Page 10 



BETTER FRUIT 



April 



The Truth Well Told— Will Help Solve Apple Problem 



By Harrison Atwood, Vice President The H. K. MeCann Company, San Francisco. 



AN apple a clay. Just suppose for 

 a minute that the American 

 people — every one of them — were 

 eating an apple a day. One hundred 

 million people, 365 days — that's thirty- 

 six and a half billion apples — roughly 

 twice the present apple production of 

 the entire country. Add to this the 

 "bulk consumption" of apples for pies, 

 sauce and so forth, and there wouldn't 

 be much worry about overproduction. 

 Of course it is not likely that all the 

 American people are going to take to 

 apple eating over night. But suppose 

 that half of them ate an apple a day — 

 or even half of them ate half an apple 

 a day. That is not an impossibility. 

 Nearly the whole American nation eats 

 some sort of breakfast food every 

 morning. Advertising taught them to. 

 Hundreds of thousands of men now use 

 a safety razor every morning. Adver- 

 tising taught them to. 



Advertising will teach the nation to 

 eat more apples — apples from the Pa- 

 cific Northwest — and thus solve one of 

 the greatest problems confronting the 

 industry. The centralizing and har- 

 monizing of the work of the Northwest 

 selling agencies, now going on, is of 

 vital importance. So, too, is the plan 

 for developing the by-products end of 

 the business, and the plans for more 

 adequate cold-storage facilities and for 

 the securing of better freight rates to 

 the East, both by rail and water. These 

 things are fundamental. They provide 

 the essential machinery for marketing 

 the Northwest apple. But they do not 

 provide the market. 



The market is the people, or, more 

 exactly, it is that portion of the people 

 who want your apples. They cannot 

 want them until they know them, and 

 unfortunately the people as a whole do 

 not know the Northwest apple. Of 

 course thousands do know it — and fa- 

 vorably. They will eat no others. But 

 these thousands are not enough to in- 

 sure a sufTicient market now — certainly 

 not for the future. To market your 

 fruit with the greatest success you need 

 to tell more people about it. You need 

 to teach them, you need to advertise to 

 them. Advertising is nothing more 

 than the "Truth Well Told." It is going 

 to the people and telling them the facts 

 about your apples. And you can be 

 certain people are going to buy more 

 Northwest apples when they really 

 know them. 



There are scores of thousands of 

 people in this country who are eating 

 "just apples" — often small, hard, mis- 

 shapen fruit grown on some neglected 

 tree. Scores of thousands are eating 

 what you would call "cooking apples," 

 or even poorer. Suppose you were to 

 tell these people the story of the North- 

 west apple — tell them how carefully 

 the hole is dug or dynamited and the 

 tree set out, tell them how the young 

 tree is nursed along to maturity, how 

 the soil is cultivated, how the trees are 

 sprayed, how the ripe fruit is carefully 

 picked by hand, sorted and each apple 



wrapped separately in tissue before it 

 is packed in the substantial box that 

 brings the fruit to them, solid and 

 round and perfect. Make them realize 

 that apple growing in the Northwest is 

 a science, that here as nowhere else the 

 apple is brought to its highest perfec- 

 tion. Tell them of the healthfulness of 

 the apple, how it aids digestion and 

 helps regulate the system; tell them of 

 its great food value as shown in the 

 government bulletin — making it plain 

 always that you are talking about the 

 Northwest apple. 



But do not stop with these mere facts. 

 Appeal to their taste. Make their 

 mouths water for the crispness of a 

 perfect Delicious or Newtown. It can 

 be done even in type and pictures. 

 Then go on and tell them of all the 

 appetizing ways in which the apple can 

 be used. Give them a recipe for a new 

 apple salad, for example. Suggest that 

 the housewife send for a complete 

 booklet of selected apple recipes. You 

 can well afford to give her one. Keep 

 reminding them, these potential apple 

 eaters in the East, of all the occasions 

 when an apple is so good — for the 

 whole family at breakfast, for father 

 working late at the office, for the chil- 

 dren at recess or after school, for the 

 picnic lunch basket. A properly con- 

 ducted advertising campaign will create 

 a constantly increasing good-will asset 

 for the Northwest apple industry that 

 eventually will be worth millions of 

 dollars. 



