Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-09-26
ADS. IN STREET CARS
A BIG FORTUNE EXPENDED IN THE
BUSINESS EVERY YEAR.
An Important Feature with the Advertis.
ing Agencies-Handsomc Revenue For
the Street Car Companies--How the Cities
Rank ~ Desirable Fields.

Rank ~ Desirable Fields.
The yearly expenditure for street car adj
vertising In the United States has grown
in five years from $500, 900 to %, OO0. 600
and is constantly increasing.
The street car companies derive hand
some revenue from the leasing of their adj
| vertising spaces. One corporation. con-
trolling several good lines in neighbor-
ing city, receives annually SIS, 900 from
this source, and over S65, 900 annually Is
paid for the advertising privileges Of the
Boston street cars. But Boston is deemed
by advertisers an exceptionally desirable
field for them. 1t Is indeed considered the
best city in the country from this point of
view, and Philadelphia ranks next. Chi
cago is third. Several factors enter into
the problem Of determining the hypothet-
ical value Of either a city or car line to
advertisers. The best line is that patron
lied most by observant, intelligent, Eng
fish reading passengers, who have money
to spend and are liberal in spending it-in
brief, good average Americans and tho
city in which those characteristics are dis
| tinctive is in like manner held to be best
| Even In the several sections of city, there
| is "a sharp discrimination exercised by the
between the east and west sides of New
York, the latter being deemed worth much
more than the former. In this case, the
distinction does not imply that there Is
less intelligence on the east side, or that
there is less money perhaps. But vast
proportion of the passengers on car lines
east Of the Bowcry are foreigners, many of
whom do not read English, and who are
habitually frugal in their expenditures for
other things than what they deem the
necessaries of existence.
As whole, New York does not rank
high in the category Of the advertisers
choice, and this is from two causes. In
the first place. this city offers abundant
space everywhere, on dead walls and bill
boards for display advertising, which Is
not the case now in compactly built up
Boston. There such conyekicnccs are to
be found only on the outskirts of the city
and in the suburbs, and the advertiser has,
outside the newspapers no other means
than the street cars of reaching the public
And in the second place, it is enormously
expensive to cover the street car advertis-
ing of New York For 5000 one can put
a card in every street car in Boston and
keep it there for a month. For similar
sum he can cover Philadelphia in like
manner. But to put a card in each New
York street car, including those on the
elevated railways, for a month would cost
from 81, 800 to $4,000. Consequently adj
vcrtisers are generally in the habit of max
ing contracts only covering certain speci-
fled lines of New York cars and shifting
about from one to another.
As rule, all over the country the ad-
vertising privileges of street car lines are
primarily leased to local SPECTATORS who
sublet the Spaces so far as possible to 10
cal advertisers 1t is seldom practicable
for them to fill more than one-third, or at
most one-half, of tho i6 spaces in each cor
by the exclusively local patronage they are
able to commapl. Then, as they would
lose money by allowing the remaining
spaces to remain empty, they are anxious
TO lease on whatever terms they can get all
that are left. 1t would be difficult, If not
IMPOSSIBLE for the local speculator in car
spaces to deal directly with the big general
advertisers, who are scattered all over tho
country and would not be bothered by a
multiplicity of small local contracts, the
faithful keeping of which they could in
nowise be assured of. He must, therefore,
seek an intermediary possessed of the cap
ital to buy his space, the courage to take
the risk of filling it, the influence to do so
and the system to make sure of getting all
the service il contracts for. This is tho
field of a corporation which now controls
all of great part of the advertising space
in II, $50 cars-in New England, 1,55l;
middle states, 3,S07; southern states,
/ ,49t; Pacific states, 970 western states,
4, 306, and Canada 222. Three-fourths Of
those cars are on trolley lines, and very
few in the smallest and most remote places
are drawn by horses.
Some difficulty was, at the outset, en-.
countered i'll the concentration and sys-
temization of all these local fields for the
use of the general advertiser, in conse-
quence of the various sizes of car spaces,
which necessitated multiplicity of cards,
of diverse forms and dimensions. Now,
however car builders have adopted uni
form scale of ii card spaces, each IL by 81
inches, which gives ample opportunity for
handsome display. And it is indicative of
the rapidity with which these handsome,
big modern cars have supplanted those Uf
older types that only about per cent Of
the cars now in use have the old spaces, 10
by "a inches Helena, Mon, still has an
exceptional dozen having the odd size of IL
by Is inches. This is more important
matter than might readily be recognized,
since many of the cards now prepared for
street car display are expensive litho or
zinc prints, i'll colors, artistically designed
in form, and balanced in tints and shades
to give as much effect as possible. To
make them Of various sizes would impose
an almost prodibitive increase upon their
cost
To have assurance that the cards of Its
advertisers appear as contracted for the
corporation referred to maintains agents
in 1877 cities, whose duty it "a to keep
watch upon the car service and make fire.
quent reports of the most elaborate char
acter, setting forth every fact of possible
interest in full detail and with the incest
exactitude. The number of each car upon
every line in which an advertisers card
appears, the number of days 1t is in serv-
ice during the month, and the number of
its runs q day and number Of passengers
carried, any omissions that may occur, tho
excuses offered for them and the compen-
satory service rendered, are only some Of
the matters covered by these reports.-New