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  An Idea
  That Saved a Business




  An Idea
  That Saved a Business

  _By_
  Leonard Dreyfuss

  Privately printed for
  The United Advertising Corporation
  1918




  _Copyright 1918
  by
  United Advertising Corporation_




The Idea


The General Manager of a large Department Store sat in his study
one night, puffing away at a big black cigar, with a real worried
expression upon his face. Things were not right down at the Store.

Two months previous he had accepted the position as General Manager,
and it had been gradually dawning upon him that he was waging a losing
fight. The Store had an equipment and over-head based upon a total
annual business of seven million dollars and was barely doing four.

For days he had been reviewing his Organization; the activities of his
competitors, the possibilities of the City itself, the opportunities
for the elimination of expense that might serve to reduce the
over-head. It was a brain racking circle of thoughts and figures that
seemed to lead nowhere but back to the starting point.

Sitting in his Study he tried his best to find a solution of the
ever-increasing problem. Musing upon the situation aloud he said,
“boiled down to a single sentence the problem seems to be this--how am
I going to get the greatest amount of money in the shortest possible
time?” The next thought was “to whom shall I look as an example of how
that can be accomplished--who gets the greatest amount of money in the
shortest possible time?” Suddenly he sat up as the thought struck him
forcibly--“why, it’s the Circus that in the shortest space of time
produces the greatest result.”

He couldn’t shake the idea and the next morning he had determined that
he would seek out the General Manager of the largest Circus Company
traveling the Country and ask him to what it was they attributed their
success.

The General Manager was a man who, like most true Executives, acts on
impulse, and he made up his mind that he would take the first train to
where the Circus was showing and talk with its General Manager.

Fortunately the Circus was then located in a City about one hundred
miles distant, and the General Manager made the trip.

In conference with the Circus man the next day he told him what he had
in mind. “You folks,” he said, “it seems to me, more than any other
business, get the greatest amount of money in the shortest possible
time--how do you do it?”

The Circus man laughed. “It is more simple than you think,” he said.
“We simply are most careful students of advertising; we plan and place
our advertising so that ALL THE PEOPLE know when we shall arrive
and how long we shall stay. We have found that some people read the
newspapers, a great number; and some ride in Street Cars, quite a
few; but that ALL PEOPLE who can come to our Circus use the great
outdoors. Therefore, we spend eighty per cent. of the money we have
for advertising, outdoors. By the use of outdoor publicity we get our
greatest ‘punch.’ The Poster offers a use of color and size that
dominates, and the eye cannot escape it. Then we so build our copy that
‘he who runs is compelled to read.’ We are specialists in evolving
compelling copy--we are psychologists who have accurately gauged the
public’s mind. We cater to the great masses, rich and poor alike. We
must understand humanity in its entirety. So we use the Poster and
painted signs--we tell our message in color and size and we reiterate
it on every Highway and Byway until you cannot escape the message of
the Circus and its appeal.”

The two men talked for a number of hours, and finally the General
Manager said, “if your plan is a success for the Circus, why not for
some other business? Is there any particular reason why your method can
only be successful for a Circus Company?”

“No,” said the Circus man, “I think the method itself is sound and
would, to a large degree, prove efficient for mostly any business, if
as carefully planned as ours.”

The General Manager of the large Department Store, riding back to his
City, thought over all that the Circus man had told him, and this one
thought persisted in his mind--“Why not for the Department Store?”

Next day he laid plans for an Outdoor Advertising Campaign. He called
in his Advertising Manager and a Representative of the Outdoor
Advertising Company of his City, and said to them, “I want to place
outdoor advertisements so that, no matter where you stand on any widely
traveled avenue in this City at any point of circulation, you will be
greeted by a dominant reminder of our Store. I am going to make this
Institution _synonymous_ with _shopping_. I am going to so constantly
reiterate that message, and I intend to do it in so attractive a way
and with such compelling copy that the public will be unconsciously
attracted to us in larger numbers than ever before. I am going to
inaugurate within such changes as will make OURS the finest place
to shop, rendering unquestionable service and having a ‘come again’
atmosphere about it; and I will look to the outdoor advertising that
we will do to help build for us this prestige that, to my mind, is so
necessary for an Institution such as ours.”

