elevator whisks bint to the eighth floor, where h get* clean linen and a svniitbing-up. Twenty minutes later he i enjoying a good breakfast in the JVot only good surrounding-. An attendant hut brought the morning papers. Another has checked b hag. A 'third has engaged to reach eight or ten business friends by telephone, and noon Mr, Main.: has a list showing when and where these friends may he seen. Two of then, are to meet him in the Filene restaurant (or lunch, From brcsklasl be goes down to the store barber shop. I*KS h stop at being shared? iS'o,b take* the whole course massage, manicure, ahoe polish. A boy bas brought to him a new shirt, and right in the bar- Twenty minntea later he ho efcot*n a toadc-ready Fall suit and liht. W igk Englirf, topet He has not been kept waiting for merchandise or change. Tfao way through ptgjhing robes bat harries to him from nimble fin- gers at dJc nearby. Shortly after noon he returns career through the progress of luncheon, tiou bureau, newapapec files and time table*, Purchase* ot flowers that are dispatched to the aont he has not time 10 visit, ^-Engagement oi staterooms for tlip return nil, theatre two weeks later, Sending and receipt of Sending of wirdew n from the filenr, roof to triendspn outgoing steamships; All accomplished so expedi. lioufly that about three o'clock Mr. Maine winder* why he hasn't a soliinrj- bufincss thing to do until boat time. So be goes oat t* tee the good aunt, after all. And he finds bar wry grwaoai For the fiewcta an t William Filene's Sons Co. Outfitters to Women, Children and Men Advertising the all-round service given by a modern retail store by it, so long as my business and bank account are increasing." Advertising is beginning to show promise of lending important assistance in a reform which many retailers will be glad to see the overthrow of^the cut-price and of the fraudulent bargain sale. The original slogan of the department store was price. Because of its large purchases, the great store was expected to be able to undersell. In order to give color to the claim of close margins, prices were marked $4.98 and 39 cents. Smaller stores naturally followed suit. The price-cutting method was accentuated by sales. The orginal theory of these sales was a clearance of the season's goods. Customers were told often with truth that because it was nec- essary to have room for new stocks, they could buy the fag end of older goods at great savings. Trade responded, until the demand was greater than the supply. The opportunity being too good to lose, stores began to buy other goods to eke out the stock that was supposedly an encum- brance. Soon the buying of special goods for mark-down sales became in many stores a regular feature of merchandizing, and there was an almost continuous sales performance. Makers began to turn out flashy goods de- signed especially for sales purposes. Of course these wares did not have the quality they were 112 supposed to represent. The woman who bought an $18 suit for $11.99 was apt to find that she had really bought an $11.99 suit. This sort of thing could of course succeed for a while. But, repeated for a number of years, it has begun to kill itself off. Merchants themselves are realizing that the fake sale and the fake bargain are unprofitable, and welcome any tendency in the opposite direc- tion. National advertising is shaping the tendency. By it the consumer, particularly the woman, is being enlightened. The woman is becoming con- stantly better informed, for she reads her maga- zines, advertisements and all, as a pleasure and as a business. She is. learning to seek, not price alone, not quality alone, but quality at a price. Stores which try to sell inferior goods by adver- tising their cheapness are finding that sales can be forced only by increasingly loud advertisements, and that the public seems to pay amazingly little attention to the bargains, real or otherwise, how- ever exploited. The stores, on the other hand, which are discontinuing the fake bargain are find- ing that they are building a permanent and a satisfied patronage. The genuine clearance sale with genuine bar- gains the original thing will always remain, because it is correctly founded on the law of sup- 114 ply and demand. But the better stores will in- creasingly get as much of their business as possi- ble upon the straight basis of every-day sales of quality goods at reasonable prices. National advertising is helping because it is tell- ing the truth about merchandise. Week in, week out, it is showing the public pictures of good goods, describing them, giving them a name, saying "Here, and here, and here, are the points at which you should look for quality before you decide." It is fixing standards of price, and convincing purchasers that a certain thing is worth so much, no more, no less. It is striving after fair margins of profit for the merchant, and square treatment all round. By the example of advertised goods, it is setting a higher ideal for all goods even those that are unadvertised as yet. In other words, advertising is helping toward the universal adoption of the principle which Jonn Wanamaker pioneered years ago one price, the same to every one, and in its extension to in- clude one price, the same in every store for goods of the same quality. If the advertiser uses the force of advertising rationally and if he and the dealer cooperate properly in all business relations they are weld- ing the strongest possible bond the interest- paying kind of commercial friendship. Yoking 115 the power of advertising, which is national, with the power of local prestige they have joined the two greatest natural selling forces in one well- balanced team. The advertiser creates a com- placency in the mind of the consumer. The re- tailer turns it into sales. The ways of interesting and aiding the dealer in this process are many and various. Of course, the first step is to get his store stock- ed. This usually precedes the advertising. Tact and an evidence of good faith are exceed- ingly important at this point. The very fact that national advertising is known to be a powerful in- fluence in the distribution of goods has resulted in a serious abuse. Manufacturers with more shrewd- ness than wisdom have taken advantage of the merchants' enthusiasm for advertising. They have announced that they are about to inaugurate a campaign and have induced the retailers to stock the goods in order to supply the expected de- mand. Then having taken large and profitable orders all over the country, they have quietly let their promised advertising campaigns fade away into a mere whisper or absolute silence and the dealer has found himself under the necessity of selling the goods by his own efforts or not at all. The result is that the average merchant is ex- ceedingly wary. Your mere assurance that you are going to advertise is not enough for him. You 116 must back it up with proof that you are in earnest, based either upon your reputation for fair deal- ing, if it is known to the merchant, or upon visible evidences of what you are going to do in the shape of proofs of your advertisements showing their size, the publications you are going to use and the length of the campaign. This latter is usually done by the preparation of what is known as a "dealer folder" or "dealer prospectus," which may be sent to the retailers in your line in the United States, and perhaps in Canada. In it you would set forth (1) The size of advertisements to be used. (2) The names of the publications to be used. (3) An analysis of their combined circulation by states and districts. (4) The dates of the proposed insertions. Very likely you would in addition publish this advance information in the leading trade papers. Here you would call the attention of the dealer to the superiority of your goods (offering, perhaps, to send a sample), reminding him of the demand similar advertising has previously produced at his counters and urging upon him the desirability of stocking up in advance to meet the demand your advertising will create. Again, however, in your trade-paper advertising, it is essential that 117 you convince the merchant that you will perform what you promise. This work of course would be followed up by your salesmen. For years the salesmen of the Simmons Hardware Company, for example, have carried with them a complete set of forthcoming Simmons advertisements, in addition to their regular 5,000-page catalogue. Window display prepared by manufacturer If you sell through jobbers rather than to the retailer direct, this advance notice is just as essen- tial. But here, of course, you would refer the re- tailer to his usual jobber for your goods and seek the jobbers' cooperation. Some firms, like Hills Brothers, packers of Dromedary Dates, send out "specialty men/' whose primary duty it is to interest dealers in the advertising which the firm is doing. These men take orders if offered them, but the orders are filled through the dealer's jobber. This advance campaign will by no means reach all the dealers whom you will later, if your advertising is properly conducted, have upon your books. You will find many, and almost in- variably the most progressive, ready to respond to conscientious and convincing effort. It need not discourage you, however, to encounter other merchants who will say frankly to you, "After your advertising has begun to appear, and the de- mand actually exists, I shall be glad to carry your goods and work with you. Until then I should pre- fer to wait." This is simply an evidence that the dealer who says it has been deceived in the past by some unscrupulous manufacturer. Happily, through the efforts of publishers and agents, and through the growing prevalence of fair play among advertisers, there are every year fewer and fewer such merchants. In most cases these more 119 conservative, once they become convinced that an advertiser is actually prosecuting a vigorous and consistent campaign, will be among his most earnest allies. When your advertisements begin to appear the first tangible results will be direct replies from consumers, particularly if provision is made for such replies by means of a coupon or a suggestion that the reader write. Very often the advertising will say "Send name of your dealer," or "If your dealer hasn't the goods, send us his name." To clinch the interest which prompted the in- quiry advertisers have certain "follow up" mat- ter to send in reply. For example (1 ) A booklet describing and illustrating the goods . (2) An actual sample of the goods when possible. (These are sent free or offered at a nominal price to pay transportation charges and head off the idly curious.) In addition, all the more enterprising adver- tisers use "form" letters to (1) Acknowledge receipt of the inquiry (possibly giving notice of the sending of sample) and giving name of dealer in that town handling the goods. (2) Give to the dealer handling the goods the name of the person making the inquiry. 120 The inquiries from consumers are, of course, valuable as an excuse for urging upon the dealer if he doesn't already carry them the desira- bility of stocking these goods. When the size of the sale, if made, would warrant it pianos, bonds, automobiles, for example a salesman is sent by the nearest retail representative to follow up the inquiry. By these means you would secure (1) A definite and persistent demand for your goods on the retailer by consumers. (2) The increased interest of your present re- tailers. (3) The addition of new dealers to your list. Some advertisers, however, make mistakes by not exercising judgment as to the probable char- acter and purchasing ability of inquirers whose names are sent to dealers. Advertising naturally sometimes brings inquiries from children or from people who, when their names are examined by the dealer, are found to be lacking in credit or real interest in the goods. Such an episode is likely to destroy much of the good impression which may have been created in the dealer's mind. The ob- vious remedies are the use of publications with a circulation of high quality and the careful criti- cism of the probable class of each inquiry before forwarding it to the dealer. 122 A method frequently used to convince the dealer of the advisability of stocking a line is that of inserting in the advertisement a coupon ex- changeable at dealer's stores for a free sample. The dealer is allowed to redeem such coupons with the manufacturer either in cash or stock. A campaign well under way, where the goods are of proved quality, may obtain telling support from the well-disposed dealer in local advertising. Attractive sales-compelling window displays of your goods make money and new customers for your retailer. The benefits he derives therefrom naturally work back to you. So, if your goods per- mit, it might be advisable to offer dummies of them to your dealers for such displays. Litho- graphs, attractive cards, enlargements of your ad- vertised trade-mark, etc., could be furnished at moderate expense. A prize window display contest, simultaneous with your advertising, is one of the best ways to stimulate your dealers to show your goods. Set a day or week for such a display, and offer substan- tial prizes for the best windows. Offer, for in- stance, to pay fifty cents or one dollar apiece for all photographs of window displays of your goods, and award in addition a number of prizes for the most meritorious. The merchant himself, proud of a fine window, will desire it to stand for a con- siderable time, and what he displays in his win- 124 dows he naturally finds to his advantage to push. Some advertisers devote a great deal of time to designing window displays for retailers who lack either the ability or the inclination to do it them- selves. To many a storekeeper the task of think- ing up ways of changing his window weekly or monthly is herculean, and he welcomes a clearly indicated design, or even more, a complete dis- play ready to set up, sent by a manufacturer with whom he is on good terms. Manufacturers who have many dealers in the large cities sometimes maintain regular corps of skilled window trim- mers in each of these cities. The national advertiser may also derive great assistance from the local newspaper advertise- ments inserted by dealers. The progressive dealer everywhere finds it good policy to turn to his own advantage the interest aroused among his cus- tomers by national magazine advertising. News- paper advertisements of nationally advertised goods, over his own name, focus attention on his store and secure for himself, so far as his town is concerned, the benefit of the national campaign. A valuable plan is to have the dealers insert in their local papers small advertisements some- thing like this: "See our full-page advertisement in The Ladies' Home Journal ; then come in and see the goods themselves." Many dealers, if fur- nished with copy and cuts, are willing to run these 126 at their own expense. Others are open to a propo- sition to share the expense, inserting additional copy of their own in the space bought. Tact, per- suasive measures and a liberal policy will succeed here as elsewhere. Some manufacturers by popularizing their goods and ably handling their dealers have obtained, free of cost, local advertising aggregating three or four times the amount of their national expend- itures. In some cases advertisers offer prizes of various sums for the best local advertisement run simultaneously with the national advertising. The first prize in a typical contest of this kind was awarded to a full page in a metropolitan daily; the second to a half page in the daily of a small, live city. Additional space placed in different sec- tions of the country amounted to three thousand newspaper columns. With some kinds of goods, additional personal pressure may be brought to bear by informing the advertising managers of the local papers of your readiness to supply advertising material, and seeking their aid in inducing the retailer to use it. A certain collar company secured an enormous amount of information as to its distribution by notifying each of 3,000 newspapers that local ad- vertising would be placed with it if enough dealers in that town carried the collars to make 128 |IJif! ^ : *jg;tf Illill life i ~* Pill Ma ^ ; t it worth while. The newspapers put their own ad- vertising solicitors on the job. The advertising was placed strictly according to these reports. The plan was successful because it came as the complement to a strong national campaign. Dealers will often gladly pay for space in street cars, if the necessary cards are supplied by the manufacturer with the local man's name printed on them. