August 28, 1919. 



The Rorists^ Review 



15 



rog^SMasaiS 



i^ ADVERTISING FLOWERS 



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I THINK next to my love of advertiB- 

 ing problems, I love flowers best. 

 Prom my office window I get a fragrant 

 breeze that blows across from the fa- 

 mous Boston Public Gardens over Bos- 

 ton Common and busy Tremont street. 

 It shakes the geraniums and other flow- 

 ers that I have as companions during 

 my working hours on the little stretch 

 of roof which a thoughtful architect 

 provided in the offices we occupy, nine 

 stories above the street, for a roof gar- 

 den. These flowers help me and I like 

 to think that the breeze that comes to 

 me through the window has just left 

 the flowers in our public garden, a gar- 

 den set in the center of our business sec- 

 tion, which Boston will ever retain in 

 its heart of hearts to "Say It with 

 Flowers. ' ' 



Am I sentimental? I do not think my 

 friends would say so and yet is there a 

 man living who can truthfully say that 

 flowers have no influence upon him? 



"Flowers make a brighter business 

 day." 



You remember this slogan we carried 

 in our advertising that appeared in color 

 last spring in the magazines. Every 

 man who saw that advertisement was 

 reminded in it of a truth he knew to be 

 so. How many have acted upon it? 

 How many business men have done what 

 we told them would make the tedium of 

 toil less tiresome? I know there have 

 been a great many who acted directly 

 upon our suggestion to put flowers, 

 either cut flowers or growing plants, up- 

 on their desks, but the value was in the 

 influence of that advertisement and of 

 the others — taking roses home to the 

 wife, remembering the birthdays, the 

 anniversaries of our friends. This in- 

 fluence has taken root and prompted 

 some sort of action to our advantage 

 and theirs. 



To Make People Think. 



If you make people think, if you 

 touch a responsive chord, you may not 

 possibly always get them to act imme- 

 diately just as you directed, but you 

 will get them to act. 



For instance, a man reads an allur- 

 ing automobile advertisement. He is re- 

 minded of the delights of motoring by 

 the picture surrounding the oar, of roll- 

 ing country with beacli or country club 

 or mansion not too far away, of pros- 

 |)erous, happy people in and about the 

 car, and he says to himself, "Every- 

 body's motoring nowadays. I'm only 

 living once. Why not live right? I 'lii 

 going to get an automobile." 



He may not buy that identical car, 

 l>ut he will buy a ear. 



All the automol)ile advertising that is 

 ••reating a demand for the better things 

 of life is helping every manufacturer of 

 automobiles whose product ia made 

 known to the public. 



Now, when we advertise flowers we 

 have no competition, as has the autonio 

 bile manufacturer. When we tell peo- 

 l»ie how one of the country's greatest 

 executives has alwavs a vase of flowers 



The address of P. F. OKet-fo, of the OKoefr 

 AdvertiKinK AKenr.v. Hoston. bcforo the Sociotv 

 of Ampricaii Florists nt Detroit, August 20. 



upon his desk, because they make a 

 brighter business day — he says they 

 keep him from being lonely — we do not 

 expect every other business man imme- 

 diately to do likewise. 



We make people think of flowers in 

 a new way. 



We know they won't read our adver- 

 tisement and run out and, instead of 

 saying it with flowers, say it with a toy 

 balloon, a brass band, a marble statue 

 or a hat rack. 



We 've brought their minds to a point 

 where they will remember to act on 

 their finer feelings, to give them a re- 

 gard for the finer things of life, and they 

 do not buy flowers for themselves, they 

 buy flowers for someone they are think- 

 ing about. 



How Advertising Works. 



The man who decided after reading 

 the automobile advertisement that he 

 would be a car owner, did not, we can 

 safely say, go right out and buy a car. 

 No; that advertisement only started 

 liim. 



The next day he changed his mind. 

 The day after he was sure he couldn't 

 afford it, and for several successive days 

 he thought nothing more about it. 



Then he saw another automobile ad- 

 vertisement and forgot everything else 

 to go back to the place he had left off. 



He surely wanted that car. From 

 wanting it, he grew after reading more 

 and more automobile advertisements to 

 feel that he couldn't live without it. 

