TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 187 



Minneapolis on the board, and he felt just the same. They talked things 

 over and said "Let's shoot a little more into the advertising pot this 

 year and see where we get with it." Mr. Simpson was in charge of the 

 fair at that time, and finally they decided to appropriate $23,500. I will 

 always remember the time they appropriated it. There was a great deal 

 of discussion about it, but it was finally allowed. I don't know whether 

 the advertising had anything to do with it, or not, whether it was the 

 fact that they were spending more money, or something else, but as a 

 matter of fact the fair was more successful that year and we made 

 around $30,000. The next year when the board met I was out of the 

 city, and on my return I learned that they had established a budget of 

 $26,500. They raised the ante $3,000, and we spent it as judiciously as 

 possible, and that year we made about $60,000. The next year, which was 

 a year ago, I was placed in a peculiar position, of fighting against the 

 board, fighting the board on an increased advertising budget. They 

 wanted to place the budget at $30,000, and I told them "Gentlemen, there 

 is going to be a limit on this matter of advertising, in my opinion, and I 

 am going to serve notice on you right now that you cannot continually 

 raise the advertising budget and still get results." I was passing the buck 

 right back to them, and they took the responsibility. They said "We 

 are spending the money; you get results," and last year we made 160- 

 thousand-some dollars. I am not saying that the advertising had any 

 more to do with the increased profit than any other phase of the man- 

 agement of the business, but the profit was there. I am not saying as 

 to that, but I am just giving you the facts. This last year our advertis- 

 ing budget was placed at $35,000, and as a matter of fact through in- 

 creases sanctioned by the board later in the season we spent $38,500 

 for publicity, and our total net profit for the year, according to the audit 

 report, was $211,000. 



I am merely giving you those facts. I am giving them to you because 

 I want you to know why I am sold on the value of publicity. And here 

 is the peculiar part — the more money we put into advertising, the smaller 

 was the percentage of the total receipts spent for advertising. We were 

 spending approximately 12% of the receipts and getting nowhere, and we 

 practically doubled it in five years and we are spending between six and 

 seven per cent of our total receipts. I am merely giving you those figures 

 because, first, I want you to -get the viewpoint, and, in the second place, 

 I want you to get my viewpoint as to why I believe so enthusiastically 

 in the value of publicity. 



Now, after having established the budget, you can spend as much as 

 you want, that is for your board of directors to decide. The next is, How 

 are you going to spend it? I was much inclined to spend my money for 

 almost anything that happened to appeal to me at the moment. As year 

 after year passed by and I became more and more familiar with the re- 

 sults that were being gotten from advertising, I have become more and 

 more convinced of this fact, and I give it to you for what it is worth, 

 that the average fair publicity campaign is not simple enough and it does 

 not deal with few enough kinds of publicity. The trouble with the aver- 

 age fair is, as far as its attitude toward publicity is concerned, that it 



