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American Agriculturist, May 17, 1924 
Who Pays for Advertising? 
Why Women Buy, What They Buy, When They Buy 
By J. R. SPRAGUE 
R ECENTLY one of the great national womans’ 
magazines sent out this questionnaire to several 
thousand of its readers: “When you go into a 
store to make some purchase and are shown two 
articles, one of which you recognize as having been 
advertised, and the other not, which one do you buy?” 
Out of all the replies re¬ 
ceived to this question, 87 
women in 100 stated that in 
such circumstances they 
bought the advertised article. 
Appended to the question¬ 
naire was this further inquiry: 
“If the advertised article is 
higher in price than the non- 
advertised article, which one 
do you buy? ” 
Sixty women out of a hun¬ 
dred answered this question 
by saying that they bought 
the advertised article even 
though higher in price. 
There must be a sound 
reason for the sentiments 
shown in these replies, because 
the women addressed were not 
of the wealthier classes, but 
were mainly the wives of 
farmers, mechanics and sala¬ 
ried men,—people who are 
obliged to practice economies 
and make their money go as 
far as possible. In short, the 
women who replied to the 
questionnaire represented the 
great bulk of the American 
people, those who have helped, 
and are still helping, to make 
our country what it is. 
Why do 87 women out of 
100 buy advertised brands of 
goods in preference to non- 
ad vertised brands? And why 
do 60 women out of 100 buy 
advertised goods even at a 
higher price? 
The kind of democracy we 
have evolved in America has 
taught us one great truth 
which is, that the decision of 
the majority is always the 
wise decision in the long run. 
We may make mistakes in our 
laws and in our economic 
policies, but eventually our 
great American common sense comes to the surface and 
the mistakes are rectified through the force of public 
opinion. 
One does not have to be very old to remember when 
the life of the ordinary citizen was vastly different than 
now. When mother used to buy castile soap by the 
yard and cut it up into two-inch sections which had 
sharp corners that had to be rounded off by use; when 
there was no light porcelain and enamelware; when we 
got hot water from a tank at the back of the kitchen 
stove, and when the ordinary bathtub was a wooden or 
galvanized iron washtub. 
Those were the times, too, when going into a store to 
buy anything often meant a session of bargaining. Few 
merchants marked their goods in plain figures, and the 
customer never could be quite sure whether or not he 
was getting an article as cheap as someone else. In 
many cases an extra high figure would be named for an 
article because the merchant fully expected that the 
customer would try to “ beat down ” the price. When a 
man went into a clothing store to buy a suit of clothes 
he seldom expected to pay the first price; if the first 
price was $20, he could nearly always get it for $17.50 
if he was a fairly good bargainer. If he happened to be 
an extra shrewd bargainer he could often take the suit 
away for $15, and get a pair of suspenders thrown in for 
good measure. 
This kind of merchandising has happily gone out of 
style in America, though it is still in vogue in some other 
countries. It was a bad system, and an unfair one; for 
the person who did not like to stoop to petty bargaining 
was penalized for the benefit of the person who did not 
mind doing such things. Beside that, it was economic¬ 
ally unsound. Merchandise cannot be distributed at 
lowest price unless it is done on a basis of one price to 
all. The business man who could never know what he 
was going to get for an article naturally set a good 
round figure on it so as to be able to come down if 
necessary. 
Just this, perhaps, explains why 87 women out of 
100 prefer to buy nationally advertised articles rather 
than non-ad vertised articles; and why 60 out of 100 
are willing to pay a higher price for advertised 
goods. There is a sense of security in buying an 
article in which the manufacturer has enough e con¬ 
fidence to spend his good money in advertising. 
Why is it safe to buy the things that you see con¬ 
sistently advertised year after year in the magazines 
and newspapers of the country? Simply because it is 
an undeviating rule of business that to sell a customer 
only one time is unprofitable. Unless the customer is 
well enough pleased with his purchase to continue 
buying, the first sale is made at a loss to the seller. 
In other words, it would be the height of folly for a 
manufacturer to spend his money advertising an 
article unless he is sure the article will satisfy the 
purchaser. Advertising merely tells the public about 
the product; the product itself must be good enough to 
create future sales. 
