The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-04-01
Advantage Of Advertising as Seen
Through English Eyes.

From the London (Engand) Daily Echol
American advertisers have the reputation of
an originality and SIN artnsss far in advance of
that enjoyed by their European brethren.
Some of their devices for securing publicity are
of character that we hardly wish initiated
in this country; but there are two lessons
prudence and persistency-which many EGG
llsh tradesmen and business men might learn
from them with advantage. With exception
of the great advertisers, who know too we'll
tie value of publicity to forsake its advantages,
the majority Of people conduct their adver-
tispg business in timid and irresolute man
ner which usually results in pecuniary loss And
frequently disgusts them with what is after all,
the very life blood of business. when really their
own want of sagacity and pluck is alone to
blame The ordinary advertiser goes in for q
squirt, and while the fit is on him he will pay
money to any journal he may fall across, or
that may bs introduced to him by fifth rate
agent, for the sake of the blackmail paid in
double commission. By and by the bills come
IN the advertiser finds he has spent three
times as much as he meant to; the specially he
has been trying to introduce has fallen fiat on
the public taste; or business generally has be-
come dull; and he fancies buyers are few and
little likely to pay attention to his announce
ments. He stops short accordingly and loses
nearly all the benefit of his previous expendi-
ture The success reaped by those whose ad-
vertisements appear from year to year should
teach men of business first to be careful in the
selection of the medium they choose, and next,
when satisfied on this point, to perse'
we're, disregarding expenditure when BUSH
ness is dull. The man who shut MP
his shop to save bis expenses when trade was
slack would be counted fool, and yet he could
hardly damage his reputation more than the
advertiser who, for a similar reason, withdraws
his announcements. The people who read the
papers in dull times are those who buy when
trade revives, and he who will get most of their
custom is the man who has kept his name we'll
before them when their attention was unoccu-
pied. Moreover advertising in this country IS
left too much to large capitalists. 1t the small
trader who Is forever grumDling at his want OF
ability to compete with large houses, and at
their comparative monopoly of public custom,
would only remember that IN the columns OF
the newspaper press he can at comparatively
small cost command publicity cO-extensive
with the bounds of civilization, and certain
lucrative return, richer and richer in results
every succeeding year, he would doubtless more
frequently use it. Those who pride themselves
on not being advertising houses" SHOULD bear
in mind that in trade nothing wears faster than
good reputation when nobody ever hears any
thing about it. A Yankee contemporary tells q
story, much to the poiut, of town where every
one advertised with the exception of one man
Everybody thrived except him, but he Obsti-
nately declared that nothing should ever make
him advertise. He was mistaken, although he
only discovered it the day after his bankruptcy
when he had to INSTRUCT the auctioneer to ad-
yertise the sale of his business for the benefit
of his creditors.