November 15. 191 'J 



HORTICULTURE 



425 



BILLBOARD ADVERTISING 



Mayor O'Keefe Makes an Answer to 

 J. Horace McFarland. 



November 5, 1919. 



Dear Sir: — In your issue of October 

 11, appears a letter from J. Horace 

 McFarland, President of the American 

 Civic Association, which was evi- 

 dently written under the stimulus of 

 deep feeling. The writer of the letter 

 had evidently worked himself into a 

 small sized frenzy in attempting to 

 not only show where he stands in re- 

 gard to the product of the Society of 

 American Florists to popularize the 

 slogan "Say It With Flowers" with the 

 incidental use of billboards, but he also 

 wants to have all billboard advertising 

 on the face of the earth swept away. 



Like very many other propagandists, 

 discretion in the use of words is not 

 a part of Mr. McFarland, nor does 

 logic or fact concern him. He states 

 that "the project is an evidence, and 

 a sad evidence at that, of the lack of 

 business acumen within the controlling 

 councils of the Society of American 

 Florists at a time when the shrewdest 

 and ablest advertisers are quitting the 

 billboards." 



We wonder how far Mr. McFarland 

 has investigated what the "shrewdest 

 and ablest advertisers" are planning 

 for 1920 campaigns as to how far they 

 are quitting billboards. If he had in- 

 vestigated, he could not have made 

 this statement with that regard for the 

 truth which should be the keynote of 

 anybody guiding advertising or writing 

 letters. If he has not investigated — 

 and he should not have made this 

 statement without so doing — it might 

 interest Mr. McFarland to know that 

 one of the "shrewdest and ablest ad- 

 vertisers" of the country intends to 

 spend in 1920, something like four mil- 

 lion dollars in billboards alone, and 

 if he has an idea that this is going to 

 be a blot upon the landscape, we might 

 tell him for his further information 

 that Boards of Trade, and people own- 

 ing property, and automobilists in gen- 

 eral, have not only been grateful for 

 the use of these billboards upon the 

 highways, but have made requests for 

 them to be put up. 



We do not believe that the advertis- 

 ing of the United States Rubber Com- 

 pany, in their very interesting little 

 histories of historic spots, offends the. 

 eyes of the most fastidious nature 

 lovers. The objections which Mr. Mc- 

 Farland finds to billboards are the 

 same as those that can be found in 

 any form of advertising. Any adver- 

 tising that is not in good taste, that 

 is not pleasing to the eye, that is not 

 truthful, or that displays objection- 



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able words or pictures, should not 

 only be barred from the billboards on 

 the public highways, but also from the 

 pages of the magazines. 



Outdoor display advertising has 

 undergone the same evolution towards 

 better advertising as the advertising 

 in the magazines and newspapers of 

 the better sort. 



Some of the greatest advertising 

 successes come from the proper use of 

 outdoor displays. Gold Medal Flour — 

 "Eventually. Why not now?" — is 

 not, we think, an example of the lack 

 of business acumen, nor have women's 

 clubs, having seen this advertising on 

 billboards, refused to bake with flour 

 put out by the manufacturer who paid 

 for the boards. The nucleus of the 

 Washburn-Crosby advertising was bill- 

 boards. 



CocarCola did not use any magazine 

 or newspaper advertising until sev- 

 eral years of the use of billboards had 

 built them a tremendous distribution 

 of their product. 



The Hood Rubber Company, after 

 one year in which magazines we 

 used exclusively, proved by actual test 

 from coast to coast that they could 

 improve their business by almost 80 

 per cent by linking up their advertis- 

 ing with billboards. 



The Sonora Phonograph which was 

 constructed to sell as the highest 

 grade phonograph on the market, rep- 

 resenting the very top-notch of quality, 

 established itself by the use in New 

 York of a billboard that was a beauti- 

 ful conception from the standpoint of 

 art in advertising. 



The kind of billboards to which Mr 

 McFarland refers evidently is simply 

 the kind of advertising that should 



not be allowed anywhere. Those 

 hideous and blatant splotches which 

 simply attract attention as the barker 

 at a circus attracts attention to the 

 Fat Girl and the Ossified Man are 

 things of the past and must not be 

 confused with the kind of billboard 

 advertising done by reputable advertis- 

 ing men. 



Mr. McFarland cannot possibly 

 think that the Publicity and Finance 

 Committee of the Society of American 

 Florists showed any lack of business 

 acumen in the national advertising 



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