Fbbbu^lbt 26, 1920 



The Florists^ Review 



21 



HOW ST. LOUIS SUCCEEDED 



lOME ei^R years ago the 

 florists of the city of St. 

 Louis and of St. Louis 

 county first discussed co- 

 operative advertising, but 

 somehow they could not 

 get together to plan ways 

 of raising the necessary funds and of 

 putting them to the most effective use. 

 I doubt whether we should ever have 

 done anything more than think about 

 publicity if it had not been for the 

 S. A. F. and its inauguration of the 

 national publicity campaign at its con- 

 vention in New York in August, 1917. 

 Two years ago, at a meeting of the 

 local committee for the national flower 

 show, some of the plans for national 

 publicity were discussed and we saw 

 the opportunity to get real benefit from 

 the national campaign by tying up local 

 publicity with it. About $200 was 

 raised at that meeting and a committee 

 was selected, with the writer as chair- 

 man. This started the ball rolling. 

 About $400 was spent for St. Valen- 

 tine's day and the results were so con- 

 vincing that it was decided to make 

 that committee permanent, giving 

 power to the chairman to appoint who- 

 ever he thought would be wise addi- 

 tions to the committee! As a result, 

 its membership was enlarged to include 

 the presidents of all the organizations in 

 the trade in St. 

 Louis and St. Louis 

 county. 



We started with 

 a voluntary sub- 

 scription, each 

 florist subscribing 

 for a year and pay- 

 ing in monthly in- 

 stallments. The sec- 

 retary had charge 

 of the amounts col- 

 lected and received 

 a compensation for 

 his work of ten per 

 cent of the collec- 

 tions. 



Launched. 



The amounts that 

 we raised were not 

 especially large, but 

 the response that we 

 received was de- 

 cidedly encourag- 

 ing. In following the 

 steps of the na- 

 t i o n a 1 publicity 

 committee, we were 

 using ideas that 

 were not costing 

 us anything and 

 were getting our 

 cuts at an unusu- 

 ally low price, en- 

 abling us to get 

 large results for the 

 money spent during 

 that year. We ad- 

 vertised chiefly 

 through newspapers 

 and street cars and 

 by the use on every 

 occasion of the slo- 

 gan, "Say It with 

 Flowers. ' ' 



By L. JULES BOURDET. 



By the end of the year, the committee 

 realized that the voluntary method of 

 raising funds was not fair, as some 

 were paying too much in comparison 

 with the size of their business, while 

 others were not paying enough and still 

 others were not paying anything. 



Proportional Payments. 



In the trade papers we read of the 

 plan of proportional payments being 

 started in Milwaukee, by which the re- 

 tailers paid one per cent of the value 

 of their purchases and the growers 

 one-half of one per cent of their re- 

 turns. This plan was thoroughly dis- 

 cussed by the committee and was unan- 

 imously accepted as the best and 

 fairest way to assess the trade for co- 

 operative publicity. 



The committee recommended this 

 plan to each of the four principal trade 

 organizations of the city, the St. Louis 

 Florists' Club, the St. Louis County 

 Growers' Association, the St. Louis 

 Wholesale Florists' Association and the 

 St. Louis Eetail Florists' Association, 

 and they all endorsed it. The commit- 

 tee also suggested that each of these 

 organizations appoint three of its mem- 

 bers to act on the publicity committee; 

 this provided a committee of twelve. 



L. Jules Bourdet* 



(Chairman St. Louis Publicity Oomnilttee.) 



with three representatives each from 

 the growers, the wholesalers, the re- 

 tailers and the allied trades, as follows: 

 L. Jules Bourdet, chairman; J. J. Ben- 

 eke, secretary and treasurer; A. H. 

 Hummert, W. A. Eowe, W. J. Pilcher, 

 A. S. Cerny, W. C. Smith, H. G. Bern- 

 ing, Frank A. Windier, Fred C. Weber, 

 J. J. Windier and Charles C. Young. 



Last year the assessment on the 

 growers alone of one-half of one per 

 cent on the stock sold through the 

 wholesale houses yielded $1,043.84 from 

 April. 1 to October 1. These figures are 

 sufficiently typical to indicate how 

 productive so slight a percentage can 

 be when there are enough participants 

 in the assessment. Last fall it was 

 decided to spend $3,000 in advertising, 

 with a generous use of the slogan, ' ' Say 

 It with Flowers." 



For St. Valentine's day, the commit- 

 tee distributed among the florists free 

 of charge 50,000 stamps and 100 posters 

 and ran a reproduction of the poster as 

 a double-column advertisement in the 

 daily papers for a week. 



The plan is now working with dis- 

 tinct success, since an adequate in- 

 come is practically assured, derived 

 from small assessments, equitably 

 assigned. Ninety-five per cent of 

 the growers are paying their one- 

 half of one per cent and are willing to 

 double it if they are 

 asked to do so. 

 Somehow we have 

 not been quite so 

 fortunate with the 

 retailers, who seem 

 to be a little slow 

 to realize the bene- 

 fits of publicity; 

 about fifty per cent 

 of them are paying 

 their one per cent. 

 We are, however, 

 winning them slow- 

 ly but surely; the 

 slowest to come in 

 will be strongest in 

 favor of it later. 



Double Beceipts. 



The total amount 

 that we expect to 

 raise this year irlth 

 the plan of percent- 

 age assessment is 

 about double the 

 amount which was 

 raised last year 

 with voluntary sub- 

 scriptions. We have 

 been able, also, to 

 secure the free 

 services of an ad- 

 vertising man to 

 handle our public- 

 ity in the newspa- 

 pers; this man re- 

 ceives his compen- 

 sation from the 

 newspapers in com- 

 missions. So far 

 we have been using 

 newspapers as the 

 principal advertis- 

 ing medium, as we 

 found that such ad- 