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company has introduced a plan which should be of much value to national advertisers, of listing in the back of telephone books the names of local merchants who sell nationally-advertised com- modities. Many other "dealer helps" have been success- fully used. Most advertisers supply booklets on which the local merchant's name can be im- printed. A well-known hardware company sends out men to assist dealers in placing their account- ing systems on a basis where they can keep close watch of their business, an exceedingly valuable good-will builder.* The "demonstration" made by a traveling representative of the manufacturer is often a feature in a small store, and sometimes in a large one. Many advertisers have, in addition * This has the additional advantage of making it possible to prove to the merchant that the advertised goods are moving fast, even if the unadvertised goods are not. 130 to their salesmen, men who spend their time call- ing on retailers and suggesting ways of increasing sales. Frequently an advertiser will take large space in national magazines and print in it the names of dealers in each city or town in the coun- try handling his goods. This is also done by news- paper advertising in large cities. An important result of the advertising in pub- lications of enormous circulation like The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post is influence upon the retailers and their clerks di- rectly. Out of 1,750,000 or 2,000,000 copies dis- tributed monthly or weekly many thousands go into the hands of storekeepers and their employ- ees. Inquiry in a great many different parts of the country has shown that these men as they natu- rally would give particular attention to the ad- vertising of the lines which they sell and of other lines related to them. "I find new selling argu- ments," they say, or "It keeps me up with what I ought to have in stock," or "I find out what manufacturers whose goods I don't carry have to offer." So important is this influence that some advertisers insert in their "copy" a special para- graph or two headed "To the Trade," in which they have a little "dealer talk." Some manufacturers go further and use large space to talk straight from the shoulder to dealers through national mediums. 131 The dealer who at first shows little or no interest in your proposition, will, through your persistent efforts, in all likelihood grow to see its advantages himself, and become enthusiastic, amply repaying you for any trouble and expense incurred in con- verting him. Once he is converted you are fairly sure of adequate representation of your line, and he is enabled to profit by your persistence. The campaign should, in every case, be mod- eled to meet the requirements and conditions of your own individual business. Once begun, it should be pushed through to the end, tirelessly, constantly and according to the broadest and most effective plan possible in which whole- hearted consideration for the interests of the re- tailer should have prominent place. VIII Advertising and the Jobber BUT I sell to the jobber," we hear. "I can't advertise." Except in the hundredth case this is not true. It is not only easy but profitable to advertise while continuing the dis- tribution of goods through the old channels. There has been too much ill-considered talk of "doing away with the jobber." The phrase has so plausible, so mouth-filling a sound and has been so jauntily bandied about that there is small wonder that many wholesalers have the impres- sion that advertising is inimical to their prosper- ity and even to their very existence. Small wonder also that some manufacturers have hesitated to advertise because their distri- bution is through the jobber. As a matter of fact, 80 per cent, or more of large national advertisers sell to the retail trade through jobbers. It is the normal distribution of the times. The wholesaler renders as true a service as the raiser of crops or the weaver of cloth. He does necessary work and does it generally in the cheap- est way. He is a helpful and necessary part of the machinery of business. 133 Only two things can ever eliminate the whole- saler: (a) a natural evolution of business; (6) the wholesaler himself. For a correct understanding of the situation one should know what a jobber is not. There are several great merchandizing houses in this coun- try generally known as jobbers who are not really jobbers at all. They are really underwriting manu- facturers ; they control in whole or in part the out- put of several mills. They brand the goods thus controlled with their own name or trade-mark. Manifestly in such a case the so-called jobber is the manufacturer, and the mills are only his paid employees. Other large "jobbers" are in reality national retailers, controlling their own stores in many cities. The true jobber is a distributor, a middleman not an arbiter of trade. The jobber simply passes on to the retailer what the people want. If you make the jobber your distributor you do not in any way eliminate him. If you brand your goods and advertise them, thereby increas- ing their consumption, you do not eliminate the jobber you use him, you increase his sales, mak- ing the work of his salesmen easier and therefore more profitable. With most goods of wide and general consump- tion salesmanship with personal representation of some kind either from the jobber or the manu- 134 11% MILLINERY / $98,150,000 66% DRY GOODS 099,875,000 17% NOTIONS $156,090,000 TOTAL- $910,5OO,OOO JOBBING of TEXTILES in UNITED STATES-<%zrt >Jrom report an. "Textiles"^ Ourtis Commercio/ Research Diuision facturer seems necessary. No manufacturer of low-cost articles can afford to have salesmen of his line alone calling on the 148,000 general stores in this country. A salesman to be profitable must represent enough lines to make the aggregate purchase worth following, shipping and account- ing. It is also desirable that there be a consolida- tion of credits, rather than a multitude of small accounts each carried by a number of different manufacturers. The jobber can and will occupy this necessary position. The manufacturer who wants to do away with the wholesaler has a man's job in front of him. Suppose, for example, he decides to cut off his jobbers in the Middle West. The first thing that he can count on is a loss of anywhere from 10 to 50 per cent, of the trade no very alluring pros- pect. Next, he must take upon himself the ex- pense of a big selling force, of a vastly compli- cated shipping problem, of new storage warehouse facilities, of greatly increased bookkeeping and credit departments, and he must accept in the place of three or four large ledger accounts, which are as good as gold, several thousand petty ac- counts in which the risk of loss is problematical. Furthermore, he must induce the retailers to ac- cept all the troublesome complications which come from buying from many concerns instead of from one. Retailers order in small lots, and the 136 cost of direct sales is largely increased by the freight charges on such small shipments. Few manufacturers are willing, with their eyes open, to assume such an increase of the expense and trouble of doing business, and practically none would willingly displace a jobber who is do- ing fairly adequate justice to the probable de- mand from his territory. The manufacturer, therefore, who is desirous of advertising need not fear that his present trade relations will hamper him. Although the "elimination of the jobber" is by no means impending, the day of his dictation is over. Not many years ago the manufacturer had to make "what the trade wanted." He had no hold on his consumers, and the jobbers bought where they pleased. The jobber's drummer often carried the trade of a certain territory in his pocket. Today the manufacturer makes what the pub- lic wants because he is in a position to find out what the public wants. He puts his name on his goods, and puts his advertising in the magazines. The consumers want those goods, and go to the retailer for them. The retailer feels the pull of the increased demand, and goes to his jobber, order- ing the goods by name. The jobber goes to the manufacturer of those particular goods, and or- ders them by name. 137 The jobber does not dictate. The manufacturer does not dictate. The consumers dictate. And their dictation is founded on no false basis, but solely on their familiarity with the merits of a particular article, made known to them by the advertising of the manufacturer and proved worthy by experience. This dictation by the con- sumer, though resulting directly from the adver- tising of the manufacturer and of the retailer, need in no way disturb the relations of either with the jobber. It is obvious that in certain lines of trade, and in relation to certain large manufacturers, the wholesaler is holding a less and less important place. This partial elimination of the wholesaler, however, has been due to causes quite apart from advertising usually to a lack of appreciation of real conditions or to personal misunderstandings. Of course, in the last analysis, the existence of the jobber depends, as it does with all others, upon his proving himself worthy of his hire. In business no men or methods can survive in a struggle with other men and other methods that do the work more cheaply and efficiently. The enormous increase in the importance of advertising, as a sales-making method, promises to wholesalers, who will take a rational view of the new developments, an opportunity for greatly increasing their prosperity. 138 m L-mfi much discussed advertisement. Successful through suggestion and skilful treatment As long as a territory is sparsely settled its busi- ness does not justify manufacturers in sending out their own salesmen. The trade is handled by wholesalers. As soon as the territory becomes populous and prosperous the manufacturer nat- urally begins to consider whether or not it is more to his advantage to deal direct with the retailer than through the medium of a jobber. This sort of situation is continually recurring, and the manu- facturer's decision is made in terms of cheapness and efficiency of service, whether he advertises or not. In a situation like this, if the wholesaler can- not prove himself worthy of his hire, he loses his customers. On the other hand, wholesalers sometimes eliminate themselves by refusing to work in har- mony with the manufacturer's settled business policies. Usually the split is avoidable, and is often a loss to both parties. Neither shows a reasonable willingness to accept the other's view- point. Perhaps a letter is written, which the writer intended to be a bluff, but worded a trifle too strongly. It is accepted at face value and an- swered as such. Then personal pride steps in and a mutually advantageous trade relation is need- lessly severed. These conflicts, it should be noted, have been quite as often with non-advertisers as with adver- tisers. 140 ATTITUDE of MERCHANTS 394 MERCHANTS ATTITUDE ^JOBBERS 56 JOBBERS 27% UNFAVORABLE (103) 67% FAVORABLE (267) 54% FAVORABLE (30) OBJECTIONS *f JOBBERS 18 JOBBERS OBJECTIONS ^MERCHANTS 103 MERCHANTS 22% OTHER OBJECTIONS (4) 45% PROFITS (6) 33% BRAND 16) ATTITUDE ^MERCHANTS and JOBBERS toward NationallyAdvertisedGoods,as learned through interviews by the Curtis Commercial Research Division Occasionally there may be a real divergence of the interests of the manufacturer and the whole- saler. But the "elimination of the jobber "is as far away as the millennium if he will recognize the modern business trend toward advertising and put himself in line with it and profit by it. A telling illustration of the benefit to both job- ber and manufacturer of selling advertised goods appeared in the first chapter. It was shown how judicious treatment of a complex situation, by the sale of the same goods under both mill brand and private brand, resulted in a gradual call from the jobbers for more and more of the trade-marked line, while the total sales increased 30 per cent. A jewelry concern, that sells through jobbers, began advertising its product and stamping its name inconspicuously on it. The jobbers' names were also stamped on. This made it possible for the consumer, who asked for the manufacturer's article because of the advertising, to identify it; and yet the retailer was constantly reminded of the jobber because the jobber's name was on each separate piece. The makers of Kellogg' s Toasted Corn Flakes, as a result of a recent investigation, say that of 6,093 grocers in Chicago carrying some kind of corn flakes, 5,827 or 95 per cent. have Kel- logg's. The leading private brand was found in only 132 stores less than three per cent. 142 The principle involved in these accomplish- ments is the same throughout the jobbers find it profitable to sell goods with the maker's name on them if the maker helps to make sales easier for the jobber by advertising his product, and always provided, of course, that the manufac- turer allows a fair margin of profit. It is obviously natural for the jobber, if he is given his choice between buying the manufac- turer's named article, his privately named article or an article with both his and the manufacturer's name on it, to continue to sell under his pri- vate brand. But when he begins to feel strong pressure from his retailers for the manufacturer's name on the goods, if a reasonable margin is al- lowed him, he will in the majority of cases be wise enough to see that his own advantage lies in that direction. The opportunity presented to the jobber is to perfect his own science. He is a distributor pure and simple. His may be the impregnable monop- oly of specialized experience. It is up to him to study the question " What does the public want? " to make his distribution thorough and swift, and to cooperate with the manufacturer in every business relation. His salesmen can sell more with less expense to him when he is handling adver- tised goods. Reorders by mail will run larger, and his risk in pushing them will be greatly lessened. 