Mohave County miner., 1915-05-22
The Value of Advertising

Some ZU years ago, when l thought could handle all the advertising of the company through clerks who sat near me, I took on man with literary turn of mind, who said that he loved advertising and had great ideas on the subject. He started in to advertise an air-compressor, though he confessed that he would not be able to recognize one if he met it on the street. One day there appeared in our allotted space an adv. which our unmechanical genius has prepared with great care. Special cuts had been made. A chessboard was shown with our machinery on one side and competitors on the other. Underneath were the words "Our move," and it was evident to a chess player that the next move was check mate.
 There was great exultation over our ad, but there appeared the next week on the page directly opposite ours a simple cut, showing two or three freight cars loaded with air-compres- sors en route west from Tarrytown, with the following title underneath; "We move in carload lots. One order of Rand air-compressors sold and ship ped to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Ry." We'll, we promptly stopped playing advertising with a cnessboard.
 am very fond of simple illustrations as the best means of producing con- viction. The chessboard man fell naturally into the common error of reaching out into abstract fields. Good technical advertising is essentially con- crete. It is an exact science and knowledge of the subject is the first qualification; everything else is secon- diary to this.
 Technical advertising involves sales manship of the highest order. It is not the gift of gab that counts, but it is familiarity with the thing advertised which involves wide general knowl- edge of the product and business. Proper display is not to be neglected. Just as the chessboard ad illustrates incompetent advertising, so the car load-lot ad is a model of forceful, d. rect, lucid and successful advertising.
 It is an interesting fact that this ad was the thought, not of the publicity man of the company, but of the best salesman. One can do but one thing at time and do it well. Good sales men, men who know the business of technical selling, are scarce. One good man has it in his power through adver- Using to appeal to thousands. He can Tot do this as effectively in each case as though he met the customer face to face, but he cannot meet a thousand customers face to face. It is impos- sible. Advertising affords means by which the man who knows most about the business may imprint his ideas eff fectively upon the minds of thousands. His audience is the world, and in no other way can he bring up the average efficiency in productive results.
 speak as one of experience in these matters. Up to recent years l have personally been the advertising man of the interests in my charge. The lesson which learned in the carload-lot and chessboard play has never been for gotton. Since that time 1 realize that the head of the business can well afford to spend his time and energies directing tne fundamental conditions that govern good technical advertising.
 Our company at one time brought out new valve. It was boxed up in in cylinder, and, unlike most valves, this one was seated in the piston in stead of in the cylinder or heads. The valve did good work in the experiment tai department. Competitors attacked it violently, engineers wrote papers at tacking it, and every salesman report ed serious difficulties in overcoming a single objection which was always raised, that if anything happened to this valve it could not be reached be- cause it was not get-at-able.
 There was only one way to meet such situation as this and we met it by large display ad in all the techni-