The General Manager was an enthusiast not given to half measures--one
of those leaders of men who act instinctively and is nine-tenths right.

He said to the Advertising Manager, “I have set a figure of twenty
thousand dollars as my limit for this Outdoor Campaign, and I want
you to buy the most dominant Outdoor Display that was ever planned in
this City. I want to go over every bit of the copy with you before it
is finally executed, and I want the copy changed every month with a
complete re-arrangement of both color scheme and message. I want to
make, as I stated before, _our Institution synonymous with shopping_.”

Seven years have gone by, and the General Manager is President of his
Company, which is now doing some twelve million dollars’ worth of
business yearly.

No, the increase of eight million dollars in their business is not
due entirely to this wonderful Outdoor Campaign that was put forth.
The untiring energy of the General Manager, his far-sightedness and
ability in re-organizing his Institution, have all gone to make this
Department Store the wonderful business it is. It is significant that
today his Company is still spending eighteen thousand dollars per year
for Outdoor Advertising.

The General Manager said to me the other day, “I believe in our Outdoor
Advertising because I have proven its value. It tells my message _to
all the people_: To the Foreigners and the Illiterates who cannot read
the newspapers and have money to spend, and who can absorb a simple
message told to them, pictorially and in large size and color--to
the _school girl who is the mother of tomorrow_, and to the busy man
who rides in his motor car to and from his factory and glances only
occasionally at his newspaper.

“Mind you I hold no brief for Outdoor Advertising alone--I am a
consistant user of newspaper space, probably the largest in this City
today, but I attribute the first growth and stimulus of our business to
the wide-spreading use I made of Outdoor Publicity.

“I do not believe that a Department Store can be successfully
advertised by Outdoor Advertising alone, any more than I believe it
can be most successfully advertised by newspaper advertising alone.
I believe that a Department Store is best served by a judicious
combination of both.”

This General Manager, as I said before, is President of his Institution
today, one of the wisest men in the Department Store field in America.

  And the best part of this Story is that
  it is _absolutely true_ and was told to
  the writer almost as set down.




NOTE


Our organization has the advantage of a merchandising experience
covering a period of 40 years. We have served clients who have grown
from infant industry to corporations doing fifty million dollars or
more per year.

We have carefully collected and compiled sales and advertising data, a
great deal of which is applicable to all business.

We have a sane, workable plan we should like to present to you.


UNITED ADVERTISING CORPORATION.

[Illustration: _Advertising compels the trend of trade_

UNITED ADVERTISING CORPORATION]




United Advertising Corporation

  Samuel Pratt                    _President_
  Leonard Dreyfuss           _Vice-President_
  Alfred V. Van Beuren, _Secretary-Treasurer_


Specializing in Outdoor Advertising

  _Throughout the United States
  and Canada_


Executive Offices

  ONE WEST 34th STREET AT FIFTH AVENUE
  New York City


Operating and Affiliated Companies

  Newark Poster Advertising Co.           _Newark, N. J._
  Newark Sign Co.                         _Newark, N. J._
  New Haven Poster Advertising Co.,    _New Haven, Conn._
  New Haven Sign Co.                   _New Haven, Conn._
  Bridgeport Outdoor Advertising Co., _Bridgeport, Conn._
  Van Beuren & N. Y. Bill Posting Co.,  _New York, N. Y._
  American Posting Service,               _Chicago, Ill._
  Dallas Poster Advertising Co.            _Dallas, Tex._
  Edwards Co.                                _Waco, Tex._
  Consolidated Bill Posting Co.         _Louisville, Ky._




  Printed by
  The Price & Lee Co., of N. J.
  The Art Press
  Newark, New Jersey




Transcriber’s notes


Extraneous closing quotation mark on page 14 removed. All other apparent
punctuation errors remain unchanged.

Spelling error “consistant” on page 14 left uncorrected.


*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77052 ***