Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1911 — Page 6 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

Advertising ~ | Talks | P

SAYS NEWSPAPERS PAID BEST ' f Prominent Railroad Man Tells of Spending Million and a Quarter Dollars In Advertising. The daily newspapers produce the greatest results from advertising, according to Gerrit Fort, passenger traffic manager of the Harriman railway system, who supervis%d the handling of the record advertising appropriation of $1,250,000 provided by his corporation last year to be used in advertising within twelve months. “The daily newspapers reach the people and stimulate corespondence and desire for further knowledge,” he says. “Follow-up literature then closed the deal and made a prospective settler or the newspaper reader.” >. Fort says that In his advertising campaigns he has used all kinds of mediums from daily newspapers to magazines, booklets, pictures, pamphlets, billboards and lecturers. “We apeal to the pepple in oum advertisements. We sometimes shot in the air, but I am convinced that enough of the shot scattered by the daily newspapers hit the mark to make the entire campaign pay. “Railroads must be developers. They must develop the country through which the tracks run. The only way that I know of to develop a country is to let the people know what you have to offer.” Fort condu&t? an advertising campaign as he would build a railroad. An executive committee meets with him and plans a method of spending the appropriation for the year. When all Is ready the publicity ’men are as progressive as railroad builders, who begin to grade for railroad tracks after surveyors and engineers have laid out the route to be followed. “The actual result of the advertising is difficult to estimate accurately,”he said. “We authorize the expenditure and then begin to trace the results. In many Instances we run against a stone wall before we get to the actual facts, but we find enough good done to know that advertising pays.

"A conspicuous example occurred last year. Three years ago the Union Pacific opened a direct line to Yellowstone Park. Before that time the park could be reached only by a tiresome stage journey. The' first and second year we advertised the new line only slightly and let it take care of itself.- The travel increased but slightly. “Last year we advertised the direct route to the park extensively. The result was that we more than doubled the number of passengers carried in the other years. All of. these passengers had to ride over various parts of our road to reach the connecting line.

“That is what I call producing direct results. It is emphasized by the fact that a competitor who also touches that locality, made only a normal increase in business, while ours more than doubled.”

When/you prepare your copy If you can get four lines Irj It that will make your reader think four lines more you get so much space free. Don’t crowd too rnqcfl matter Into little space. It is not understandable to the layman, and he doesn’t take the time, anyway, to go through the thing Arthur Brisbane.