143 The opportunity which advertising presents to the manufacturer who deals through jobbers is to insure his trade. So long as he makes unmarked or unadvertised goods he is of the old type and at the mercy of old methods. A few jobbers "own his trade," and shift it about at will. When the manufacturer advertises he takes out trade in- surance and lays the foundation of more profits and better business relations for both his jobber and himself. The modern manufacturer must assume the responsibility for selling his goods all the way through. He must not expect any great amount of salesmanship to be exercised on the consumer, unless he does it himself. It is his duty, and his privilege not the jobber's. IX The Itesults of Advertising IT pays to advertise." General acceptance of the fact has made slang of the phrase. Every man is thoroughly convinced that advertising pays other people. He is not always quite sure, however, that it will pay in his own case. Advertising is to many of us like dieting we are certain it is just the thing for Jones advise him to try it but we hesitate to take it up our- selves. We don't know whether it is going to take weight off or put it on; and we are a little doubt- ful about our moral ability to continue the treat- ment. As a matter of fact,the reason for our hesitancy is usually failure to investigate. We haven't gone to the trouble of studying the probable effect upon us in particular. The main question to be answered before ad- vertising is, of course, " What increase in revenue may I expect ultimately to attain?" Earlier chapters of this volume have discussed the fundamental basis and methods of advertis- ing. We have seen that it has become an accepted force in distribution, and that the nationally cir- culated periodical is the recognized foundation of 145 most great national campaigns. We have seen that the prospective advertiser must carefully select an advertising agent. The goods must be honest, and the price right. The probable market and the best way of reach- ing it must be studied. Choice must be made be- tween the mail-order and the general-publicity campaign. If the latter, a suitable trade-mark must be obtained. The distribution problem must be well han- dled. The rights of the retailer must be recog- nized, and proper means provided for enlisting his cooperation and aiding him and his clerks in selling the goods. If the jobber is concerned, his part in the campaign must be laid out, and steps taken to gain the fullest advantage of his distri- bution service. The campaign is launched. In what directions may we look for the increased revenue which is to result? There are only two channels: (1) More gross business with more gross profits. (2) Greater percentage of profit, due to decreased costs of making and selling. Not in one case out of a thousand can these results be completely traceable. They come in so many different ways, and entangled with so many other factors, that the only right way to judge the final and entire effectiveness of the advertis- 146 sary as sausage makers. For2S years we have loved, honored and cherished ihc ideals with which we started out in business a quarter of a century ago. We have tried to make the best old-fashioned country sausage m the world, because Idn't ferior kinds any- mere than we would want to eat them MII.O C JONES. Jon Dairy Farm. Bo> 605, Fort Getting heart-throbs into the sausage business ing is by the increase in the business over a con- siderable period of time. The usual effects are six : (1) The winning of some of your competitors 9 business. (2) Increased consumption in the existing market. (3) The development of markets (for a new prod- uci), or of demand for a better quality (of an old product). (4) Insurance of future hold on markets. (5) Stimulation of your manufacturing and selling organization. (6) Resultant economies and increased profits. The first effect is the most obvious and the one usually considered. It is often the least impor- tant. Some laymen believe that advertising serves only to take business away from one man and give it to another, and that therefore it is of no real service to the public as a whole. Of course, it does that to some extent. The dealers now carry- ing and the people now using your goods, or goods like them, will buy more from you, and this increase will be to a greater or less degree taken away from your competitors. But the stimulation of consumption is a more significant effect of advertising. Here advertising works wonders, and while building a demand for your goods may not lessen in any degree the de- 148 mand for your competitors'. Often it will aid the entire trade. It is in this and other directions, de- scribed in the present chapter, that advertising proves of true value to the whole public. You may, for example, educate old customers to new uses for your goods, so that they will use more of them. This has been done with striking success by manufacturers of food products and toilet articles, particularly Ivory Soap. Welch's Grape Juice advertising contains recipes for new drinks. You may revive a latent demand. The Iver Johnson advertising is bringing back old users of bicycles by expatiating on the advantage of living in the country and the possibility of riding back and forth to work. Dromedary Dates are simply the cherished fruit of childhood served up to us in attractive packages instead of a sticky mass. You may, by your advertising, instil new energy into the dealers, causing them to sell your goods more frequently through all forms of local adver- tising. An interesting and familiar occurrence is the ex- tension of the use of some particular product, through the concentration of the advertising of several rival manufacturers of the product, in the same publication. All share the advantage of the increased public attention thus attracted. The breakfast food industry never became great until 149 several manufacturers became large national ad- vertisers. In the case of staple products many people assume that increase in consumption is nearly constant, so that if "A" advertises his ginghams successfully his greatly strengthened sales mean proportionately weaker sales for his competitors "B,""C"and"D." This, as pointed out above, is in part true- but only in part, because one of the major tasks which advertising is set to accomplish is to dis- cover new uses for old lines and to foster a de- mand to fill new wants. A striking illustration of this occurred in the capital of a western state a few years ago. Fifty- one per cent, of the stock in the local gas and electric company had come into the control of a national organization. Their first act was to advertise, and advertise heavily. To the local stockholders, who repre- sented the forty-nine per cent., this seemed ruin- ous folly. "For," they reasoned, "have we not a complete monopoly? We control exclusive fran- chises on both electricity and gas. Why in the world should we advertise when we have 'em coming and going." You will agree that their contention had ele- ments of reason. And yet this advertising, the first season, sold seven carloads of gas stoves. It sold 150 For that sleep jinx FX)R that tiling that tries chloroform you in the nion for that other fellow tha pulls the covers up around you neck claims five minutes won' matter, then double-crosses you and lets you sleep twenty": ing) a velvet-like shaving, a Sun- day-like breakfast for a good hard day's work that will put feathers in any old bed for a little spare time around the evenings good clocks in one, A good alarm to wake up rattling <>ood timepiece to all d;tv by. tall, two rattling with, a tell time Educative advertising that sold hundreds of thousands of alarm clocks coke at a better price. It sold gas heaters, irons, fixtures and novelties. It put in one hundred and twenty -four new electric motors for small power users. It induced a greatly increased lighting of stores. It put up electric signs and ornamental lighting effects. All of which meant increased use of electric current. Advertising did all this by educating people to use a staple commodity for new purposes and more freely. So much for old and staple products. Advertis- ing also places brand-new products on the market swiftly and permanently at minimum cost. This is what it has done for most of the recent inven- tions of e very-day utility the safety razor, the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, the elec- tric fan, the bread mixer. The classic example is, of course, the automobile. Thin underwear, tooth paste, shaving sticks, modern garters have been put into our daily life by this kind of advertising. The International Correspondence Schools devel- oped by advertising an entirely new type of edu- cation which has enrolled more than 1,500,000 pupils. Hart, Schaffner & Marx pride themselves on the fact that since they began to advertise men have ceased to be ashamed of wearing ready-made clothing. Advertising would fully justify its existence if it did only these two things increase the demand in present markets, and develop new markets; in 152 other words, serve as an educational force in mer- chandizing. But it does far more. It anticipates the demand of future markets. It is business insurance. This is simply another way of saying that it creates good-will. Good-will wouldn't be as im- portant as it is if it simply meant that people think so well of your goods that they will buy them today. Its value consists in the lasting im- pression that it creates. Good-will means that five years hence, when I want a piano, I'll very likely buy a Steinway or a Chickering. Advertis- ing is not only cultivating the harvests of today. It is fertilizing the field of future needs. Advertis- ing is daily and hourly building an increment of value about your name. It is making your trade- mark worth while. It is paying for insurance on your business against the competition of years hence. Though very real, this is an effect which cannot be measured except in terms of long time. Almost as indefinite, but also real, is the stimu- lus of advertising on your organization. It does in- side work as well as outside work. It has an en- thusing, uniting effect on all the members of the organization, from the head of the firm to the office boy. On the manufacturing end it instils a pride of manufacture. Every engineer would like to drive the Twentieth Century Limited between New 153 York and Chicago. Every intelligent operative, every foreman, every mill superintendent likes to have a share in turning out a nationally and fa- vorably known product the best of its kind. It is human nature. As the output grows and the plant enlarges, as the goods are attractively displayed in many stores, and the name of the firm or the , brand blazoned everywhere, a pride in the goods spreads throughout the mill. The quality im- proves, the processes become more sure, the in- spection more thorough. The men in charge search more diligently for ways of improvement, the men below them respond more readily. The same inspiration is imparted to the admin- istrative force. A truer efficiency follows. A well- known manufacturer says that within a few days of the appearance of his first large advertisement six out of the seven best men of his principal competitor applied to him for employment. They wanted to be with a live concern. In the sales force this is even more noticeable. Salesmen who were once loudest in their condem- nation of advertising become its strongest sup- porters. They find that the insistent demand caused by advertising simplifies their work. Their entree is easier and their orders larger, while their time is saved. They go forth with a new interest in their work and a new confidence in their goods and organization. 154 INSPIRATION confidence n the Ivorydale factories has in the prorfucl he help. o make that is the Daw. ol the superiority of Ivory SCMJ>. it ;, the oenainty that rhe nap which be help to pm- duce is the purest and most economical. the soap thai u doing the greatest good in the work). hich enabl him to look beyond 'he drudgery ' "K moment and see hi* labor gtoriBed And his thousands of fellow-workers shan <. ra inspiration, it is but natural that Ivory Soap should be tbc embodiment of the Spirit of Cleanliness. Expresses the spirit which is instilled in the workmen who make a nationally known commodity A typical experience is cited in "Modern Ad- vertising": "A house which made Babbitt metal, hitherto always sold by traveling men, was in- duced to try a 'mail series.' To make the test thorough, a State in which the house had had no previous trade was selected. To a list of prospec- tive customers they sent printed matter, one cir- cular a week for thirteen weeks. Then they sent a bright young man to travel over this territory. The results were phenomenal. Order after order was sent in, and finally a request was made for a year's contract at an advanced salary. The sales- man/got it. When he arrived at the home office he was the hero of the hour. He sat by the side of 'the old man's' desk and explained how he did it. When the man who had put up the money for the 'mail series' ventured to suggest that the circu- lars might have had something to do with the re- sults, the drummer airily ' turned down ' the sug- gestion. He had sold the goods himself. The 'mail series' had not been heard from. 14 The company, realizing that they had a treas- ure, gave the young man virgin territory in another State/ Never a drummer and never a single piece of printed matter had previously gone to that State. The young man started out with flying colors. He 'fell down' at the first stop. After trying six or seven towns, without getting even an audience with his customers, to say noth- 156 ing of an order, he was called home. The entire success of the drummer in the first instance had been based on a careful cultivation of the terri- tory by the right sort of printed matter." That was a strictly local case, where mail ad- vertising was advisable. This type of experience, multiplied many times and in many states, has been the result of many a national advertising campaign, where the extent of territory to be reached has made the use of publications even more profitable than the more expensive mail publicity. Advertising means dealing with larger quan- tities and larger problems. It changes the sales- man from a plodder to an executive. It enables him to sell his ability and experience on a con- stantly rising market. The highest priced sales- men in demand today are those who can make the most of the opportunities created by adver- tising. This esprit de corps combines with the large production which the demand created by the ad- vertising makes necessary, to bring about the fifth and very important effect namely, econo- mies. Economies in both manufacture and selling result naturally from the enthusiastic and scien- tific handling of goods in large units. This is axiomatic. Generally speaking, the cost of adver- tising disappears in the economies it effects. 158 Take, for example, a factory making some product of general usefulness. The factory has an overhead expense of $10,000. Before advertising it turns out 10,000 pieces of goods. In the price of each one of these must be included its share of overhead expense, or $1.00. Suppose that by ad- vertising the demand is doubled, and the same factory produces 20,000 articles. The overhead expense chargeable to each then becomes only fifty cents. Buying twice as much raw material the manu- facturer is undoubtedly able to get it at lower prices. Employing considerably more men he is able to increase the division of labor and to specialize more thoroughly in each department, getting greater efficiency. Probably what was for- merly waste has so grown in quantity that it is worth while to turn it into valuable by-products. All along the line there are notable savings, so that by the time the article reaches the shipping- room it has cost considerably less than before and is better made. Then comes the selling. The advertising has developed a demand. Inquiries reach the factory, and are forwarded to jobber or retailer. The sales- man goes on his trip and finds that where he formerly sold $4,000 worth of goods and turned in a $100 expense bill he now can sell $8,000 and his expense bill is but little larger. 