TWENTY-EIGHTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



131 



is kept on this basis, just so long will California products pay a narrow 

 margin of profit. 



If you want to raise the profits of your business, you have first got to 

 raise your product out of the rut, and the one lever to do this is judi- 

 cious, common-sense advertising, combined with skillful business 

 management and a sales organization that can not be impeached. 



Elbert Hubbard, the genial editor of the " Philistine," in an address 

 at Pasadena last Monday night said: ''There are two ways to beat com- 

 petition. One is to make the article cheaper, the other to make it better. '' 



Let us put out our products in so much better and finer shape than 

 the world has ever known and there will be no competition to beat. 

 We can do it; Californians can do anything, especially if we "set our 

 light upon the hill." 



A little squib in three or four papers stating that a few drops of lemon 

 juice in a glass of water will kill the typhoid germ is not going to move 

 your lemon crop. Advertising prunes as a medicine is not going to 

 raise the dignity and prestige of the fruit. 



The advertising of any product must be done in such a manner as to 

 inspire enthusiasm for California and confidence in the merit of the 

 article advertised. 



Let us suppose a case. Take oranges, for instance. Say we'll put 

 $100,000 into advertising oranges next year, commencing in October 

 and ending in May or June. We'll call our brand the "Golden Globe," 

 the most luscious of all California oranges — every one a perfect specimen 

 of orange culture. We'll pack the "Golden Globes" with a sealed 

 wrapper; we'll use a different and more attractive box; we'll put a little 

 note in each box calling attention of the retail dealer to the exception- 

 ally fine quality of the fruit and give him a few points on oranges so 

 that he can talk "Golden Globe" to his customers. We'll say it costs 

 another $25,000 for the extra fine labels, packing, and incidentals. 



Now what will $125,000 expended that way accomplish? It will 

 make oranges more popular than ever before. It will stiffen the entire 

 market from California to Connecticut. But it will do more. It will 

 sell direct 500,000 boxes of fruit at from 50 cents to $1 per box more 

 than unadvertised fruit brings, and this means that on the season's 

 advertising there is $125,000 clean profit. 



Some who have not given this matter any great thought or had any very 

 great experience with advertising as a means of advancing prices or 

 profits, will say this is the idle dream of an idle dreamer; but I tell you, 

 gentlemen, that just as sure as I stand here this thing will be done some 

 day and the wonder then will be, " why didn't we think of this before?" 



Mr. Post, of Battle Creek, Mich., has made millions in the last few 

 years with his Grape-Nuts and Postum Cereal. He started his business 

 in a little barn or shed and his first advertising bill hardly amounted 