Advertising will increase the con- 

 sumption of Northwest apples and 

 more nearly adjust the demand to the 

 supply. Will create a demand through- 

 out the year and thus stabilize the mar- 

 ket. Will reduce the selling expense 

 because the selling effort will be less. 

 It is easy to sell goods for which there 

 is an insistent demand. Will make it 

 easier to get credit, for a banker will 

 readily loan money on a branded food 

 product for which there a steady call. 

 Will have the indirect result of adver- 

 tising the Northwest States themselves, 

 and increasing the value of apple-bear- 

 ing properties. 



It is just as certain that advertising 

 will do these things for Northwest 

 apples as that it has done them for 

 breakfast foods and oranges. Take the 

 case of the California orange growers. 

 In many ways their situation was sim- 

 ilar to yours — they had a beautiful fruit 

 with constantly-increasing output, but 

 a nearly sationary demand. They 

 turned to advertisin.g, and in the last 

 decade, while the population of the 

 United States has increased 21 per cent, 

 the per capita consumption of Califor- 

 nia oranges has increased 7.") per cent. 

 In his last annual report the general 

 manager of the California Fruit Grow- 

 ers' Exchange writes: "The production 

 of California oranges and lemons is in- 

 creasing rapidly and the Exchange, 

 looking to the future as well as to the 

 present interests of its members, is by 

 judicious advertising creating a larger 



consumption of oranges, lemons and 

 grapefruit. At the same lime it has 

 established for the "Sunkist" brand a 

 national standard of quality that is a 

 cash asset for every Exchange shipper. 

 The advertised brands of the Exchange 

 are now demanded by consumers every- 

 where." And all this has been done for 

 the orange growers at a very moderate 

 cost. This last year it was one and one- 

 half cents per box, or only six-tenths of 

 one per cent on the gross value of the 

 fruit. 



The proposed Council of the North- 

 west Fruit Growers, working in co- 

 operation with the several selling 

 agencies, is the organization through 

 which this apple advertising can be 

 carried on. This central body can con- 

 duct a comprehensive campaign of 

 apple education such as no single sell- 

 ing agency or single growing district 

 could afford to undertake. All will be 

 benefited. None will be heavily taxed. 

 A cent a box will provide an adver- 

 tising fund that will make the American 

 people know the Northwest apple. This 

 fund can provide not only for educating 

 the consumer, but for telling the trade 

 what you are doing and for enlisting 

 their co-operation. Advertising will 

 make Apple Day a much bigger national 

 affair — a day on which everyone will 

 think ai)ples, talk apples, eat apples and 

 get the desire to do so for many months 

 to follow. 



If advertising were to cost five cents 

 a box it would still be worth while. 

 But a cent a box will do it — and that is 

 a safe, conservative expenditure. Prop- 

 erly, it is not an advertising expense 

 alone. Advertising has come to be con- 

 sidered as one of the regular items of 

 selling expense. It is so counted by 

 thousands of the most reliable and 

 prosperous business firms in the coun- 

 try. The general manager of the Cali- 

 fornia Fruit Growers' Exchange refers 

 to it as "partly an operating cost and 

 partly an investment for the sale of 

 future crops." You have no reason to 

 doubt the future prosperity of the 

 Northwest apple industry. You have 

 one of the finest fruit products in the 

 world, already favorably known to 

 many people. You are intelligently ap- 

 plying yourselves to the problem of 

 marketing that product without waste 

 effort and waste expense. You need go 

 only one step further. You need only 

 to tell more people about your product, 

 to teach them its goodness, and thus 

 open up new and greater markets and 

 secure for the Northwest apple the 

 good will, which next to its quality is 

 the greatest asset it can have. You can 

 do this bv advertising — which is merely 

 the "Truth Well Told." 



The Washington Agriculturist is one 

 of the most attractive and valuable 

 publications coming to this office from 

 any of the agricultural colleges. The 

 Washington Agriculturist is published 

 by the Washington Agricultural Col- 

 lege, Pullman. 