 So in time, he bought one. 



That is the way all advertising works. 

 Those who have the means to gratify 

 every wish, it needs but little advertis- 

 ing to make act, or where the desire 

 can be gratified without much financial 

 outlay, it can be counted on working 

 fast. But those who can gratify every 

 wish because of financial resources prob- 

 ably have no need of what you have to 

 offer, and in the case of small articles, 

 where the money consideration is small, 

 you must sell in tremendous quantities 

 to make your business pay and so keep 

 on advertising to broaden your field. 

 Then, too, where the money considera- 

 tion is small, you must remember the 

 service that small article gives is also 

 small and can be dispensed with with- 

 out much sacrifice and so we must keej) 

 building by our advertising more and 

 more desire for the goods we have to 

 sell. 



Advertising Flowers. 



Flowers come under the head of ar 

 tides requiring comparatively small out- 

 lay. We must therefore keep our ad- 

 vertising going. To ])()pularize any- 

 thing requires persistent and insistent 

 reiteration, not repetition of the same 

 thought expressed in different ways, 

 but nationalizing a thought by continu 

 ous advertising. 



We are popularizing rai)idly indeed 

 mir slogan, "Say It with Flowers." It 

 is fast becoming one of our national 

 sayings, a national institution, and is 

 today without question an asset which 

 you gentlemen possess that is worth 

 hundreds of thousands of dollars. 



It is an asset which, unlike any other 



that I can think of, has the practical 

 ability of being divisible among a large 

 number of business men scattered over 

 our entire country. The example which 

 it sets is one that, once cultivated, 

 grows from one person to another in 

 each community and from one commun- 

 ity to another. 



Those who read see it from the pages 

 of their favorite magazine; those who 

 travel see that not only has this slogan 

 been acted upon in their community but 

 in the other communities they pass 

 through and is not the business pulling 

 vehicle of one man but of thousands. 

 It is on the florists' delivery automo- 

 biles and it is in the newspapers. 



More Advertising Needed. 



But — yes, there is always a but — we 

 have been too sparing of our ammuni- 

 tion. Our aim has been excellent and 

 results good, but our shots have been 

 too small and far between to really get 

 a good rich reward. Remember that 

 while it is true that in our field we are 

 without competition, we have not, like 

 the automobile people, hundreds of 

 others working on the sentiments of 

 })eople to stir them to action and buy 

 flowers. That is up to us to do. 



I do not, however, want you to think 

 that we have not, even in the short time 

 we have been conducting our national 

 publicity campaign, attracted some out- 

 side help. We have. And it has been 

 of much assistance. 



We have brought about a use for 

 flowers in pictures. You must have no- 

 ticed among the magazines you read the 

 tendency of artists to introduce flowers 

 into their copy, magazine covers, ad- 

 vertising displays, illustrations for fic- 

 tion. All this has helped. 



President Wilson advised flowers for 

 the proper celebration of our national 

 glorification of peace day. The mayor 

 of Baltimore in a public proclamation 

 has taken up the thought and it rests 

 with the florist in each community to 

 do his part to keep this praiseworthy 

 movement going. 



But we shall be expected to supply 

 more and more material to this growing 

 demand for more news about flowers — 

 more ways to "Say It with Flowers." 



The Cost of a National Campaign. 



We should go with a few words of 

 greeting to every family in the United 

 States every little while. Perhaps you 

 may think this would reipiire a fortune. 

 What does it cost to advertise? It costs 

 really less to advertise nationally than 

 you gentlemen pay fndividually in your 

 own community per capita. 



The cost of successful advertising on 

 a national scale is not large. For in 

 stance, if you were to spend 1 cent per 

 family per year for advertising, your 

 expenditure for the year would be about 

 $22(),()0(). The average total expendi- 

 tuie for advertising space in fifty-six 

 leading magazines ia leas than one quar- 

 ter of this sum. In other words, Un- 

 average national advertiser buys leas 

 than .$r)0,00() worth of space per year or 

 less than i/i cent per family in the 

 Fnited States. The larger user of apace 

 spends a million a year in national pub- 