It is the advertisers of the country who are largely 
responsible for the one-price system of retailing, 
because their existence depends on the good-will 
of the great buying public, and that good-will 
cannot be maintained unless everyone js treated 
alike. It is also the national advertisers who 
have made it possible for the person of moderate 
means in 1924 to have the conveniences and even 
luxuries that were the prerogatives of the wealthy 
only thirty years ago. 
Every once in awhile some ardent patriot who 
seeks public office, or who wishes to fix himself 
up as a salaried official of some reform organiza¬ 
tion, rises to state that the economic machinery 
of the country is all wrong and that we will soon 
go to the dogs unless we change our ways. One 
of his favorite themes is the fact that vast sums 
are being spent every year on advertising; he 
shows by telling logic how advertising is a drain 
on the nation and the consumer pays the bills, 
thus viciously increasing the cost of living. It 
sounds plausible, but let us see how it works out 
in actual practice. 
A little more than twenty years ago a manu¬ 
facturer in Pennsylvania was putting out an 
assorted line of food products, selling in fair 
volume to the grocery trade in nearby territory. 
The thought occured to him that if he could specialize 
on single product, and through advertising get enough 
people into the habit of using that product, he would he 
able to sell it at a very low price and still make a profit. 
He decided to go into the manufacture of canned soups, 
which had not been done extensively in this country at 
that time; and he believed there was a market for such 
a product because home-made soup is an expensive 
thing on account of the number of ingredients that 
have to be used. 
When he first put his canned soup on the market it 
had to sell for around thirty cents a can, which was not 
very much cheaper than the housewife could produce it 
herself. But he began to advertise it extensively, 
constantly creating new customers, and as the number 
of customers went up, the price per can went down. 
Now, in spite of the increased cost of machinery, of 
labor and of transportation, Campbells soups sell at 
about eleven cents a can instead of the thirty cents of 
twenty odd years ago. 
It is true that he has spent millions of dollars in 
advertising, which the reformer may claim has been 
paid by the public; but the fact remains that the price 
has gone down. In actual figures, the cost of adver¬ 
tising each can is something less than one-fifth of one 
cent! 
There is a tool manufacturer in an Eastern State 
who, for many years made an assorted line of hammers, 
hatchets, axes, and the like, selling them to dealers 
throughout the country. He did not advertise these 
tools and made no attempt at standardization; if a 
dealer anywhere said his customers liked a peculiar 
kind of hammer or hatchet the manufacturer made 
new models to suit. Eventually he was turning out 
more than 2,700 different items in the tool line. 
Then the War came on and the manufacturer turned 
his plant over to the Government, making war materials 
instead of tools. After the armistice he went back to 
tool making, but handicapped by the fact that for 
nearly two years his product had been practically off 
the market, so it was almost like starting business all 
over again. 
This time he went at it differently. Instead of 
making all sorts of models he concentrated only on 
those which long experience had shown were most 
practical and serviceable; at one stroke he lopped off 
nearly three-fourths of his former number of models. 
He painted these in distinctive colors, red and black, 
stamped his name and trade mark on every article, 
and began to advertise them to the tool users of the 
country. As in the case of Campbells soups, he could 
produce his goods cheaper and better because he 
concentrated on a few lines instead of many. But to 
attain the minimum of cheapness and quality he had 
to have a large and steady stream of buyers, and only 
through advertising could this be done. He had spent 
large sums of money, but each year’s expenditure has 
resulted in more customers for his tools. More 
customers have enabled him to produce more econom¬ 
ically. Economy in manufacture makes lower prices 
for every individual buyer. 
So far no reformer has been able to devise any scheme 
for lowering the cost of necessities that beats the , 
system whereby a manufacturer is given a chance to 
make the very best product he knows how, and then bv 
paid publicity tells the public about his product. If 
the product stands the test of actual use, the adver¬ 
tising pays for itself. If not, then the manufacturer 
falls by the wayside, crowded out by someone who 
('Continued on page J/.76) 
“Dern ye! I’ve broke ye to railroads, autos and airyplanes, 
an’ now I guess I kin break ye to Zepplins, too!” Life 
Copyrighted. 1924, by the New York “Tribune,” Inc. 
GROWN SO LONG NOW IT WILL NEED A SCYTHE 
Darling in the New York Tribune. 
