The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1911-03-23
Business Methods, Past And
Present.
By NJ F.
By M. r.

Piper Read Before the Chatttd stQud Circle:
Business as defined according tic
Webster, simply signifies mercantile
transactions. at the present progress
sive age however, the significance
has become far greater; for today,
business means creating demand
for such transactions. Thus, adver-
Using, although an old game, has in
the past twenty-five or thirty years
assumed different aspect; the game
has become honest and therefore
one of the great factors in the bust
ness world.
A quarter of century ago, no
reliable merchant or manufacturer
would thus try and market his goods,
he would simply assert, My goods
speak for themselves" today how
ever these goods receive the medium
by which they proclaim their worth.
An article placed on the market in
former days by advertising, was at
once assumed to be a fake and of no
value, and to a certain extent this
assumption was correct, as only in
ferior articles were manufactured
for advertising purposes and solely
for the profit derived through them
from a gullible public and not as
they are today, of even a superior
quality, so as to make name for
themselves and make their demand
everlasting.
AS examples what present day ad
vertising means, l shall use two of
the necessary commodities, namely,
shoes and clothing, of which I'll cite
several cases of personal knowledge:
Until about fifteen years ago the
prominent manufacturers of these
goods refralned from advertising in
any form, only the cheaper grades
were thus marketed, today however,
every prominent manufacturer
spends thousands of dollars yearly
in this manner, and / believe to be
correct in stating that w. L. Doug
lass was the first in his field to ad-
vertise extensively, but only by
strictly adhereing to the representa-
ton of his shoes have they become
so popular and are in such great de-
mand.
Another instance of the present
day method of advertising and of
creating demand is that of the Brown
Shoe Co. of St. Louis, the manufac-
turers of childrens' shoes called the
Buster Brown" after he well
known Buster of the New York
Sunday Herald supplement fame.
In advertising this shoe, til e i r
method would at once have been
ridiculed twenty-five years ago-as
it simply seemed more like the side
show of circus, than what it pur-
ported to be.
On my many busin ess trips
through the New England states and
the state of New York, l very often
came across the medium of their ad-
vertisement and we became very
well acquainted; it was nothing more
nor less than their engaging the SER
vices of an ex-showman very much
understood, in fact about the size OF
a boy, he was dressed the exact
counterpart of the renowned Buster
and the dog with him was the image
of the faithful Tige-this fellow
carried no. samples d literally
speaking, saw no prospective GUS
tomers-he merely lectured on the
merits of the shoe, either in the
open or in hall, as weather per-
mitted. He had his dog trained tc
do a number of stunts for the amuse.
ment of the children, which he in
vited by circulating invitations t.
come with their parents to see Bus
ter Brown and his dog Tige.'
These invitations were, as rule