159 Everywhere a saving overhead expense, raw materials, labor, by-products, selling. Taken all together the savings amount to as much as, and often more than the cost of the advertising, to say nothing of greater volume. The Welch Grape Juice Company, although paying 300 per cent, more for grapes than in 1898, is today selling the product to the trade at no higher price. The manufacturer of Nemo Corsets testified at a hearing in Washington, as follows: "Ten or twelve years ago our salesman came to Washing- ton several times a year. He had one customer here, and did well if he got an order for $300 or $400. Our cost for that sale was approximately 15 per cent. Today we have a customer in practically every large store here, and our salesman leaves the city with orders for $5,000 or more. Our cost for selling these goods is perhaps 3 per cent. Add to this say 4J/2 per cent, for advertising, and the total cost is just one-half the selling cost ten years ago." No manufacturer, however, should begin any extensive campaign with the idea that he is going to get his money back immediately. The cost of advertising will not usually be absorbed the first year. It may be. Even then its full effect is by no means over at the end of twelve months or so. The man who, having begun to advertise, stops 160 after an insufficient trial of a year or two years stands to lose. If he doesn't lose some of what his advertising has cost he certainly loses much of the good impression which he has created. It is like investing a thousand dollars in a government bond, clipping a few of the coupons, then throw- ing the bond away. The cumulative effect of ad- vertising is so important that continuity is im- perative. Its effectiveness is largely dependent upon concentration, consistency and continuity. The best proof that the long sustained cam- paign pays is the experience of the advertisers whose names are familiar to us. Ivory Soap has no monopoly of the soap business. But it has a monopoly of Ivory Soap. Royal Baking Powder has no monopoly of the baking-powder business. But it has a monopoly of Royal Baking Powder. Both these "monopolies," like those of many another, are the result of continuous publicity backed by quality. See how this works out. A young girl sees in the magazines on her mother's library table the ad- vertisements of Gold Medal Flour. She has noth- ing to do with the buying of family supplies. Very likely she doesn't know what flour her mother buys. She doesn't even realize that she notices the advertising. But Gold Medal Flour is gently impressed upon her by printed advertising. The day comes when she marries, and soon after she 161 gives her first order for groceries. She has to make a choice of flour, and automatically the name Gold Medal recommends itself to her as that of a good flour one she has always known about. It has taken ten years of advertising to sell her that first bag of flour. If the flour is satisfactory she is likely to be a good customer for a generation to come. If Gold Medal Flour had advertised years before, and then stopped, her mother might have bought it, but when the daughter's time came she would probably buy something else. There are nearly 1,000,000 marriages every year in the United States nearly 1,000,000 new homes cre- ated, 1,000,000 new purchasers. And even regular users need to be reminded, for the public memory is notoriously short. It is the long, solid campaign that gets the maximum results, and leaves the least chance for a competitor to steal away the trade that has tyefen developed. Advertising thus conducted is an investment, not an expense. Whether money paid out for ad- vertising should be charged on the books to cur- rent expenditure or to an investment account depends largely upon the kind of advertising you do. A well-known public accountant* says: "A person, firm, or company, at the outset of an * Elijah W. Sells, C. P. A., of Haskins and Sells, New York, in an address before the Associated Advertising Clubs of America. 162 undertaking should provide sufficient capital not only for plant and working materials, but for ad- vertising. It is of supreme importance that the merits of that which is to be disposed of should be adequately brought to the attention of the pub- lic. In such a case, the amount so provided and spent might with all propriety be considered as an investment and carried as such in the balance sheet. In any disposition of the business it would have a good-will value depending upon the re- turns of the business. "On the other hand, an old and established business, such, for instance, as a mutual assur- ance association, would not be justified in, or have any reason for, carrying as an investment the expenditures which it might make for adver- tising. As such, it is not an asset which could be realized and distributed. It has no place as good- will value to the association whose business could not be sold. It is not a thing for which new capital could be raised. So it would not be practical to consider it as an investment. "Generally speaking, such advertising as may be done for the purposes of bringing some new business or branch of business, some new or im- proved article or articles to the attention of the public, which has a direct effect in creating or measurably increasing the good-will of a business undertaking, may be considered as an investment 163 in that there has been an appreciable increase in the amount of capital employed. "Such advertising as may be done to maintain a normal distribution or to keep the name and nature of a business before the public or for the purpose of calling attention to special temporary prices of articles, while having some effect upon the good-will of the business, should not require further capital and should be provided for out of its current operations; in other words, should be considered as an expense. "Given the purposes and conditions of the ad- vertising and the general policy of the manage- ment of an undertaking in regard to such expendi- tures, its correct classification as an investment or an expense is not difficult to determine." In other words, upon the attitude which you adopt toward your advertising will very likely depend the attitude of your bankers, or of your accountants in entering advertising on your books. Advertising rightly done builds good-will. Good-will may become a very real asset, which can be bought and sold in the open market. Ad- vertising directed toward the securing of perma- nent good-will is an investment, and not an ex- pense. The manufacturer who enters the field of ad- vertising with his eyes closed to one or more of the possibilities is likely to receive a rude shock. 164 Four-fifths addressed to the dealer, one-fifth to the consumer It may be one kind; it may be another. He may find himself caught with a poor distribution in the face of a tremendous demand. He may not be able to hold up the quality or to turn out the ne- cessary volume. He may overstock his dealers. He may have wrongly proportioned his expendi- tures and not be able to keep his campaign going until he reaches the crest of success. The way to guard against error is to deal with a reputable agent and with conscientious pub- lishers, to investigate thoroughly with their aid every phase of the situation before advertising, and to be continually on the job during the prog- ress of the advertising. X "Reasons" for Not Advertising IF you are not now advertising you believe, of course, that you have a very good reason. Did you ever scrutinize it to see whether it is a real reason? It is the easiest thing in the world to find "rea- sons" for not advertising and thereby deny to yourself the profits which others have secured by the very methods you reject. In almost every unadvertised business there exists at present some condition which makes ad- vertising inadvisable. The question is whether it is worth while to change that condition. Many a manu- facturer is a non-advertiser simply because of failure to investigate properly. Usually he has a privately formed objection which would not stand the test of analysis, but which is potent enough to hold him back from rich rewards. The answer is always investigate. Here, for instance, are a few of the standard "reasons" for not advertising: "Don't dare disturb trade relations. 9 ' " Narrow margin of profit." "Our goods are staple, just like our competitors." "Cant fill our orders now." 167 Take them one by one. Every objection is one that some live manufacturer after proper study of the situation has met and overcome. Adver- tising is too big, too powerful, too natural to be thwarted by minor difficulties. "I don't dare disturb my trade relations." There are two replies. One is, you don't have to. The other is, are you sure your trade relations won't disturb you? In the chapter on " Adver- tising and the Jobber" this has been more fully discussed. Instances were given of ways in which manufacturers have met trade conditions. Advertising need not supplant your present trade relations. It strengthens and broadens them along the very lines that you have found good. It burns no bridges. It builds larger bridges. There is no relation, no condition, no asset in your busi- ness that you value, no source of strength pecul- iar to yourself that advertising, rightly done, w r ill not help you apply to larger ends. And how about the solidity of those trade re- lations? A certain manufacturer said: "I cant advertise. My trade relations are well-nigh per- fect. My goods have been in use over fifty years. The trade knows them and swears by them. That is my most valuable asset. Would it be sane for me to tamper with it?" Not long afterwards a competitor shaded this man's prices an eighth of a cent per foot. Jobbers 168 expressed their good-will in every way except one they didn't love him that extra eighth of a cent. He had to cut his prices accordingly. It hurt. He began to wonder how much this invaluable good- will of his was worth in real money if he couldn't cash it in at an eighth of a cent per foot. Somewhat later another competitor began to worry him. This chap was a newcomer. He wasn't known three years before. The jobbers reiterated the assurances of their consideration but the new man got more and more of their orders. 'That man can't undersell me and live," said the manufacturer, and looked him up. He found he wasn't underselling. He was getting some five- eighths of a cent more per foot. Moreover, he didn't even own his own factory. A small mill was making his goods for him. "We can't help it," said the jobbers. "That man, as you know, has been advertising his goods for two or three years, and he has made a call for them that the retailer has got to meet. A half cent one way or the other doesn't seem to make any dif- ference." The manufacturer went back to his office and wondered again where that perfect asset of his came in. Do not expect your trade relations to continue unaffected in these days of swift change. "My margin of profit is small. I can't afford to advertise." 169 There is a story of an Irish woman who sold apples for one cent, and told the purchaser she paid a cent and a quarter apiece for them. "But how can you afford to do that?" "Oh," said she craftily, "because I sell so many." She had the idea, but she didn't apply it cor- rectly. The salvation of the manufacturer whose margin of profit is small is to get a tremendous volume of sales. That is just what advertising aims to produce. And its cost disappears in the economies which it effects and in the increased aggregate profits. This was discussed more fully in the previous chapter. Of course, if you sold soap at five cents, and it cost you a $1.00 worth of advertising to sell me the first cake, you couldn't afford to advertise if I never bought any more. But you don't adver- tise to sell just cakes of soap. You advertise for customers to put your goods into families who will continue to use them for the rest of their lives, and hand down their use to another generation. Advertising does not concern itself with single sales. Its purpose is to find and to direct into definite channels the great currents of demand.* * A certain advertiser could not see the wisdom of giving a 25-cent booklet to those who answered his advertising of a 50-cent article, which he sold to the jobber for less than 25 cents. He had always regarded his business as one of selling single packages. But that booklet resulted in selling a dozen or two dozen packages at a time, where he had sold only one before. 170 Advertising a staple Another objection " My goods are staple- not essentially different from the same thing made by a dozen manufacturers." There are no con- ditions under which advertising is more urgent or offers a larger opportunity. Your goods are staple; which means that hundreds of thousands of the ninety million con- sumers in the United States are going into the retail stores of the country every day asking for your kind of goods. They are an unadvertised staple, which means that these consumers have no preference for your make or for the make of any of your competitors. They don't know of these different makes. Their minds, so far as any choice is concerned, are in a perfectly even balance. It will take a very slight thing to turn the scale. It is precisely at this point that the richest prizes in modern advertising have been won. You do not need to convince those consumers that your goods are different, or better than all other makes. Get into their minds the name of your goods and the idea that, whatever the merits of other makes, yours are right and you have given them knowledge of one make for which they can ask among a dozen others of which they know nothing. You have put the feather in the scale that turns it decisively to you. 172 "My factory can't fill its orders now. Why should I advertise?" There is no earthly reason if your future is certain. Is it certain? Suppose the growing tendency toward consoli- dation should enter your field, and your market should be disputed by a competitor with resources far greater than your own. Are your goods in such demand that you could hold your trade at a price preference? Or are your profits so large that you could smile at a price war? Suppose any of the cogs of your selling ma- chinery jobbers, wholesalers, retailers should slip and fail you. Are your goods so superior that if they should cease to be found on retail shelves the consumers would rise up and insist on having them? Suppose the price of raw materials should materially change. Suppose bars against foreign goods should be let down. Are you so securely en- trenched that you can scorn the eternal ghost of tariff revision? Suppose a period of trade depression should come. Would it pass you by? Suppose one or more of your competitors, through aggressive advertising, should start an increasing stream of customers into stores all over the country ask- ing for their goods. Would the retailer's and the jobber's attitude toward your goods remain un- changed? Have you any weapon for holding off 173 disaster while adjusting your business to the changed conditions? There are numerous practical illustrations of large advertisers who have continued to adver- tise even after their production is behind the de- mand. One firm in January, 1913, entered upon a $40,000 campaign in spite of the fact that its en- tire product was not only sold for the next twelve months but was optioned so heavily for the 1914 production that there seemed to be no prospect of being able to fill orders for the two years. They argued thus: "It will cost us far less money to keep our hold on the situation in the condition we are in today than if we waited until compe- tition forces us to do it. It is a great deal cheaper, easier and surer to put forced draught back of a proposition when it is on the rise, than when most of the energy is being consumed in a strug- gle to get enough business to keep busy." An illuminating comment upon this point as well as upon the question of advertising in the face of financial depression is found in the follow- ing statement by the advertising manager of a very large concern : " During the financial scare of 1907 I sat around a table with our executive board and advertising agents, discussing ways and means of meeting an emergency that threat- ened the serious curtailment in the sales of many 174 established lines of merchandise. Upon the sug- gestion of one of these men $287,000 was added to the regular appropriation for advertising with- out so much as a single dissenting voice. And they were right, as was proven when the com- pany held its sales through these panicky times up to factory capacity, and went into 1908 facing a demand for our goods that necessitated further factory extensions. "In the face of a demand that we have never been able to cope with during the last seven years I have seen $60,000 a year added for a full-page advertisement every month in The Ladies' Home Journal. "When it was suggested that double pages and back covers be used in America's greatest publi- cation, The Saturday Evening Post, it was only necessary to lay the developed plan before them to