HARDWOOD RECORD 



47 



CUDE, NASHVILLE, TENN.. lllbSlS- 

 SIPPI DIRECTOR 



\V. DINGS, ST. LOUIS, 

 DIRECTOR 



MISSOUUl 



\V. 



I'. ANDERSON, GIDEON, MISSOURI 

 DIRECTOR 



But riovidencp, in its guardianship o( imagined commercial "rights,' 

 as in other things, is interested only in the vigorous, the daring, the 

 cautiously courageous. Lumbermen had records of brilliant commercial 

 success behind them, lint don't you know that there is no more insidious 

 malady, and none more hard to cure, than the dogmatism of established 

 success— the blind and deaf unreasoning egotism that sits in the chair 

 of a supposed business "cinch" '.' 



It is not much over a year ago that lumbermen, while acknowledging 

 the solid establi.shment of advertising as a vital and permanent factor 

 in commerce, had no better encouragement than a pitying smile to give 

 to the advocate of general advertising for their business. 



I believe there must Ije a certain sort of quiet satisfaction felt today 

 by those lumbermen who first determined to make, under the pleasing 

 disguise of a "long-shot" speculation, one of the most definite and im- 

 perishable investments known to the business world of today, namely, 

 public interest, public confidence, and, therefore, public support, none of 

 these being acknowledged as for sale, yet all of them lieing subject to 

 purchase by indirection. I am convinced that this satisfaction, always 

 felt by the successful pioneer, ere long will increase to a legitimate sense 

 of pride, and we trust that no one will grudge us the right to modestly 

 share this feeling with them. 



The two important groups of lumber producers, those who manufacture 

 red gum and those who manufacture cypress, are entitled to the sense 

 of gratification (entirely aside from the material profits) always properly 

 felt by the man who blazes a trail through a wilderness, and then sees 

 it become a little path, and then a straggling road, with excellent chances 

 that it may one day be an historic highway. 



In advertising lumber to the general public through general media we 

 have had no advantage from established precedents. There were no prece- 

 dents in the history of advertising for the presentation of lumber to the 

 ultimate customer. It was necessary to make our own precedents as we 

 went along, and we have had to solve many points of a character doubly 

 puzzling because of their importance as precedents, wilhout the aid of 

 any references, and solely upon comparative deductions from successf\il 

 experiences in various widely differing lines of advertising. 



In talking straight to my title, "Advertising vs. Simple I'riee Quoting." 

 I should say that while advertising often includes price (juotation. mc>re 

 price quotation is not advertising as I would define it. I should no more 

 describe the simple quolation of prices and printing of a business card as 

 advertising than I would call the mere presence of a litigant in court a 

 masterly legal argument. 



I should almost be willing to stand on the definition of advertising as 

 "the deliberate purchase of public confidence," which involves the paradox 

 that it must be earned after it is secured. Confidence bought and then 

 abused or betrayed will give ptomaine poisoning to any business. I!y 

 the above definition, advertising is a short cut to the faith of the jieople 

 in your goods, which otherwise could be achieved only by the individual 

 energy and individual fidelity of three generations. It is the purchase 

 of friendship at wholesale, and it does not disparage or vulgarize the 

 word friendship to acknowledge that friendship is cashable, in one wa.v 

 or another, or else it is not friendship, for friendship must be reciprocal 

 — it must he an exchange of benefits, whether consciously or not. 



To describe advertising as the simple quotation of prices, coupled with 

 a signature and address, is about the same as calling a deaf mute elo- 

 quent, or, to make a better simile, it is about the same as confusing 

 hunger with the knowledge of how to get food. 



When you insert a business card in a magazine, merely stating that 



your name is so-and-so, that you are at such-and-such a place, and that 

 you have such-and-such a commodity for sale, you might just as well 

 fill that advertising space with something to this effect : 



"Here I am, and I want your money because I want it. I don't care 

 much whether you want my goods or not. or whether you need them or 

 not. 1 want to sell them to you. In fact, I want to sell them to you so 

 badly that, if you want them, you will find me energetically sitting here 

 at home, with my feet on the mantel piece and my derby hat in my lap 

 upside down. Please come around and drop in your money — I certainly 

 do want it." 



Is it not better salesmanship to give the possible customer some reason 

 why it would be of benefit to him to secure your product? 



Is it not better salesmanship to make people want your goods than to 

 try to make them buy your goods? 



No one can make you buy anything unless they can show you an 

 advantage to yourself by so doing. Why should you expect to make 

 anyone else buy of you unless you can first make them want your product ? 



In the old days manufacturers acknowledged Imt a single function in 

 trade — or at most one and one-tenth functions. 



They admitted that their function was to produce goods — and, in a 

 kindly and condescending way, to lift a lordly finger now and then by 

 way of assisting in selling the goods they made. 



Those manufacturers who hung to this genteel but weather-beaten 

 business doctrine in the course of time found themselves sick abed and 

 wondering what was the matter with them. 



The matter was (and in isolated cases, including most lumbermen — 

 broadminded and sportsmanlike as they really are in every other direc- 

 tion) that they failed (and most of them still fail) to get hold of the 

 vital and dynamic idea that the evolution of commercial practice has 

 determined that the manufacturer who is a big enough man to master 

 his market, instead of playing tiddley-de-wink with it. must acknowledge 

 two responsibilities and two full-sized functions — both equaly important, 

 and both demanding the keenest action of his very best brains. 



The manufacturer nowadays must make his market as well as his 

 product. 



Get that in deep — make his own market. 



.\ volume of business formerly called wholesaling is now retail in its 

 comparative dimensions. 



The old idea of meeting the market has given way to the new idea of 

 making a market. 



Meeting the market meant, and still means, selling to (hose who already 

 want or who must have a given product. The method— individual sales- 

 manship — one at a time. 



The 1911 concept of distribution is to make your own market — as big 

 as you want it. or as small as you want it — by multiplying the people 

 who want your goods. Once you make them want your product, your 

 salesmanship is scarcely more a problem than a quick and economical 

 delivery system. 



That is what man-handling advertising can do for you. 



Advertising means to me the gradual infusion of a blend of desire and 

 of confidence into the system of every possible purcha.ser. Sometimes 

 (he method of approach to him should be careful and delicate, and some- 

 times rough and full of iron, but in the hands of the skilful advertising 

 writer the one method is no less subtle than the other. Both are care- 

 f\illv forecasted and calculated. In countless cases (he substitution of a 

 simple word for another word, or a transposition of points, or even a 

 trick of punctuation, will make a medium winner into a big winner. 



