The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1907-07-05
w. h. Black, in Delineator.


Long before the era of large adver-
tising, the greatest philosopher of the
world said: "Be not penny wise;
riches have wings and sometimes they
fly away Of themselves. sometimes they
must be set flying to bring in more"
This is distinctly the era of big ad-
vertisiug and 1t may be we'll for us to
clearly understand what we mean by
big advertising. Let us start with the
knowledge that no advertising is wise
or permanently profitable unless it has
merit behind it. But having merit
behind it the only advertising that
wins big is big advertising. 1t is not
as new as it might seem. Every far
sighted man who had something to sell
and was sure of its quality realized
that the quickest and surest way to
sell it was to catch the public atten-
tion and drive home his intentions Ey
hold words.
II we trace the history of publicity
for years back we find that the big
winners have invariably been the big
advertisers who had meritorious goods
for the general market.
The manufacturer came into the
fisld little later than he should, but
now he is doing what he can to make
up for lost time.
After the manufacturer had put
riches in his quality products he found
that something remained to be done.
He knew that they were in his shop
and believed he could supply the mar
ket of the world-but the world did
not know. So in order to extend the
benefit of his work and to receive pro-
fitable returns from his enterprise he
had to give his riches wings and send
them as messengers to mankind.
The average manufacturer did not
like to advertise. His objections were
natural and easily understood. When
he came into the publicity situation
he found two extremes.
One was the deadly dullness of the
mere business card, a survival of the
days when the important thing was to
let people know the address Of the ad-
vertiser and the cargo of the latest
ship from Europe.
The other extreme was the wild ex-
travagance of the foolish advertisers
who fancied they could make sue
cess of mere claim and statement full
of vain boasting and double superla-
tives aud irrespective of the question
of merit in the goods which they had
to offer. Even today we have persons
otherwise sane who believe that big
advertising can sell anything or make
success of any proposition, whether
it have quality or not-which means
with such that it has no real quality
at all. The shores of publicity are
strewn with the wrecks of this kind of
folly.
Gradually the manufacturer came to
see that his salvation was in the wise
use of this tremendous means of reach
ing and stimulating the'public interest.
He saw because someone else might
have misused good thing there was
no reason why he should not employ
1t well and thus make it his chief
agency in his work. Thus he began
and today we find that honest adver-
tising of meritorious goods has not
only been profitable in itself but has
made the exaggerated advertising of
doubtful articles ridiculous. The only
advertising that pays is that which has
a tact behind every assertion; that
which can make good every pledge,
every claim. Whether it fill many
pages or few lines, the rule holds to
the very letter. ....
So the men of sense. enterprise and
proportion realize that advertising
was not a mere circus trick to attract
the crowd but that rightly used, it was
as much of an investment as their own
manufacturing plants,
The big manufacturer does not keep
running many little plants widely dis
tributed. If he did he would be bank