receive authority to buy all double-page spreads we could obtain. " When we asked for an additional appropria- tion of $150,000 to pay for all we could secure, we were not only given the sum, but were told to keep a sharp lookout for any more double spreads that could be secured. " Mind you, all these big appropriations have been made in the face of an enormous demand for our goods, that grows bigger and bigger every day, and no matter how rapidly our factory ex- 175 tensions are completed we are never able to catch up with the orders always ahead of us." There are other standard fallacies about adver- tising, such as: "7 can't brand my goods." "We don't sell direct to our trade." "Our goods are seasonal." Nearly every manufacturer thinks his own business is peculiar and has some highly indi- vidual "reason" for not advertising. The thing for him to do is to submit his prob- lem to a reputable agent or publisher. The harder the nut the happier the advertising man will be in trying to crack it. And if it can't be done, if there is actually a cogent, valid reason against advertising if he is a reputable agent or a repu- table publisher he will tell the manufacturer so. The stakes which agents and publishers hold are too high to be risked by inducing manufacturers to advertise on insufficient evidence. It is never safe to advertise without first inves- tigating. It is never wise to decide not to advertise with- out first investigating. Your "reason" may be only an excuse, and you the real loser. XI Getting the Facts at First Hand TTT has been stated that no manufacturer should advertise without first investigating. JL It is just as true that no publication should inaugurate the advertising of a manufacturer without first investigating. Before advising a firm to spend its money the publisher's representatives or the agents should themselves know the condi- tions in the industry, the markets, and what re- sults any given publication may be expected to bring. The days of advertising gambling have gone for- ever. While the degree of success can never be ac- curately forecasted, still advertising has so far approached an exact science that one need never should never advocate it without a precise study of conditions. This is more keenly realized perhaps by the publications themselves than by the manufacturers. Reputable publishers of long standing, who have stood by and seen campaigns fail and manufacturers deterred from advertising by the example of these failures, know how strongly it is for their own interest to accept only advertising which is reasonably sure to succeed. Thus future increase in patronage is insured. 177 CENTRAL WEST AND SOUTH PACIFIC COAST AND MOUNTAIN STATES 28.5% COSTS OF DOING RETAIL BUSINESS intJuJing corporation salaries and freight, in cities Jram lofloo to 200,000 population. fC/iart front report on "Textilesr iy Curtis Oommerciaf Research Division) % HH CO J I ( ^ e PS o fc I 8 * 65 CO ^ 65 8 $ a 8 65 65 65 65 65 1 t t t >^O v^O >^O .Q G\ O^ S^ ^X 1C CO -H 00 ^ ^ ^ CO ^ ^^ two and OJie-half txar.s ^nfl $2500 to |S r OOO net profits besides salary is j^&rer the aver^^e. A characteristic page from the report on textiles by the Curtis Commercial Research Division sions, however, are available, under proper con- ditions, for clients, and it is regularly used in the laying out of advertising and selling campaigns for textile manufacturers, as well as for others who sell through similar channels. Accompanied as it is by scores of graphic illustrations and by pertinent statistics, it stands as the most elabo- rate and useful treatise existent on textile selling conditions, and, as has already been said, on the selling conditions of many other types of goods sold in department stores. Less extensive, but equally typical of the work of this department, is a report made upon the agricultural implement industry. This was com- piled in the interests of manufacturers who might wish to advertise in The Country Gentleman. Nowadays, practically every operation on the average farm can be performed by machinery, and the rapid progress of invention is continually increasing the importance of the implement in- dustry. By the same evolution selling conditions are being changed. The industry, therefore, offered a particularly interesting and profitable field for investigation. Four months were devoted to the preparation of this report, which is based upon the results of 200 interviews, and upon much research. It includes a study of the consoli- dation and concentration of the manufacture of farm implements, of the passing of the jobber in 190 this field, of local tendencies, the importance of the dealer, and of export trade. The department has also occasionally made private investigations for individual manufac- turers who have desired information which they were not equipped to obtain for themselves. Fortified as to the future with expert service and as to the past with years of experience, and imbued with a sense of deep responsibility for the success of the advertisers who use his pub- lications, the publisher who is doing such work as this is daily mastering more firmly the funda- mental facts and the tendencies which bear upon advertising as the solution of the problems of his clients. A new note in mail-order advertising XII The Future of Advertising IT would be interesting and easy, but entirely futile, to make sweeping predictions about the future of advertising. Men hardly have the temerity to speculate upon the future of the law of gravity, or of the fourth dimension. The law upon which advertis- ing rests is, no less than these, immutable, and its effect, for good or bad, is largely dependent upon the degree to which men understand it and the uses to which they turn their knowledge of it. The future of advertising is inseparably inter- woven with the whole future of commerce and in- dustry. Any prophecy would have to take into account the probable development of our whole national life. But there are many tendencies, al- ready observable, which seem to indicate impor- tant progress, and which are likely to influence profoundly the business of the next few decades. First and foremost, the ethical standard, which has been raised so notably during the past few years, is bound to go higher and higher. Probably no business or profession ever did so much in so short a time to wipe out the stigma of the inex- pertness and charlatanism which characterized 193 its early history. Today the honest and the expert are dominant. Tomorrow they will be predomi- nant. And it is a fairly sure prediction that in the not distant future advertising will offer far less foothold to the incompetent and the faker than even law or medicine or other far more strictly regulated professions. It must be so. For the advertising world is strongly interdependent. In some degree the success of every advertising medium affects the success of every other, because the success of all is founded upon the implicit confidence of the public. The more the people of any small com- munity can trust the advertising in their local newspaper, for example, the more will they trust advertising in the national publications which they read. And vice versa. The outlook is very hopeful. Most easily observ- able are the efforts of the greatest national pub- lications. These publications are selling advertising space for what it is worth, or less, at an estab- lished rate per line, which is never cut, never de- viated from, based absolutely on a certain rate per thousand of circulation. They are excluding the untrustworthy, helping the trustworthy, in- vestigating scientifically the merchandizing con- ditions in many lines of industry, conscientiously declining to accept advertising which does not seem likely to succeed, and striving in every way 194 to multiply the success of that which they do accept. Quite as significant, though less obvious, is the activity with which the hordes of petty advertis- ing schemes are being lopped off. Business men in many cities, through their boards of trade, are in organized revolt against fake directories, worth- less special editions, "programs" issued by mis- guided social organizations, and the " advertising" whose only purpose is to sugar-coat the pill of blackmail, or to disgorge a contribution for some doubtful " charity." Experience with some of these misuses has soured a great many sensible men on advertising in toto. Between the two extremes of big advertising and little advertising lies a wide range, through all of which is clearly evident a wholesome spirit of unrest. Newspapers are rebelling against the free read- ing-notice, bill-posting associations are pointing to a higher standard of art, printers are study- ing to make booklets and circular matter more effective, advertising men are forming vigilance associations to prosecute frauds, legislatures are passing restrictive laws. All of these movements mean progress, and rapid progress, toward the end that advertising shall be employed only when it ought to be employed and only in the strongest and most effective manner. 195 This will mean the saving of millions of dollars now spent for so-called "advertising." But there seems no likelihood that the aggregate of advertising expenditures will ever be less. It will be much more. For a proper increase of adver- tising through legitimate channels will be the re- sult of the reduction of this waste in improper directions. In local newspaper advertising, in honest trade-paper publicity, and in correct na- tional advertising, with their attendant follow- up, we may expect to see the totals mount and mount as present advertisers gain more strength and as new advertisers enter the field. The new advertisers, unquestionably, will rep- resent many important commodities which are not today extensively advertised. There are great groups of staples and necessi- ties the distribution of which is in the hands of conservative, old-line firms who have not yet dis- cerned that advertising is their most economical means of creating and holding demand from the consumer. This is particularly true of the enor- mous classification of textiles, discussed in the previous chapter. Some commodities are, as a whole, awaiting the development of speedier and cheaper transporta- tion, or the working out of other economical meth- ods of national distribution, before they can be heavily advertised in national periodicals. Perish- 196 u For the Public Service" Where Do the Earnings of the Railroad Go? ggjp.-:I This big slice of every dollar earned by the New ''^*'^| ^ OT k ( ' entra l Lines goes to support the families v^v **J of 138,565 men directly employed in operating the system. This piece, almost as large, goes to pay the hills for supplies, most of which in turn goes for labor, and represents the support of the families of perhaps 75,000 more wage earners. This piece goes to pay State, City and County taxes and rents. djjjij^^^ This piece goes to pay interest and dividends to %K$jjjjijii& the people who have invested in the property. The credit of a railroad is largely affected by the attitude of the public toward it. Do not these great activities justify reasonable consideration when rates or laws arc proposed affecting o closely the prosperity of so lar^e n proportion of the people? , NEVYYORlC CENTRAL *' LINES . J "For th PuWk Service 1 Stating the case of the corporation frankly and interestingly able products, like certain fruits, dairy products and vegetables, obviously cannot be shipped long distances. National advertising would create a demand covering a wider territory than could be reached, and too much of the advertising would therefore go to waste. Heavy articles, like stoves, refrigerators, large pieces of furniture, brick, lum- ber, and other goods which carry high freight charges, still have a somewhat limited circle of economical distribution. A few manufacturers have already solved these problems, by such meth- ods as establishing branch distributing points; more can solve them if they will seek expert ad- vice, and eventually many of these articles will be strong advertising possibilities. There are many products which will be more widely advertised when the consumer has been a little better educated. Building materials, for ex- ample, are still a good deal of a mystery to the layman. Already varnish, roofing, cement, hard- ware, wall-boards, some kinds of lumber, are be- ing made known by name to the consumer. As the owners of houses and business buildings become better informed about the importance of knowing the respective merits of the things that enter into construction, the manufacturers will respond. In this field, however, as in many others, the manu- facturers themselves can successfully take the in- itiative in the education of the buying public. 198 One of the most interesting possibilities of ad- vertising is in connection with the great corpora- tions. There are already evidences of the response which the public is ready to make to the right sort of corporation advertising. The results of the work of Theodore N. Vail in merchandising the telephone are there for all to see. Mr. Vail, years ago, went directly to the people through paid-for advertising space. He has showed the uses of the telephone. He has demonstrated its economy, justified the rates. He has explained how it works, what the difficulties are, asked for consideration, solicited criticism, declared his intention of giving service and has made good. The advertising has been skillful. But it has been backed up by actual delivery of the goods. As a result the telephone has attained a marvel- ously rapid development, and with a minimum of friction. How much agitation do we hear di- rected against the telephone company, or how much difficulty does it have with legislatures? This is one of the most striking instances of the creation of consumer good-will that has ever been seen. There are others, of course. The New York Central Lines have done much in the territory which they cover. The Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company, by frank advertising, telling why there was real necessity for greater revenue, 199 accomplished an unheard-of feat. It increased the rate of fare between New Jersey and uptown New York from five cents to seven cents without arousing a single murmur of disapproval. Advertising may prove to be the Hercules to clean out the Augean stables of politics and flush out the lobbyists, press agents and cor- rupters of public officials. It seems quite likely that advertising is destined to be the means of bringing about that era of good feeling which must come before the business of the nation will possess the confidence of the farmer and of the classes which live by wage and salary. If advertising is allowed to accomplish this it will do so by two methods: (1) By familiarizing the public with the methods and the products of great corporations. (2) By bringing about a wider distribution, in smaller blocks, of corporation securities. This done, the corporations will have no incen- tive to seek for inequitable laws or franchises, and no need to struggle for those which are desir- able. Right measures will pass by their own weight because the public will be behind them. Wrong measures will fall of their own weight, be- cause the public will be against them. In fact, another and a very far-reaching effect of advertising will be that it will obligate the cor- 200 ffl Courtesy Between Telephone Users WOULD you rush into an office or up to the door of a residence and blurt out "Hello! Hello! Who am I talking to?" and then, when you received a reply, follow up your wild, discourteous salutation with "I don't want you; get out of my way. 1 want to talk with Mr. Jones." Would you? That is merely a sample of the impolite and impatient conversations that the telephone transmits many times a day. There is a most agreeable mode of beginning a telephone conversation which many people are now adopting, because it saves useless words and is, at the same time* courteous and direct. It runs thus : The telephone