354 



THE' GARDEN MAGAZINE 



July , 1914 



Romances of Modern Business 



CHAPTER VII 



Beauty and Printers' Ink 



Out in Cleveland there is a drug-store, 

 perched on a quiet corner of the Ohio metropo- 

 lis. It is an unpretentious building, much like 

 many another drug-store. Yet loyal Cleve- 

 landers, passing with a visitor, point to it with 

 pride. "There," they are wont to say, "is 

 where Fred Stecher got his start." 



And then will follow the story of the young 

 Cleveland pharmacist who filled prescriptions, 

 sold stamps, and graciously met all the de- 

 mands made upon a community-druggist be- 

 fore he made a fortune out of Pompeian Cream. 



This Cleveland druggist — Mr. Frederick W. 

 Stecher — began to study the inquiries of his 

 customers in the hope of discovering some 

 definite need that he might fill. It was not 

 long before he realized that every woman who 

 came into his store was interested in enhancing 

 her good looks and in preserving her youthful 

 appearance. 



Age-old fact though this was, it was an in- 

 spiration to young Stecher. He concluded that 

 a different kind of a face-cream designed to 

 clean the skin pores would have a wide appeal 

 to lovers of good complexions. 



A few months later the young druggist was 

 doing a thriving local business with Pompeian 

 Massage Cream. 



That was in iqoi. Mr. Stecher reasoned 

 that if he could address millions of readers of 

 periodicals at once he could create a great de- 

 mand for his product. 



Fired with faith and enthusiasm, the drug- 

 gist came to New York in roo2. He explained 

 his proposition to several advertising men. 

 They discouraged him. But Stecher would 

 not be disheartened. He looked up another 

 advertising man and met that Columbus of the 

 advertising fraternity, Mr. William H. Johns. 



"What is your cream good for?" asked the 

 advertising agent. Mr. Stecher explained that 

 it was a massage cream to rub in and rub out, 

 bringing the pore-dirt with it. Mr. Johns dis- 

 covered an idea there. "It's worth a trial, at 

 least," he said. So the Ohioan accepted a 

 plan as outlined and gave his check for two 

 hundred and twenty-nine dollars, the cost of 

 the first two magazine advertisements. 



The following month the advertisements ap- 

 peared, and it was only a short while before 



the little drug-store in Cleveland was unable to 

 meet the demand for samples of Pompeian 

 Cream requested by magazine readers in all 

 parts of the country. The good news was tele- 

 graphed to New York, and with it the deter- 

 mination to devote the greater part of all 

 money realized to a large fall advertising cam- 

 paign in the national periodicals. 



A number of magazines and weeklies in the 

 September issues of 1902 carried as much ad- 

 vertising of Pompeian Cream as eight thou- 

 sand dollars would buy. The sales from the 

 two magazine advertisements determined Mr. 

 Stecher to invest this amount in publicity. 

 "I want to make a beauty appeal," he said 

 "and I'll do it with printers' ink." 



The rest of the story is one of phenomenal 

 growth. Less than a year after the first ad- 

 vertising appeared in the periodicals, the busi- 

 ness had outgrown the drug-store. A large 

 new place with facilities for manufacturing and 

 distributing was secured. Today nearly fifty 

 thousand barbers use Pompeian Cream in 

 their shops, approximately fifty thousand drug- 

 gists sell and feature it, and about twenty thou- 

 sand beauty shops throughout the country use 

 this product. 



"The real test of advertising," said Mr. 

 W. W. Wheeler, secretary of the Pompeian 

 Company, "is the response. From the first, 

 Mr. Stecher pinned his faith in periodical pub- 

 licity. It created a national interest. 



"As the business grew, the cost of manu- 

 facturing decreased. Mr. Stecher made little 

 money the first few years. As fast as the 

 money came in he put it into advertising. 

 He was content to build for the future, 

 and kept a resolute faith in the power of 

 periodical publicity. The world has come to 

 know Pompeian Cream solely through peri- 

 odical publicity. 



"The time has passed when the manufac- 

 turer could depend on the dealer to make his 

 product salable. The dealer has crawled into 

 his shell. He says to the manufacturer: 

 'Create the demand and I will handle your 

 goods.' And the manufacturer has to do it. 

 This means advertising, and advertising is 

 growing more important and necessary to 

 business all the time." 



This is the seventh of a series of articles that is being published to show how 

 magazine advertising is serving the public. 



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