732 



HORTICULTURE 



November 23, 1912 



ADVERTISING; SOME WRONGS TO 

 MAKE RIGHT. 



An address by L. W. C. Tutbill, of New 

 York, before the Society of American 

 Florists at the Chicago Convention, August 

 21, 1912. 



Advertising — wliat is it? 



Some say it is a hybrid tea rose. 



Others, that it is a sport of Killar- 

 ney. 



But I say it is the American Beauty. 



It is the strong-rooted long- 

 stemmed, vigorous plant that yields 

 the deep red blooms of big business 

 successes. 



Right away many of you growers 

 begin shaking your heads, saying: 

 "Advertising is all right for the other 

 fellow, but my business is different. 

 In the first place, there isn't profit 

 enough in the flower business to stand 

 for advertising. (Every grower knows 

 that isn't so the minute he has said 

 it.) 



"Second — I have tried it two or 

 three times, and it was just like throw- 

 ing so much money down a knothole. 



"Third — my business always has paid 

 without advertising, so what's the use 

 of blowing in my money just because 

 those blasted magazines and papers 

 hound the life out of me, or Hot Air 

 Tuthill gets up there on the platform 

 and claims advertising is the American 

 Beauty of business — the life-saver of 

 profits, and all that rot?" 



What Advertising Really Is. 



In answer to all of which, let's back 

 up and begin all over again and find 

 out just what advertising really is. 



In short, it's the quickest and surest 

 possible way of letting it be known to 

 the greatest number that you are in 

 business — where you are in business — 

 what your business is. It's the short- 

 est short-cut method between the seller 

 and the buyer. It's the modern power 

 that accomplishes in two years what it 

 used to take ten to do. 



But it's more than a builder — it's 

 also a destroyer; a quick, unrelenting 

 destroyer. Therefore it needs to be 

 handled carefully — knowingly. It 

 quickly builds up a business that is 

 backed up by good goods and the 

 square deal. It still more quickly 

 wipes off the map, destroys concerns 

 that either misrepresent their stock, or 

 that fail to meet their customers just 

 a little more than half-way. 



"Oh, well," you say, "of course I do 

 in a way believe in advertising, be- 

 cause when I have a few thousand ex- 

 tra cuttings more than I can use, or 

 am overstocked on some plants, I just 

 send an ad to the florists' papers and 

 unload. But as for my advertising at 

 any other time, it's ridiculous, as I 

 send all my stock to the commission 

 man. What's the use of advertising to 

 him? He knows me — knows my 

 goods." 



A National Awakening. 



Listen: As old as the florist busi- 

 ness is — it's really among the young- 

 est there is. It's just beginning to 

 really begin. The real beginning be- 

 gan about ten years ago, when Double- 

 day, Page & Co., started their Country 

 Life and Garden magazines. These 

 magazines brought a message of 

 flowers and country beauty to thou- 



sands and thousands of people who 

 simply needed to be thus stirred Into 

 action. Soon followed other magazines 

 like Suburban Life, House and Gar- 

 den and ones of a similar nature, and 

 then still other mediums, and even the 

 daily papers caught the flower fever, 

 until now the love of flowers, stimu- 

 lated by all these publications, is fast 

 becoming a noticeable national trait. 

 Every time one of these country life 

 magazines gets a convert to the joys 

 of flowers, you growers have one more 

 possible buyer of your products. 



But this national awakening to the 

 appreciation of flowers also brings 

 with it every year a greater discrimi- 

 nation in the buyers. The so-called 

 "bread and butter" carnations are fast 

 becoming more difiicult to sell, simply 

 because the public is rapidly getting 

 to know flowers, and insisting on bet- 

 ter and better quality. 



An Identifying Trade-Mark. 



Now suppose I could go into one of 

 the Chicago florist shops and ask for 

 not only "just roses," but roses grown 

 by one Frank Jones — and those Jones 

 roses bore some identifying means so 

 that I knew I was getting Jones roses. 

 Now don't you think it would pay both 

 the grower and the florist to get to- 

 gether somehow and spend a little joint 

 money in letting the public know that 

 Jones' Superior Roses always carried 

 an identifying trade-mark? 



Most assuredly it would. 



There is just as much of an oppor- 

 tunity to trade-mark Jones' Superior 

 Roses as there is Butter-Krust bread 

 or Borden's milk. 



