Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-11-25
The Value of ADVERTISING,

! The Spectator has a young friend ir
the senior class of one of our promi-
nent women's colleges. She told
him recently of an experience of hers
when on reception committee last
fall. before college opened, TO well
come new students, with their par
ents or guardians, and show them
about the place. One heavy father
who fell to her share to look after
and whose name she did not catch
had so familiar face that she said
, smilingly. II think we must have
met before. for your face is perfectly
well known to me-" I'm glad it
is" was the unexpected reply; ii;
ought to be, for I've spent hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to make i:
familiar to everybody" and, 10. as
he spoke she recognized his counte-
nance as one that had stared at her
from billboard, circular and maya
zine page thousand times. She had
met one of the great advertisers of
America.
And advertising in America has
grown great indeed. There are for
tunes in it. both for the man who adj
vertises and for the man who pre-
parcs and places the advertisement.
Advertising is an art--the art of
publicity. There is an advertiser
journal, published weekly in New
York. which, though not illustrated,
is. to the Spectators mind. one Of
! the most readable periodicals in the
United States. 1t has a keen, honest
and witty editor, whose ideas are
often brilliant and always interest
ing. The main contention is that the
first requisite of good advertising is
to be truthful. This is not the idea
the public has of the matter, for to
discount the fattering tale that the
ordinary advertisement tells is the
first instinct of the reader. Yet, as
the Little Schoolmaster' points out,
the fortunes are made by the adver-
tisers who come nearest the truth.
The ideal advertisement may not tell
the whole. cold truth. but what it
does set forth must be accurate as 1t
goes. or the purchaser though per-
suaded to buy once, will not buy
again.
How superbly some things are adj
vertised every reader of the modern
magazine knows. The Spectator has
a cousin, a good and cultured woman,
who sends all her magazines to an
Old Peoples Home, somewhere out
of the city, after she reads them.
| But she invariably tears out all the
advertising pages before sending
them. .They are lighter to hold
she explains. land it saves unneces-
sary potsage." The Spectator would
not ike to be one Of the defrauded
old people who receive those plucked
periodicals. He always reads the
advertisements first himself. and he
knows many others who do the same.
Why not? Magazine fiction now-a-
DAYS is almost invariably pessimistic
and problematic. For pure, Joyous,
breezy optimism see the advertising
pages. The only problem ever pre-
scented in their picturesque and
CHEEKY columns is how to get money
to buy all the things advertised
| And even then safety would be i'm
possible, for there is always new
advertisement coming in, Of just the
things one has been waiting for for
wears. The illustrations. too, are
calculated to scatter sunshine into
every soul. There never were pref
tier girls anywhere than eat candy
continually on the American adver-
tisement page, or chubDfer babies
partaking perseveringly OF patent
foods. or more lifelfke animals pos
ing as trademarks, or happier house
holds than those which gather round
a new kind of lamp, or more brilliant
parties than assemble here to enjoy
the latest sort of musical instrument.
The advertising world Is place Of
honest happiness, Of perfection even IL
tribes, of music and light and sport ant
new books and absolutely safe invest
ments. To return from its enchanted