Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1912 — WHY ADVERTISING SHOULD BE STEADY [ARTICLE]

WHY ADVERTISING SHOULD BE STEADY

By Wm. C. Freeman.

There is a great difference of opinion on the question as to whether a company should advertise or not when business is at high tide. Hugh Chalmers was recently asked by his associates why he<continued to advertise when his company’s output for a year ahead was provided for. He said: “When my company faced the fact that we were far oversold and I still desired to keep up an aggressive advertising campaign, I was asked why in the world I considered it necessary to advertise. I told my company that we were not in business for today only —we were in business to stay, and that tomorrow and the day after were very real factors in our permanent business success. If we Intended to keep our business as active as it is today, I told then* that advertising was a prime essential.” In every community the advertising representative meets the merchant who says: “I am doing all the business I possibly can, so there is no need fdr me to advertise.” I recall an experience of ray own with a merchant who was on the crest of the wave. He had been spending SIOO,OOO or thereabouts in advertising, and his business was going along swimmingly. lie suddenly decided that advertising was an expense, so he commenced to cut It dow'n and down, and then used irregular copy In the newspapers. After a period of about six months the business commenced to showsigns of falling off. His managers protested about the non-advertising policy, but the merchant was very stubborn, and stuck to it. He said that he had been In business a gw-at many years; that all the people In the community knew all about him—that It was the fault of the managers that the business was not going forward and not because the advertising was stopped. He changed managers from time to time, but the business has grown steadily less unti» now the total is less than $1,000,000 annually, whereas I recall the time when it was nearly $4,000,000 a year, and it is just hang Ing on by its eyelids. A merchant cannot afford to stop advertising, even after he has established a big business.

Honest advertising is the only kind that pays in the long run. Once you lose the confidence of the purchasing public through misrepresentation in your printed messages to that public, you have lost something that is more valuable to you than your stock, your building and the ground upon which it is located.