Part II.] ADVERTISING PRODUCTS. 51 



good deal of fuss to make about a little inoffensive hull, and I 

 so expressed myself. I was the only one who did not find 

 fault. In fact, I detected rather a good flavor to the cereal, 

 but I swallowed all the hulls and we are back to advertised 

 trademarked oatmeal. 



I bought an automobile this spring. Being of more than 

 average length, the particular machine appealed to me because 

 it had plenty of room back of the stearing post for my legs. 

 It had been painted not to the liking ,of the general public, 

 and so the price was cut S200. It looked like a good car, and 

 experience has proved that it is a good car. It suits me all 

 right except in one particular, nobody knows about this partic- 

 ular kind of car. I start out riding with some friend and he 

 begins by asking me, "What make of a car is this?" I reply, 

 "This is a Snyder." "A Snyder? A new make?" "No, not 

 a new make," and for fifteen or twenty minutes I am on the 

 defensive. I am doing what a little advertising would have 

 done. I have to justify myself in buying and driving a car 

 that nobody ever heard of. There is one car which uses as a 

 slogan, "Ask the man who owns one," but nobody has to do 

 that with a car w^ell advertised, and I think when I come to 

 buy another car it will be one that others have heard about. 

 Even if it costs me a couple of hundred dollars more, it will be 

 worth the difference in peace of mind. 



One more illustration. Some few years ago I bought an old 

 house and built it over. Wanting to live in it, I put 80 per 

 cent of the expenditure on the inside and 20 per cent on the 

 outside. Since then there have been occasions when I should 

 like to have rented this house furnished, but the real estate 

 agents of my town tell me that it is difiicult to get prospective 

 renters to stop and go inside the house. They look at the out- 

 side and pass it by. The outside is the advertising side, and I 

 neglected it to my own loss. My conclusion here is that we live 

 in an age of advertising, and, while it adds to the cost of liv- 

 ing, it is not something we can dispense with if we are to be 

 at home with the age in which we are compelled to live. 



Advertising is essentially a part of our business life — largely 

 if you will — because it appeals to the imagination, and the 

 want of imagination is what distinguishes a savage from 