bell rings, and the person answering it says : " Morton &. Company, Mr. Baker speaking." The person calling then says: " Mr. Wood, of Curis Sons, wi&hes to talk with Mr. White/' When Mr. White picks up the receiver, he knows Mr. Wood undignified " Hello's." he at once greets him with the refreshingly courteous salutation: "Good morning, Mr. Wood." That savors of the genial handshake that Mr. Wood would have received had he called in person upon Mr, White. Undoubtedly there would be a far higher degree of telephone courtesy particularly in the way of reasonable consideration for the operators, if the " face-to4ace " idea were more generally held in rnind. The fact that a line of wire and two shining instruments separate you from the person with whom you are talking, takes none of the sting out of unkind words. Telephone courtesy means answering the telephone as quickly as possible when the bell rings not keeping the " caller " waiting until one gets good and ready to answer. Telephone courtesy, on party lines, means being polite when someone else unintentionally breaks in not snapping, "Get off the line; I'm using it." In a word, it is obviously true that that which is the correct thing to do in a face-to-face conversation, is also correct in a telephone conversation, and anyone has but to apply the rules of courtesy, prescribed long yc;trs before the telephone was first thought of, to know the proper manners for telephone usage. Be forbearing, considerate and courteous. Do over the telephone as you would do face to face. Frank advertising has much to do with the favorable attitude of the public toward the telephone companies porations to live up to their publicity. They will not dare to propose wrong measures, to do any- thing which is not thoroughly open and above- board. For, once they have gone before the public with their case, their every act, every policy will stand forth in the full glare of popular sophistica- tion. The advertising will have to be sincere, and promise will have to be matched with perform- ance. Otherwise, it will fail, as, indeed, similar attempts have already failed. The publications are not suppliants for corpora- tion advertising as it is known today. Most great corporations have tried advertising, or think they have. But many of them have done so in a mysterious, roundabout way which has brought them no tangible good-will. Others, be- cause they have failed to perform what they promised, have been forced to return to less open tactics. Most publications want no corporation advertising unless it is straightforward, and un- less performance is guaranteed. They say to the corporations: "First set your house in order. Discharge your press agents, your lobbyists, your army of so-called counsel. Substitute for them a publicity organization that knows how to tell the public what you have to sell, why it is worthy of patronage, why it costs what it costs. You cannot carry water on both shoulders. Until you will do business that way your advertising 202 will not succeed, and until then we do not care to print your advertising." The same reasoning and the same limitations apply to the distribution of corporation securi- ties. There could be no more potent influence for creating in the minds of the people a desire to understand and cooperate with the corporations, or for imposing upon executives and directors a deeper sense of responsibility, than the holding of corporation stocks by a very large number of small investors all over the country. This rests with the great financial houses and bankers. The past few years have seen a great deal of public education on the subject of securities. The get-rich-quick men have been widely exposed and the people are becoming exceedingly wary. But they still have money to invest. The downfall of the faker offers a magnificent opportunity for the sale of honest securities. But Wall Street has not grasped the opportunity. It has not come forward, dis- played its legitimate wares, and told the public just what they represent. When Wall Street de- cides that it wants a wider distribution of secur- ities, when it decides that its business would be sounder if its foundations were spread wider, then perhaps it will be ready to advertise. Again, however, this advertising will be sub- ject to scrutiny by the publications which can- not risk the loss of the public confidence which 203 they now enjoy. If that advertising measures up to the same standards to which other modern ad- vertising is held it will be published not other- wise. And when it is published, and the public and the corporations are thus brought nearer to- gether, then perhaps we shall hear less talk of a "money trust," and less talk of "corrupt big business." In this way, as in many others, it appears that advertising in the future may be of great general benefit in making the life of the nation more ra- tional. For advertising is the great leveler. Faults, crookedness, inefficiency it exposes. Merits, honesty, efficiency it brings to light. It rules by the survival of the fittest. PART TWO PREFATORY NOTE THE previous chapters of this volume have been intended to discuss the broad basis upon which advertising, and more particu- larly national periodical advertising, rests. The endeavor has been to avoid specific reference to any particular publications, except where such reference has been important in the illustration of general principles. In the following pages more particular atten- tion is devoted to the Curtis publications, as ex- emplifying in various ways the methods already recommended. This latter portion of the book contains much that is quite as broad and quite as vital to a thorough understanding of modern ad- vertising as the earlier chapters, because the Curtis publications are recognized exponents of modern advertising. I Ten Million Dollars a Year AUGNIFICANT tendency in modern na- tional advertising is concentration. While the volume of expenditures for advertising is constantly growing, the number of mediums is not increasing in proportion. Those publications which have proved their mettle through bringing results are by a natural process becoming the main reliance of more and more manufacturers. More than one-third of the money spent for national advertising in the fifty-three leading publications of the country in 1912 was concen- trated in just two mediums. For the purpose of talking to the readers of these two publications the manufacturers of the United States in one year invested nearly $10,000,000. To comprehend fully present-day advertising one should know something about the growth which these two mediums have had during the past seven or eight years, the influence which they have exercised upon the course of modern publicity, and the policies of the company which is responsible for them. The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post constitute what has come to be 209 called the "Curtis Circulation," (now supple- mented by other strong publications, to be dis- cussed later.) The largest and most astute advertisers, those having far-flung sales lines, realize the potentiali- ties of the Curtis Circulation for them. Nation- wide manufacturing concerns in one year spend from $50,000 to $150,000 each in the columns of these two publications. The leading specialty mail-order houses, with their intimate touch on sales methods and their facilities for scientific analysis, find it worth while to spend many thous- ands of dollars for space. The small manufac- turer, on the other hand, spends his relatively small appropriation in these same columns, and if his advertising is intelligently done and skill- fully followed up he, too, secures substantially profitable results. And yet, when all is said and done, that which most deserves remark is not the results obtained. It is rather the means the Curtis Circulation itself, given which, the results must follow as surely as the tide follows the moon. Spread out in an intricate network the Curtis lines of communication cover the entire country. Wherever people gather together in towns and cities The Ladies' Home Journal and The Sat- urday Evening Post stand forth on every news- stand, and the "Post boys," with their neat can- 210 vas bags, dot the streets. In the back country, the tank towns, even on the edge of the frontier, rural free delivery carries the messages of hun- dreds of manufacturers. They climb mountains, pierce forests and sail seas. In most localities the Curtis Circulation com- pares favorably with that of the leading news- paper. One million seven hundred and fifty thou- sand persons buy the Journal. Two million persons buy the Post. This makes a total of considerably more than three million buyers of these two pub- lications, excluding duplication. This is the larg- est group of consumers in the world that may be influenced through a common channel. The total population of the United States com- prises 18,890,000 families. One in six of all the families in the country buys one or the other of these two publications. The reason for their influence, however, lies deeper than that. It is in the selective character of the circulation. Automatically, by their very na- ture, they pick out the kind of families that manufacturers of good goods want to reach. Of all the families in the United States one- fifth cannot or do not read English. Excluding these at the outset there are 15,112,000 families. Another fifth have incomes that allow of only bare necessities. These too are obviously excluded from the purchase of high-class publications. 212 There remain something over 12,000,000 families that are relatively intelligent and prosperous. One in every four of these households is entered by a Curtis publication. Each week there is being consumed in the United States: Food Supplies $126,000,000 Clothing (men's) 13,200,000 Clothing (women s) 10,000,000 Clothing (children s) 18,700,000 Shoes 10,000,000 Furniture 10,000,000 Books and Papers 3,200,000 Out of this partial budget of the nation no less than $30,000,000 worth of staples and luxuries is consumed weekly by the families who buy these two publications. This select army of buyers will ask for the goods they know, if those goods are worthy of the demand. And manufacturers know it have proved it. In a single year manufacturers have invested in advertising in The Saturday Evening Post ap- proximately the following sums: For Automobiles and Accessories . . .$1,722,688 For Building Materials 213,706 For Food Products 857,962 For Machinery and Motors 103,^50 For Shoes 130,000 213 For Office Furniture and Supplies. . $433,575 For Men's Clothing 897,875 For Tools 114,600 And in The Ladies' Home Journal approxi- mately the following: For China, Glass and Silverware . . . . $ 84,500 For Dressmaking Accessories 48,900 For Food Products 1,082,481 For Hosiery 64,500 For Jewelry 62,125 For Musical Instruments 105,854 For Rugs, Furniture and Decorations 47,075 For Textiles 119,425 If advertisers of such commodities merely dashed into the Journal and the Post only to disappear and be replaced by others it might be said that they were experimenting, or that excep- tionally good salesmanship was being displayed by the publishers. But the skyrocket advertisers are the exception. Year after year the same firms continue to advertise, continue to increase their space, continue to select the Curtis publications. This confidence must be based upon results. Results may be attributed to one or both of two factors quantity of circulation and quality of circulation. In most cases it is due to both; in some chiefly to quantity, in others to quality. There are notable examples of success in each case. 214 In the United States there are 228 leading trad- ing centers, each of them a city of 25,000 or more inhabitants. The total population of all these cen- ters is 28,763,000, or 31 per cent, of the entire population. From these commercial nuclei radiate our railroads, street railways, steamship lines, and the pack trains of the hinterland. Take the cases of two firms A, soapmaker, who has 146,000 selling outposts, and B, piano- players, who has less than 250. Each has a mag- nificent distribution for his particular product- A's soap at five cents a cake has frequent sales. Every one sells it even the little sawmill store in Minnesota and the emergency store on the rim of the great city. When A uses The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post it is quantity that bulks large in his estimate of their value. He wants all those readers to like his soap. That they are earnest and affluent readers is a supplemen- tary advantage. Even relatively poor readers would buy a five-cent bar of soap. The purchase of a piano-player from B, how- ever, involves a far greater investment, is of far greater importance, and in any home occurs only once. To buy any such article for the home or for business an automobile, a piano, an electric crane, a filing system, or a motor truck, the pur- chaser thinks long, and then goes on the inter- 215 urban to Indianapolis, Rochester or Boston to buy. B must depend absolutely upon creating con- fidence. He knows that the purchase of his goods is a matter of moment with any one, and that any one will be glad, if he wants a piano-player, to ride for an hour or two to consummate the pur- chase from a dealer in one of the 228 trading cen- ters. The message must be carried to consumers in such a way that they will feel instinctively its integrity and know that it is worth while for them to make this journey for the purchase. And it must be addressed so far as possible only to those people among whom may be found possible purchasers of a piano-player. In other words, the quality of circulation is the factor which impels B to advertise in the Curtis publications, even though he knows that many thousands of the readers will not, could not by any chance be ex- pected to purchase what he has to sell. Quality of circulation for advertising purposes depends upon several conditions : (1) The appeal of the editorial matter. (2) The manner in which the publication is sold. (S) The standard to which the advertisements are held. The appeal of the Curtis publications is to the intelligent, the earnest and the progressive. The 216 Typical illustrations from the lively circulation literature sent out by the Curtis Company (Drawn by F. G. Cooper) Ladies' Home Journal has from the first been de- signed for the home loving. The Saturday Even- ing Post has from the first been designed for the men and women who desire a wholesome, sane and entertaining treatment of modern life in fic- tion and in fact. The contents, the illustrations, art work and printing of both publications are of high grade. Thus are assured not only the close and sympathetic attention of the reader, but also a solid permanency of interest which keeps each copy on the library table long after it first enters the home. This esteem for the publication extends to the advertising, and this length of life keeps the advertisements at work. Frequently cases oc- cur of replies to advertisements printed a year or more earlier. The interest of the readers, founded thus upon what is in the publication, is further assured by the Curtis method of obtaining circulation. No premiums, no bonuses, no clubbing arrangements are offered. Circulation is never given away by any method whatsoever. The advertiser is able to feel assured that every one who buys a Curtis publication buys it because he wants the publi- cation itself. We value what we pay for. We re- gard casually that which comes easily. If we buy a periodical because with it we are given an article of household use, a book, or even some other magazine, our interest is divided. There is always 218 s. s> f strong doubt whether the periodical or the per- quisite had most to do with our purchase. Six million dollars a year is paid by the men and women of this country simply to read the Curtis publications. They have no other inducement than their interest in the periodicals themselves. The system of distribution is a peculiarly strong factor in determining the value of the Curtis cir- culation. In addition to the usual channels, such as sub- scriptions and newstands, the publications go out through thousands of boys, who sell them on the street, in office buildings and by house-to-house canvass usually to regular weekly or monthly customers. In each locality, this distribution is in exclusive charge of a district agent. The pub- lisher deals directly with him, not with the boys, and he is responsible for the sales in his district, Stability and continuity of circulation are as- sured by this district agency system. Each agent, when employed, files a cash bond, placing him under contract to maintain the price, not to sell copies before the day of issue, and to observe other regulations. But this bond is not solely a guarantee of good behavior. Its important feature is that it safe- guards against a sudden decision on the part of the agent to withdraw, leaving his territory de- moralized until a new one is secured. 