186 



TENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



can't be done over night, and the effort 

 once begun should be persisted in in- 

 definitely. To take it up a few months 

 and then stop will be worse than noth- 

 ing. 



There ought to be used at least a 

 quarter page space in such periodi- 

 cals as the Ladies' Home Journal, 

 Good Housekeeping, Woman's Home 

 Companion, and other papers of sim- 

 ilar nature, as well as papers like the 

 Saturday Evening Post. A reliable 

 advertising agency should secure the 

 best possible position for an adver- 

 tisement in these papers, and the 

 sign should always be hung in the 

 same place. This advertisement 

 should be changed with every issue. 

 It should be written by one who can 

 Vv-rite perfect English, and who can 

 make every advertisement interesting 

 and to the point. Part of the space 

 might well be taken up with an illus-* 

 tration of honey in its different 

 forms from hive to dining room — aye, 

 to the very brown biscuit. The cuts 

 should harmonize with the text, and 

 be so well constructed that the reader 

 will not recover from the shock with- 

 out asking his (or her) grocer for a 

 package of honey. The housewife 

 will then have no occasion to say she 

 didn't "think" of honey. It will be 

 borne in upon her, month in and 

 month out, just as she is never allowed 

 to forget "Royal" baking powder. 

 You will thus have gained one step 

 toward the victory. 



The demand caused by the adver- 

 tising in the big magazines will be- 

 felt by the retailer, and you can utilize 

 to advantage his trade papers, a 

 connection with one of which for 27 

 years has made me somewhat famil- 

 iar with these journals. Not all of 

 the quarter of a million of "men who 

 sell soap," as a retailer was lately 

 defined, read their trade papers, I am 

 sorry to say, but a lot of them do, 

 and many of them take a deep and 

 earnest interest therein. You should 

 utilize the best of these, and as intelli- 

 gently as the magazines are used; 

 but of course the argument with the 

 retailer falls into another line than 

 that by which the consumer is ap- 

 proached. The leader may have 

 very slight interest in the merits of 

 honey as honey; but he needs to be 

 told that you are carrying on a cam- 

 paign that is bound to affect him 



personally; that he will be acting 

 with discretion if he will lay in a 

 stock of honey to meet the call. Urge 

 him to "study up" a little on the honey 

 question. Tell him what argument 

 he can use, and show him that by 

 making a little extra "honey effort" 

 he can increase the sale many fold. 

 Suggest to him the method spoken of 

 as to a window display — using honey 

 alone, and not placing it by the side 

 of sauer-kraut and limburger cheese 

 and Bologna sausage. Honey is a royal 

 article and needs better treatment in 

 display than does salt mackerel, good 

 as these may be. It should be sep- 

 arate from its friend, the enemy, 

 Karo, and similar goods. In fact it 

 deserves a place by itself — not that it 

 will suffer by comparison with other 

 goods, but the very nature of the ar- 

 ticle sets it among the choicest food 

 products. 



The grocer wants to sell good 

 goods. At least I believe that most 

 of them do. Then he likes to know 

 that an article is well advertised and 

 will sell all the year around; and, 

 finally, he wants a remunerative prof- 

 it. Given these points, and the re- 

 tailer will wake up. He will see that 

 the honey-counter is rescued from its 

 "innocuous desuetude," and, I believe, 

 he will keep everlastingly at it. A 

 good retailer exerts a lot of influence 

 among his customers, and can almost 

 make or break any food product so 

 far as his store is concerned, unless 

 it is founded on a rock. 



Permit me now to switch off a 

 little f"om the main point, and to 

 suggest that every package of honey 

 be of a quality that will maike good 

 every assertion made in the adver- 

 tisements. A California producer 

 wrote me a few weeks ago that nine- 

 tenths of the honey in market is not 

 sufficiently ripened, and that it rather 

 prejudices the consumer. Leave no 

 stone unturned to make the article all 

 that can be desired. The packages 

 should be attractive and clean, and 

 neatly labeled. I believe that there 

 should be a distinctive word or illus- 

 tration used in the advertisements 

 and on every package of your honey, 

 so that it will become impressed 

 firmly within the mind of the con- 

 sumer. 



Of course your advertising cam- 

 paign will help all producers, and 



