THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[October 1, 1911. 



A GREAT LOSS IN SELLING FORCE 



CUPPOSE a big department store should attempt to do busi- 

 ness under twenty different names ; for instance, calling its 

 dry goods department "The Emporium," its grocery department 

 "The Supply Company," its hardware department "The Equip- 

 ment Store," the book department "The Bibliophile Associa- 

 tion," and so on for the other sixteen departments. .\nd sup- 

 pose, as would be the natural and inevitable consequence, all of 

 its advertising announcements followed this same plan ; as if 

 the twenty departments were twenty unrelated undertakings and 

 -with no reference to the fact that tlicy were all parts of one 

 .concrete enterprise. 



This would certainly be a particularly foolish mctlKid of con- 



• ducting business. 1 he store would wholly lose the chief ad- 

 vantage of its size. It could still buy cheaper than its smaller 

 <:onipetitor, but most of its selling advantage would be lost. Its 

 advertising force would be frittered away and all the selling power 

 that comes from a great aggregation would be dissipated. In 

 fact the situation would be such a transparent piece of folly 

 that there is no danger whatever that it will ever be witnessed. 



And yet a great many manufacturers are resting witli evident 

 •composure and with apparent content in a position altogether 

 analogous. Instead of adopting a single name or trade mark 

 and placing this en every piece of goods that leaves their fac- 

 tory, they have adopted a dozen different trade marks, some- 

 times a ' score or more, often without the least family resem- 

 blance; so that only a Sherlock Holmes would be likely ever to 

 discover that they came from the same factory and enjoyed a 



• common parentage. 



We will say, for illustraticn, that tlic name of the company 

 is "The World Rubber Company." You will probably find its 

 letter-head blazoned with a fine trade mark containing the name 

 with the traditional hemispheres as a background. "Now," you 

 say "there is a good trade mark," and you will expect to find 

 it on all their goods. But to your surprise when you examine 

 their packing you will find that stamped the "Bestever." Their 

 hose will bear the legion "Topnotch ;" their tires will be called 

 the "Old Hickory," and the "Kverwcar," and their shoes will be 

 styled the "Old Glory" line with an undecipherable imitation of 

 a flag flying in the breeze. Likely enough there will be several 

 ■ different trade marks on different articles of the same general 

 line. One piece of hose, for instance, being marked with a red 

 star, and another piece of a little better quality being called the 

 "Silver Moon." 



Perhaps the reader may think this an exaggerated presentation 

 of the matter and be disposed to argue that most manufacturers 

 stick quite closely to one trade mark. Perhaps most do, but so 

 many don't that the matter is well worth considering. "What is 

 your regular trade mark?" a manufacturer of a large variety of 

 rubber goods was asked. "Trade Mark?" he replied, "Why I 

 guess we have sixty." .A. census of his output proved his guess 

 •close to the mark. 



Now the chief value of the trade mark is the goodwill that 

 grows up around it; the reputation that it comes in time to 

 stand for. This in the course of years, if the business is prop- 

 •erly conducted becomes extremely valuable. It is in fact a 

 manufaclurer's chief asset. If to good goods and proper busi- 

 ness methods is added judicious advertising a trade mark can in 

 time be made familiar to millions of people, so that when a cer- 

 tain article is spoken of, or comes into the mind, it always brings 

 with it the suggestion of that particular brand; just as in the 

 days of our boyhood nobody ever thought of a "show" without 

 thinking of Barnuni. 



But what manufacturer can ever hope to familiarize the public 

 with sixty trade marks or even with six? In fact why should 

 he try to familiarize them witli two when it is tw^ce as easy and 

 half as expensive to familiarize them with one? 



Sometimes you hear a manufacturer say, "I know these goods 

 don't all bear my name, but the trade knows who makes them 

 and where to come for them." That is quite true. The drug 

 trade probalily knows that certain druggists' sundries bearing a 

 variety of names and stamps are all made by Oldchap & Way- 

 back, but the consumer doesn't know it ; and the manufacturer 

 wlio is pinning his faith solely to the "trade" is likely to find 

 himself on the siding while his competitor goes by on the main 

 track in a special car. The consumer is the man the manufac- 

 turer should tie to. Get arm-in-arm with him and you can carry 

 the "trade" in your pocket. And the only way you can get in 

 and keep in with the consumer is to make yourself so easily iden- 

 tified that he will soon come to know you and will recognize 

 you anywhere. 



Suppose, for instance, the consumer has tried some of your 

 garden hose that bears your unvarying trade mark on it. 

 It is excellent hose, wears well and he likes it. Now he wants 

 a tire. He goes into a tire shop, looks over various makes and 

 finds one with your name on it. "There," he says, "that man's 

 hose is the best I ever had. I will take his tires on faith." If 

 you had had a different name for your tires, you would have 

 missed that sale — and thousands of others. 



The best salesmen in the long run any manufacturer can have 

 are good goods, and the best advertising ever done is the adver- 

 tising that goes out each day from the mill in the form of a 

 thoroughly satisfying product ; but the only way the manufac- 

 turer can get the benefit of this sort of salesmanship and adver- 

 tising is to have his goods so marked that they can always 

 be identified as his. Then every good thing he sends out helps 

 every other article he makes, and if they are all good they all 

 pull together, his hot water bottles helping his shoes, and his 

 shoes helping his tires. 



The value of a single trade mark is cumulative ; it is at work 

 all the time. Every time it is seen, whether in print or on 

 goods, another impression is made on somebody's mind, an im- 

 pression that will become an active selling force whenever that 

 particular article is wanted. 



But if a manufacturer has twenty or thirty trade marks, or 

 even ten or a dozen, obviously there can be no unity of action, 

 no pulling together, no cooperation whatever. They are all pull- 

 ing their separate ways. Even if the manufacturer's articles are 

 all excellent each has to make its own way alone, neither get- 

 ting any help from the others nor being able to afford any help 

 to them ; as there is no connecting link to fasten them together. 

 Nor can any effective advertising be done. Half a million dollars 

 judiciously used would serve to bring a single name before the 

 eyes of every reading person in the United States and do it with 

 sufficient force to make a palpable impression on the greater 

 number of these minds ; but twice that sum scattered over ten 

 different names would not be able to produce any appreciable 

 effect. 



Of course the exigency of trade may sometimes induce a 

 manufacturer to make certain goods whose parentage he prefers 

 not to have disclosed. In that case he is wise to give them un- 

 identifiable names. But where he is not ashamed of his goods, 

 where he really looks upon them as thoroughly creditable, he 

 ought certainly to have them so marked that he wall get the 

 credit. 



It is quite possible for a manufacturer to build up one good 

 reputation, hut he can't build up twenty. 



Field ^larshal Lord Kitchener, the British general, whose 

 several African campaigns have given him an excellent idea of 

 the nature and possibilities of the country, is reported to be 

 going into rubber planting. He has taken up land at Muhoroni, 

 in a very fertile district, near the Uganda railway and about 

 SSO miles from Mombasa and 38 miles from Lake Victoria 

 Nyanza, where it is said that he will grow Ceara rubber. 