220 Even in times of stress, the Curtis circulation moves on an even keel. At the time of the flood, for example, The Saturday Evening Post was read in Dayton almost as universally as ever, even where newspapers were not to be obtained, through quick action by district agents who were right on the spot. In Chicago not long ago the police department suddenly decided to enforce an old ordinance forbidding the sale of magazines or weeklies on the city newstands. The Saturday Evening Post that week had 95 per cent, of its normal circulation in the city of Chicago. This organization is not, as some may have supposed, an engine for "forcing" circulation be- yond a point of value. " Forcing " the circula- tion of publications which are never sold for less than the standard price, and never sold with pre- miums, is impossible. People will not continue to buy a full-price publication for any reason ex- cept that they want to read it. The district agency system, by which each agent is closely bound to the parent organization and knows how many copies he is expected to sell, thus becomes of importance to advertisers. It gives a steadily maintained circulation in each community, without fluctuation; and evenly distributed over the nation in almost direct pro- portion to the distribution and character of population. 221 The influence of the standard of advertising upon the character of circulation may not be so readily apparent as the influence of distribution methods. It is nevertheless strong and may be verified out of one's own experience. In these days when the advertising rivals the editorial matter for attention the good will of a reader may be endangered quite as much by deceitful or flamboyant advertising as by misinformation or "yellowness" in the editorial pages. The confidence of readers in the Curtis publications is due almost as much to the careful editing (censorship) of the advertisements as to the care- * f ul editorship of the reading matter. The censorship policy of this company has al- ready been touched upon. The first embargo was upon fraudulent and semi-fraudulent patent medicine advertising, and at about the same time all advertising which might be construed as morally harmful was excluded. Next were de- barred the purveyors of doubtful real estate and get-rich-quick investments. With this went also all advertising which, although the product might itself be worthy, was willfully so written as to deceive. By a natural sequence this led to the elimination of statements which, while techni- cally true, might be construed as exaggerated, or misleading, or as attacking unduly some com- petitor. 222 u X te- Every step was one of progress, because every step tended toward strengthening public faith in the integrity of advertising. The foundation upon which the censorship policy of the Curtis Publishing Company has been built was one not primarily of ethics al- though the honest desire to protect readers for their own sakes had much to do with it but largely one of business expediency. Only by re- taining unbroken the faith of its readers can a publication assure permanently to its advertisers serious attention for their announcements. Only by insisting that each advertiser shall do his part to make his own advertising trustworthy, and obviously trustworthy, can the faith of readers in all advertising be continued and strengthened. The whole thing runs in a circle. The success of each advertiser means more prosperity for the publication. Greater prosperity for the publica- tion means a better publication for the readers, and, therefore, an increased circulation. An in- creased circulation, founded on confidence, means greater success for every advertiser. The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post represent the best-known activities of The Curtis Publishing Company, and the ones which are most informing to the student of advertising. But it now has other publications, to which it is devoting the same energies and 224 policies which have resulted in its previous suc- cesses. The Country Gentleman, the oldest agricul- tural journal in the world, was purchased by the Curtis Company in June, 1911. The circulation, which at that time was less than thirty thousand, has already been increased to more than two hundred and fifty thousand, and is rapidly grow- ing. This is less than six per cent, of the total cir- culation of the greater publications. But even with this relatively smaller clientele The Country Gentleman has become a leader in the farm-paper field. It has the largest circulation of all agricul- tural publications with a subscription price of $1.00 or more per year. Conducted absolutely in accordance with the policies which have made the successes of the other Curtis publications, it has already brought results which have rapidly placed it in the forefront of its class. In July, 1912, the control of The Home Pattern Company was purchased by The Curtis Publish- ing Company, bringing with it two pattern peri- odicals in which advertising was being carried. These publications are being continued, but with- out advertising. In August, 1913, The Home Pattern Company purchased Toilettes, a New York publication with a record of twenty -four years in the field of fashion. This is being issued by The Home Pattern Company in a new dress, 225 and under the new name of The Criterion of Fashion, the first issue being October, 1913. This publication, which will appear monthly and will sell for five cents, will carry advertising, its advertising columns being under the direction of the Curtis advertising department. The Criterion of Fashion is planned to fill a need which is felt by most women, and which no other publication attempts to fill. Its purpose is to give the average woman with the average taste and average means, all that is interesting and all that is helpful on the dominating feminine sub- ject dress. There have long been periodicals for the wealthy woman with a liking for extreme styles and plenty of money to spend on them. There have been practical publications for the professional modiste and milliner. There have been publications which gave large attention to dress, but which aimed to cover all the interests of the woman as well, and to print fiction and feature articles. None of these have provided the average woman who is an amateur with all she wants to know about dress, undiluted by other reading matter. This The Criterion of Fashion will do. It is primarily designed to be helpful, so help- ful as to be indispensable in the boudoir or the sewing room just as the cook-book is indispensa- ble in the kitchen. It will show the new styles, the 226 news of the world of fashion, but above all, how to sew, what to sew, how to take care of clothes, how to take out spots, mend, darn, crochet, fix over, fit up the sewing corner, fasten the veil, dress the baby, trim her dolls. Its helpfulness is what will make it interesting, for every woman is passionately and constantly devoted to studying, thinking and talking about dress and all that goes with it. It will show some of the best of the new Ladies' Home Journal pat- terns each month, and in this way will be directly linked with the pattern distribution. It will, therefore, find its chief sales outlet over the counters of the 5,000 dry goods and depart- ment stores which sell Ladies' Home Journal dress and embroidery patterns. Selling it at a profit to their own customers and usually to possible pur- chasers of patterns and dress materials, these merchants will logically find it to their interest to cooperate with such a publication and with its advertisers. The Curtis advertising organization is a well- rounded one. The Ladies' Home Journal and The Criterion of Fashion appeal directly to women, the one supplementing the other. The Saturday Evening Post, while its appeal is general, is also the leading publication of the times for reaching business men. The Country Gentleman appeals to the farmers. This is a group which, when 227 strengthened by the continued enlargement of the circulation of The Country Gentleman, will render a complete advertising service to the man- ufacturers of the United States, reaching with an almost unbelievable degree of efficiency every leading type of available consumer. Two of the publications are already recognized as the greatest consumer-reaching forces in the country one for women as a whole, the other for men as a whole, while both have an interest for the entire family. A third appeals directly to the greatest single clas- sification of our population the farmers the ultimate source of national prosperity. And the fourth has peculiar qualifications for reaching, in addition to women, many thousand important re- tail dealers. No manufacturer who desires a national dis- tribution can afford to overlook the opportunity offered to him today by this consistent group of publications. II Advertising to Women A I impossible tale is told of a woman who entered the postoffice and asked, "Do you keep stamps?" The clerk produced the familiar large sheet of 100. She reached for the whole sheet, scanned it critically, and, placing her finger on one stamp near the center, said sweetly, "I'll take this one." The trait of fine discrimination in merchandise thus satirized accounts for the early and continu- ous success of advertising which is directed to women. In her diligent search for the best values woman places much of her reliance upon advertising, pro- vided that the advertising is backed up by assur- ance of reliability. Woman is charged with the duty of spending 90 per cent, of the family income, and vexed with many problems incident thereto. She must make a house a home. She buys the groceries, the toys, the carpets, the bedding the piano and the coal- hod. It is she that is interested in the stove,* the wall decorations, the wash-tubs. Every consider- ation from necessity to luxury is almost entirely her problem. 229 She it is, in many a family, who guides the man in even the selection of his own clothing his hat, his suit, his overcoat and it is usually she herself who sallies forth and lays in a stock of underwear, hosiery and such other garments concerning which he, careless creature, is liable to procrastinate. The home is her factory. There raw materials are being converted into finished products, flour into pastry, cloth into clothes. There she com- petes with other men's wives in the dressing of her children, in the dainties on her table, in the tasty arrangement of living-room. And she reads her own trade journal, in which she studies the market for the purchase of her raw materials, and learns the alchemy of her cooking. This journal becomes her clearing-house, where she exchanges ideas with other women. From it she learns to buy what they buy, to provide what they provide. For twenty -nine years The Ladies' Home Jour- nal has been the buying guide of millions of women, and upon the information in its adver- tising columns, as well as upon the information and entertainment in its editorial pages, it has built a notable reputation. "The Journal," a well-known New York pub- lisher has said, "is not a publication, it is an in- stitution." In 1883 Cyrus H. K. Curtis was publishing a rural weekly called the Tribune-Farmer, which 230 f The Journal at the Coliseum in Rome had 48,000 subscribers. There was a clearly recog- nizable demand for a department in this paper especially for women. And so he started one. It sprang into immediate popularity, and soon be- gan to overshadow the rest of the paper. It was then determined to launch it as a separate publi- cation, appearing monthly. The first year its cir- culation was 25,000. Three years later it was 400,000. Mr. Curtis discerned here an opportu- nity for untold development; he sold the Tribune- Farmer and began to build up The Ladies' Home Journal as we know it today. The policy, adopted then, which has given the Journal its powerful, far-reaching influence, can best be outlined in the words of Edward Bok, who has been its editor since October, 1889. Mr. Bok said several years ago: "I have edited the magazine with one woman in view. I have never met her, but a year or two after I became editor Mr. Curtis and I made a tour of the smaller cities to study the needs of the American people. In one city I saw a woman who seemed to me, by her dress, manner, and in every way, to be typical of the best American womanhood. I saw her at church and at a concert, with her husband and children. I passed her house and saw about it the same air of typical 'homeness' and refinement I had noted in her. 'That woman,' I said to myself, 'is the woman I shall have in view in editing the 232 a magazine.' A few years later I received a letter from her telling me how the magazine had helped her in her home and with her family." Thus deliberately directed to a certain type of woman and a certain kind of home the Journal naturally enough does not appeal to every woman or to every home. To some its appeal is only slight and of little moment. To the illiterate, the slovenly, the shiftless, the improvident, its pur- chase is not warranted. To the cliff-dweller of New York living in apartments de luxe, thinking in terms of tiaras, English lords and Monte Car- los, The Ladies' Home Journal is negligible. The extreme fashions of the swagger set, the shops of the elite, the box in the horse-shoe, contribute an environment to which it is alien. Thus are automatically excluded those who can't read, those who won't read, those who can't afford to read and those who do not love a home. To amuse, instruct, comfort and inspire the woman whose constant thought is to make a real home for her husband and children, that is the mission and the accomplishment of The Ladies' Home Journal. The final tests of a magazine's excuse for exist- ence are the confidence which its readers accord it, and the confidences they bring to it. The anx- ious questions which come quietly in each day's mail, and never see the light of the printed page; 234 from women seeking advice, help, knowledge, comfort, information and lonely women seeking an intimate touch with something outside them- selves. In the first six months of 1913 The Ladies' Home Journal received nearly a quarter of a mil- lion such letters. It answered them, each one not briefly and publicly through its open columns, but fully, conscientiously, confidentially, through the mails. Twenty-two editors, each an expert in his or her chosen field, stand at the bidding of its read- ers. There are departments of millinery and of music, of babies and of building, for the girl who wants to make money, for the woman who wants to make her housekeeping efficient and many others. There can be no more striking example of the woman's faith in an institution than her appeal to it for help with her child. Thousands of babies are fed, bathed and cared for under directions given by a woman-physician attached to one of the most prominent children's hospitals in New York, commissioned by The Ladies' Home Journal to take care of its questions from young mothers. The progress