And it's going to be done. 



One of your largest eastern growers, 

 whose stock is alwaj's of the finest, 

 has for a considerable time been suf- 

 fering from substitution — stock being 

 sold for his that is not his. You 

 know! 



He and the ad agency I am associ- 

 ated with are now working on a plan 

 to overcome this trouble. 



It's been a hard nut to crack. 



It looks as if certain kinds of adver- 

 tising and trade-marking were the 

 only thing that can make this wrong 

 right. 



A Look Into the Future. 



While the demand for flowers and 

 plants is still at its height, and pro- 

 duction has not yet caught up with 

 demand, the advertising question won't 

 receive from you the serious attention 

 it even now deserves. But mark my 

 word, that just as sure as anything 

 that's sure is sure, the stimulating in- 

 fluence given by the magazines is, 

 sooner or later, going to lose its force 

 and some direct advertising by the 

 growers, as well as the florists, must 

 then be done to further stimulate the 

 business. 



Just how to set the wheels of adver- 

 tising working to further this result 

 is going to be the cause of many a 

 headache. Some of you who have your 

 ears to the ground have long been 

 turning this over in your mind, and 

 when the time comes you will be ready 

 with the answer. One of the greatest 

 wrongs, then, to make right, is the 

 overcoming of the impression that the 

 flower market can escape advertising. 

 Tying Up One's Pocketbook. 



The way some business men refuse 

 to get aboard the advertising train re- 

 minds me of a cousin of mine who 

 was determined to go to an evening 



party. All day it rained hard. His 

 father said that if it rained he couldn't 

 go, but if the wind would veer around 

 to the west, it would surely clear o£E. 

 So my cousin watched his opportunity 

 and climbed up on the barn and tied 

 the weather vane fast so it pointed 

 west. 



He went to the party — but it still 

 rained. 



You can tie up your pocketbook and 

 refuse to advertise, but that won't stop 

 the storm of competitors who will be 

 getting your business away. 



So much for the future. 



Now let's get right down to the 

 brass tacks of the present day sit- 

 uation. 



First, let's find a little good-natured 

 fault with the trade papers. 



What would you think of a firm who 

 put the index of their catalogue in 

 some obscure part, so you needed an 

 index to find the index? You would 

 say they certainly didn't have an eye 

 to business and that an index ought 

 to be the easiest thing to find and 

 should be placed where you couldtt't 

 miss it. 



By the same token, what a lot it 

 would help every advertiser in making 

 it easy tor buyers to locate his ad, if 

 the index to the trade papers were 

 placed every time right in the front 

 row, on the first inside page facing the 

 cover! As it is now, the publisher 

 knows where it is, but it takes a reg- 

 ular Sherlock Holmes for one less fa- 

 miliar to find it. 



Starting and Staying. 



Now a word about starting and stay- 

 ing. 



A serious and costly wrong that ad- 

 vertisers ought to make right is start 

 ing in to advertise and then dropping 

 out before the ads have had half an 

 opportunity to get their good, telling 

 work in. Some men seem to think ad- 

 vertising is a sort of wizard gam* 

 that should yield extraordinary results 

 in an extraordinarily short time — a 

 kind of waving of the wand that will 

 back a wagon up to their doors filled 

 with orders. It's far from it, because 

 it is a straight business procedure and 

 not a fairy tale. 



No single ax-stroke can clear a for- 

 est. The woodman who chops and 

 stops, wastes time, timber and money. 

 He had better not have begun. 



Make up your mind you are going to 

 spend so much money this year — and 

 then spend it. Send out your message 

 each week. Keep continually chopping 

 away. But every week chop from a 

 different side, in other words, change 

 your ads. Remember that advertising 

 is intended to arouse interest — to hold 

 interest — and to turn that interest into 

 an order. 



Last week's paper doesn't interest 

 you this week — so how can you expect 

 last week's ad to hold anybody's in- 

 terest this week? 



A Real Ad or Only a Sign? 



In preparing your ad, make up your 

 mind whether it's going to be a s'.gn, 

 or a real, full-blooded ad. Don't try 

 to mix them. 



A sign is to attract people who are 

 looking for you — a sort of guide post. 



An ad is to attract and convince the 

 people you are looking for, that your 

 goods are the goods worth looking for. 



Very few are looking for you. 



It's up to you to look for them. 



Having found them, it's all your 



