Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-10-29
NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING.


4 TALK WITH oUR LOCAL ADVERTISERS AND
NoS-ADyERTIsRRs.
The New York Evening Post leading
! journal Of unuoubted candor. intelligence
and reliability, in a recent article on Com
mon Sense in Advertising" rene wedly EN-
! phasizes the fact, drawn from the experience
of all prominent and successful advertisers,
that the American family newspaper is the
one sure and unfailing medium through
which he who has anything TO sell, or VIII,
has any legitimate claim on the attention Of
the public may reach that public without fear
that his efforts may miscarry or fail of their
reward A man may plaster fences with his
announcements, erect huge bill-boards and
cover them with placards, stick painted signs
on every public conveyance, and even deface
the most picturesque aspects Of nature with
his glowing assertions, the Post truly says, il
the hope Of winning customers, but he will
find that instead of winning their attention
and favorable regard he has only disguised
and repealed them. Not to such means do
tho public look to know what or where they
shall buy. They look to the same source to
which they turn for the latest news, for gen.
tertainment- the family newspaper
Facts like these are patent to everybody,
and to none more So we believe, than to the
business men of Brlttleboro We have per-
sonal knowledge, a, least, of not few of our
prominent dealers who have found out to
their satisfaction that roadside placards,
fence-board notices, plastered bridges, d-
rectory or almanac broadsides, or patent"
devices of any kind, do not bring the desired
customers, but that money invested in So
called advertising channels like these il worse
than thrown away, for announcements of this
sort oftener repel than attract.
We do not mean to be understood, how
ever, as saying that Brattleboro merchants
as a whole, are good advertisers for such is
not the case. With two or three prominent
exceptions in fact, We know of no place of
tho size and pretension Of Brattleboro where
there is SO little wel-directed, timely and per-
sistent advertising as is the case here and we
are fully assured that it is through failure
to use the means offered them that SO few Of
our merchants draw in and hold a profitable
trade from the wide outlying country about
US. When Brattleboro people 60 to new
and untried trade centre to buy, they look to
the newspapers of the place TO tell them who
has the goods to sell, and the people of the
smaller Windham county towns are not in
this respect different from their Brttleboro
neighbors.
Another popularity which We have noticed
in the advertising tor non-adyertsing) Of
Bra'tleboro is that, if any private individual
has an article, large or small, which he wish
es to sell, a room 10 rent, or if he has lost or
found anything, he prefers to take his
chances that some one man, woman or child
in hundred will read his written or printed
placard on tree or in the pCst-offico hall
way rather than pay the fraction of dollar
which would ensure his notice being placed
before the eyes of not less than ~ 900 read
ers in local newspaper.
Formerly, however, the fault was not en-
trely with the merchants or the general pub
lie, for the newspaper field was badly over
crowded, and many people who should be
good advertisers neglected that adjunct of
their business altogether, because they dslik-
ed TO make any invidious distinction between
the three papers, and to put their announce
ments into them all was too expensive. That
state of things is now, however, done away
with. The newspaper consolidation of last
spring was made very largely in the interest
of the business men of Bnttleboro, and it is
a fact capable of demonstration that the local
field is now better and more thoroughly COW
cred by the two local papers than it was for
merly by the three, while the cost of an adj
yertisement in one paper or in both is no more
than it ever was.
Speaking in all candor, aud leaving mere self
ish considerations aside, we sincerely believe
the merchants, manufacturers and other bust
ness men of Brattleboro, are making serious
mistake in not using the advertising means
now so literally offered them by the local
press. To illustrate We are obliged TO intrude
our own personality; but We speak in no
boastful spirit, but simply as plain matter
of fact. The circulation of The PHGNIT now
comprises our own old list of year ago, or