The Glenwood post., 1911-10-21
7 albs
BEST AD. RESULTS
FROM NEWSPAPERS
BY HUGH CHALMERS.

IL any man on earth Is qualified to
speak on advertising 1t is Hugh Chal.
mers, head of the Chalmers Motor
company. and If he praises newspa.
pers as advertising mediums-as the
best mediums, in fact-editors OF
newspapers may be justly proud ano
accept his statements as fact
Mr.. Chalmers began his career as
office boy for the National Cash Reg
lister company. in time became its
sales manager at salary of $4,000
year. and all this through his keen
knowledge of advertising.
His speech In part before the pub
iicity club of Springfield, Mass, re-
Gently. is as follows:
There are two excuses why any
man should not advertise. The first
one is. 1 have SO much business
why advertiser The second it, i
have SO little business cannot afford
to advertise So If man is looking
for an excuse between these two he
always has one.
Il believe that newspapers are the
best mediums for advertising because
the people are always looking tor
news. They buy newspaper to read
the news, and they stumble into the
advertising. | believe in all kinds OF
mediums-magazines both weekly and
monthly. and weekly newspapers.
believe in any medium that has
legitimate circulation, but particular
ly believe in the newspapers as beng
the best way of reaching the people
with almost anything you have to sell.
Il believe that advertising and
salesmanship are the chief factors in
distribution, and the relationship be-
tween the two is the closest-in fact.
they are inseparable, because all ad-
vertising is salesmanship and all
craftsmanship is advertising. If you
want one word that will take the
place of both that one word is teach
Ing Advertising and salesmanship
are teaching the people to believe in
you and in the goods you have to
sell. In advertising, however, you
are talking to thousands or perhaps
hundreds OF thousands of people at a
time, while in salesmanship you are
talking to one or two persons at a
time. SO that 1t might properly be said
that advertising conducts a public
school. while salesmanship gives in
dividual lessons, but in each one you
are teaching. whether it be in printed
advertising or in oral salesmanship.
Now, let's consider the advertising
sade of this question for a few mo-
ments. AS | have said before, | don't
think 1t is possible to get up any
set of rules governing advertising, be-
cause just as surely as you try to do
this you will find the rules won't work.
Instead of being a set of rules, adver-
using mainly consists of having the
right idea and using it at the right
time. That sounds simple, and 1t Is,
too, but 1t is one of those things so
Internally simple that they are hard
We make it hard some times because
we try to go about 1t with set OF
rules which some one has told us
about, or we try to apply to 1t other
tests instead of trying to apply to it
the one test of simplicity and plain
ness and of common sense To my
mind there are only three fundamental
principles in advertising, and these
are as follows: First. be honest; sec
ond. be sensible third. be persistent.
Il say be honest. because every
advertiser should remember that ad-
vertisins doesn't create value-it
merely tells of it. The value has to
he in the article itself Advertising
never added to or detracted from any
e.
sible through advertising to create
lot of first orders through mis-
representation. yet 1t would be i'm
possible to repeat such an advertising
campaign, and no permanent success
was ever built up on misrepresenta-
tion or mlsstatement
II say. be sensible because there
are SO many men who seem to talk
about everything else but the right |
thing when they get to writing ad-
vertising copy. Be sensible because
the majority Of people who read copy
are endowed with good common sense. |
Il say. be persistent. because you
have to keep everlastingly at it. Peo-
pie soon forget-there is SO much to
attract their attention-and unless we
keep persistently at advertising we
had better not begin at ALL AS my
good friends, Col. Lafe Young of .Des
has said. Every man. woman
and child In this country knows that
a railroad crossing is dangerous, but
the railroads don't take down their
Stop. Look. Listen" signs. Keep up
advertising and be persistent Why?
Because the hardest thing to find to-
day is yesterdays newspaper. If you
don't think 80. try to find one.
There is no particular mystery
about advertising. In the last analy-
sis it is simply common sense plus
printers ink"