of these babies is painstakingly charted by the physician, and in- dividual reports with full instructions are sent to the mothers each month by her, covering all ques- 235 tions, except medical prescriptions, concerning their babies, from the temperature of the rooms in which they sleep to the most intricate prob- lems of their feeding, their physical care and their clothes. Twenty-five thousand homes have been built in the United States by plans obtained from The Ladies' Home Journal. A prize offer brought more than 8000 sets of photographs showing both the exterior and interior of such homes. Eighty per cent, of them were built within the Journal esti- mates. One whole residential section of a Southern city was built so largely from these plans that it is known as "Ladies' Home Journal ville." When the president of a civic organization was addressing Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, on a national question in Washington he said : "In my capacity as an editor of The Ladies' Home Journal I feel that I am also representing the women of America." "I believe it," answered Mr. Taft. "Because of your recent article in The Ladies' Home Journal we have been flooded with thousands of letters from all over the country. Almost all the women I know, including even my mother and my wife, have written to me." Such strength as this breeds more strength. Because of its position, its wide circulation and the interest with which it is read the best authors 236 and artists are glad to place their best work at the command of The Ladies' Home Journal. Just as it has made advertisers prosperous it has made writers famous. It has put books among the best- sellers as it has introduced household articles to millions of homes. It is able to draw upon hun- dreds of sources for its recipes, its needlework ideas, its helpful suggestions on e very-day affairs. Highly skilled designers are at its service for dress styles and millinery. Men of affairs, not ordinarily willing to appear in print, who recognize that the Journal helps to shape the thought of American women, con- tribute discussions of topics of national impor- tance. A well-known contributor wrote not long ago, "It is always a rare pleasure to come into touch with humanity at large through the medium of so fearless and widely known and honored a publication as The Ladies' Home Journal." Because of its long success, too, the Journal has been endowed with the mechanical equipment to illustrate, print and bind each issue in the most effective way known to the printing art. Edited and produced with all the advantages that money can buy, purchased eagerly by a mil- lion and three-quarters home-loving women, read by them with the closest attention, and many a time passed on to other women, The Ladies' 237 Home Journal wields an influence in which the advertiser may share. An important asset for the manufacturer who is buying space in which to print a message is the knowledge that that message will be believed as well as read. Years ago the Journal inaugurated the then radical policy of protecting its readers against advertising frauds. The Curtis Publishing Com- pany will reimburse a reader for any reasonable claim which he or she may have against any advertiser if the loss was brought about by the in- fluence of one of its publications (financial adver- tising being of course excepted) . There have been a number of cases in which money thus spent by readers was refunded, even in extreme circum- stances where there might have been doubt whether the reader used ordinary common sense. But considering the millions upon millions of trans- actions resulting from advertising the number of times when this reimbursement policy is invoked is infinitesimal. This is due to the care with which the good faith of the advertiser is determined be- fore his announcement is printed. The confidence established by years of printing only trustworthy advertising is invaluable, and advertisers, old and new, as well as the readers share in the benefits. The advertiser is supposed to pay for circulation at a certain rate per thou- 238 The Michigan "40" Wants More Dealers The Record to Date by Campbell Advertised by Hopkins Designed by Cameron . _ _ A Great Opportunity Our Organization Michigan Motor Car Company, 246 Ly eivrf, Kalamazoo, Mich. by th* Oowxers of the Michigan Buggy Company * r> ^ Buying two million circulation just to reach dealers. Indirect appeal to consumer sand readers. But here he gets much more than he pays for. He gets the good-will (the confidence) that goes with an introduction by a trusted friend. Added to the influence of the Journal with readers is its prestige with dealers. When an advertiser is making a general pub- licity appeal the impression on the retail merchant is almost as important as the impression on the consumer. Create "consumer demand," but be sure that your dealers know your plans for creat- ing that demand, and help you "cash in." Hun- dreds of thousands of retail merchants have learned, by years of profitable experience, that a solid advertising campaign in The Ladies' Home Journal is an assurance to them of the advisa- bility of stocking a desirable line of goods so ad- vertised, because it will sell easily. Dealers therefore read the Journal men though they are and often follow its lead. In his interviews with dry goods merchants in many parts of the country the representative of the Curtis research division is continually told : "I read the Journal so as to be in touch with new ideas in my business." 'The buyers in all my departments read it for suggestions." :< We know that it influences the women, and we have to keep up with our customers." In one of the biggest stores in the country a buyer said: "A salesman positively must read The 240 Ladies' Home Journal and its advertisements. If he did not, the ladies would inquire for something and he could not anticipate what they want. And another thing, we know that an advertisement there carries with it a guaranty that it has been carefully looked up and is something of value." Three thousand merchants were asked by an impartial investigator: "What periodicals are mentioned most by your customers when referring to advertised goods?" Six hundred and seventy- nine said the Journal, six hundred and fifty -five The Saturday Evening Post. Many said both. When many important buyers in many stores agree in an attitude like this it stands for a thing of very tangible value to the manufacturer. An advertising campaign in The Ladies' Home Jour- nal, linked with proper consideration for the in- terests of the dealer and an appreciation of his cooperation, thus has a two-fold efficacy. It teaches consumers to ask for your goods, and it en- courages merchants to stock up with your goods and push them. Have you ever stopped to think that, with its strength in influencing both consumer and dealer, advertising space in such a publication as The Ladies' Home Journal is very cheap? Suppose you were to send one postal card to each one of the 1,750,000 women who buy The Ladies' Home Journal. It would cost you 241 For postal cards (postage) .$17,500 Addressing 1 9 750 Printing 700 $19,950 The same message, in a space the same size as a postal card, could be sent to these 1,750,000 women, through The Ladies' Home Journal, twenty-one times for the same cost. Or the same message, in full-page space, could be delivered three times to the same women at the same cost. Nowhere else, moreover, could you get such a select list of 1,750,000 intelligent, prosperous and home-loving women. Beyond that, a postal of this kind is not ex- pected and probably not wanted. The same mes- sage in the Journal is part of what the reader pays to get. The effect is proportionately stronger. And how many dealers would see any impor- tance to them in what you were doing even if they knew you were doing it? The Ladies' Home Journal offers to new adver- tisers the facilities for duplicating the results that have often been obtained by others. The use of these facilities rests with you. Ill Advertising to Business Men THE Saturday Evening Post is the national bulletin board. It is so generally read, so eagerly awaited, and the "Post boys" are so familiar a figure on our streets and at our doors that in many a town Thursday has come to be known as "Saturday Evening Post Day." For the man who wants to learn about adver- tising this publication has a purely academic in- terest. It is a textbook to be studied from many points of view. It has broken many advertising records circulation, volume of returns from both big and little space, variety of products marketed, power to bring results single-handed. But, perhaps most significant, it has found a way to advertise broadly to business men. The strength of The Saturday Evening Post in this direction is an interesting and somewhat pe- culiar development of modern advertising. Its huge clientele of business men readers has come to be regarded as so valuable that some ad- vertisers use The Saturday Evening Post as a trade paper. To convey a message to only a few thousand engineers, for example, a manufacturer of some product purchased only by engineers and 243 of no direct interest to the public, has paid the price of a 2,000,000 circulation because of the force with which that message would reach each individual in the little group he wanted. Fre- quently it is employed for the purpose of talking to a comparatively small number of dealers. It should not be deduced that this is the chief function of the weekly. Primarily it is a general publication, and its greatest strength lies in its wide appeal. But its powerful influence with the business man, the most difficult individual to reach because of his disinclination to read is the best testimony to its universal influence. It is perhaps unnecessary to discuss the adver- tising influence of The Saturday Evening Post in the home. Any one who believes in advertising at all cannot but accept the fact that a circulation of 2,000,000 made up of such eager, interested read- ers as The Saturday Evening Post is known to have, has an almost limitless power in the mer- chandizing of articles of general use. It has been proved time and again. Any one can prove it to his own satisfaction simply by comparing the ad- vertising columns of the periodical today with those of five years ago, and noting how many household commodities advertised in the older issues are still there. They would not still be there unless the results had warranted. A single 244 The Uttlverfd Injkruftw itt off Arts and Sciences : AND Pennfylvania Gazette. To be continued Weekly. *>W 24, 1738. S be thjt intends to ereS a n*W and m*gn fe*nt Struftare.is oblig'd to makeUfe oTehe woraeft and moft contemptible Materials, 4 ttdgroent what Sort of Bailing it will bt, - r anJv jbefcoldwg fte preparing of tfce Mortar, the dig. Mt a* the Stones, trie {muring the Marblc ; or the ;*- God, Father of a!l Things, Tbo* tbij Way of Ottler to begin, carry on, and perfect hi. Undertaking : fo noBertou whatever *aa make JN% &* ohfcrv'd of our Uttlv/rrfa! for * Orcat Tbitjtv re compounded of* think, it aec*ffry, to Oder to rami& our and a* ittten we as fo mr?y Me5Bger\ to declare iatare *sd Property of!B very ftrong, we frequently heighten the A, by adding an Afs'irate, Ah. *Ti> obfer'd of the aglijb Pronunciation, that we fpeafc the A with * (tenderer and more pony Soaad than *y of our Neighbours: Ordinarily, \i fcarce broad fftough for a Fremb Neater, and comet far Svo> t of Tie Grwrowarters wi needs bare A to be the firft the gro& of the Germ***, which would make r *, ittr !* att Languages ; and fame of 'e* aftgn * tutu- w a>, or *. In focv- Word* however matt, *il, ! Rwsfoa for it, twj. That it is the moft fitnple, and /?, 0r. the * is broad, and deep enough. Bar tin*, ' " ' be piWMXinc'd of alt urticalate Soundi. To 'tis obferv'd, may no* b the e*r Soand of 4't IM! Oe this, $*/ ^-^w, a fianoas Author obferresj E^Wft of the antient Orthoefaphy, whth, at low a Qjt, is the firil Souml Natwe pats forth at the cry. fU^tsk, added n to the 41, and wrote tttutii, taaH, nd fouling of Infants ; aod that it needs no other " itfon to form it, but a bftre opening of tbe- Lips, Geweffsevi+tt reining oft this Sentiment of Sc*iigive Sex. Or. J^ft/ffo r >(fettii>g A&*r* )maiwr3 the one fpt Greck,/toi$] wherein theNtxmetaJ Va- lue of each Letter or the Alphabet is exprefs'd, whereoC thUitthefirft, f e oue, enough, chay inferred, length they fei! to tb~* ^4 w'd thit the Hebrew /*VA, Arabtck i C76, are real Conforms, ad that ' ai! the other Afpirates. '.-, a So't of Jt1K& Rbbi, in their r^,j s ordi&y rt8*) Verfe, i*, "** i* 1 pretending to find ottt abftrafe and iMean5gt therein, tcl! us, the At*ft> aod Sttk, tite irft Letters being joiVd, make X4j which %ni- Wbtr in H 1 ^/!* and by trtufpofiBg Vm into 8, /tibe, which in the Sfrt** **& CSWe* %ify i ; wborefar they would fecw, they point Teffifltt A HtitHttet , wbieh tranfiited into JS ^ by it feif, Ttfj ?ive Hundred Nuanhert (in right" Bat we fe&H here ohferve, once for all, that it wa not ftriaiy among the Aeay of Barbarffm. MonJieur U C*#ge, exptaioieg whse that Ufage wa, at tn bgtnit$n of each Letter of I Gjoffary, ' ' $ng of each Letter o y *^ c-1 to insure against a hodge-podge confusing to the reader. Extreme care is taken in the arrangement of the advertisements in each page. Unfortunate juxta- position is avoided. A revolver and a baby food side by side would both lose in effectiveness. A pure white linen collar would appear soiled if "backed up" by a dark picture which showed through the paper slightly. Throughout the make-up the greatest care is exercised to get for the advertiser the best possible results, to see that the path which the reader's eye is to follow is made smooth and easy. An appreciation of the importance of such de- tails as these and an acquaintance with the proc- esses by which great publications are made are of much value to the man who wants to know how to use advertising most effectively. The Curtis Publishing Company would like to feel that its plant serves as a concrete example for all adver- tisers, and therefore is eager to welcome visitors. It is appropriate that this plant should be so regarded. For it was built by the achievements of many manufacturers. The success of a publication permanently depends absolutely upon the suc- cess of its advertisers. Only when they have suc- ceeded do they continue to advertise and to stand forth as examples impelling others to advertise. 280 Effective suggestion through illustration The greater prosperity of The Curtis Publishing Company may be attributed largely to the fact that it has, perhaps a little more correctly than the many, interpreted the meaning of modern mer- chandizing. This done, it could not but succeed, for the advance of advertising itself must inevi- tably carry along with it every one who uses it rightly whether publisher, manufacturer or con- sumer. This building, then, is always open to those who advertise, those who have advertised, and those who believe in advertising. You will be cordially welcome whenever you may have an opportunity to visit it. When you do, it is to be hoped that you will look upon it as a monument to modern selling forces a brick-and-steel manifestation of the service upon which advertising is founded. SELLING FORCES A Study of the Basic Principles of Advertising, and more Particularly Advertising in National Periodicals Intended Chiefly for the Layman Prepared and Issued by The Curtis Publish- ing Company, Publishers of The Ladies 9 Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post and The Country Gentleman 84 pages, 66 Illustrations, including Maps and Charts PRICE, $2.00 POSTPAID THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 1 MADISON AVENUE NEW YORK CITY The Forest Press, New York for the Publicity Printing Department of The Curtis Publishing Company RETURN MAIN CIRCULATION ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL RENEW BOOKS BY CALLING 642-3405 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA