The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-05-27
Value of Advertising
l. Saunders of ngersoll- Rand Co, in Mining World.

w. l.. Saunders, Of lngers0
Some 20 years ago, when | thought
! could handle all the advertising OF
the company through clerks who sa,
near me- took on a man with lit
erary turn Of mind, who said that he
loved advertising and had great ideas
on the subject. He started in to adj
Vertise an alr-compressor, though he
confessed that he would not be able
to recognize one If he met 1t on the
street. one day there appeared in our
allotted space an ad which our unme-
chanical genius had prepared with
great care Special cuts had been
made A chessboard was shown with
our machinery on one side and COM
petitors on the other. Underneath
were the words Our Move" and II
was evident to chess player that the
next move was checkmate.
There was great exultation over our
ad, but there appeared the next week
on the page direct opposite ours a
simple cut, showing two or three
freight cars loaded with air-compres-
sors enrout west from Tarrytown, with
the following title underneath; I'VE
move in carload lots, one order of
Rand -compressors sold and ship
ped to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa
Fe Ry" Well, we promptly stopped
playing advertising with chessboarc.
am very fond of simple illustra-
tions as the best means of producing
conviction The chessboard man fell
naturally into the common error of
reaching out into abstract fields. Good
technical advertising Is essentially
concrete. II is an exact science and
knowledge of the subject Is the first
qualification; everything else is secon-
Diary to this.
Good Advertising.
Technical advertising involves sales
manship Of the highest order It is not
the gift Of God that counts, but 1t Is
familiarity with the thing advertised
which involves a wide general knowl-
edge of the product and business.
Just as the chessbOard ad illustrates
incompetent advertising, so the car
load-lot ad is model of forceful, d.
rect, lucid and successful advertising
1t is an interesting fact that this 40
was the thought, not of the publicity
man of the company, but Of the best
salesman. One can do one thing AZ a
time and do 1t we'll Good statesmen,
men who know the business OF teen
nical selling, are scarce One gooc
man has 1t in his power through adj
vertising to appeal to thousands, He
cannot do this as effectively in each
case as though he met customer race
to face, but he cannot meet a thousand
customers face to face 1t is impos-
sible. Advertising affords a means by
which the man who knows most about
the business impires his ideas ef
fectlvely upon the minds Of thousands
His audience is the world, and In n,
other wav can he bring up the average
efficiency in productive results.
Too Important to Delegate to Subor-
dinates.
speak as one of experience in these
Up to recent years | have
been the advertising man
of the interests in my charge, The
lesson which ! learned in the carload
lot and chessboard play has never been
forgotten. Since that time I realize
that the head Of the business can well
afford to spend his time and energies
directing the fundamental conditions
that govern good technical advertising,
our company at one time brought
out new valve. 1t was boxed up IN
a cylinder and, unlike most valves,
this orc was seated in the piston in
stead az in the cylinder or heads. The
valve did good work in the experiment
tai department. Competitors attacked
1t violently, engineers wrote paper"
1t, and every salesman re-
ported serious difficulties in overcom-
ing a single objection which was raised,
that If anything happened to this valve
It could not be reached because 1t was
not get -at-able.
There was only one way to meet
such situation as this and we met 1t
by a large display ad in all the tech
nical papers in which the simple state
ment was made. over the signature of
the company, that this valve wou'o
be guaranteed to all purchasers
against breakage for period of five
years.
This settled the question No FUR
Their difficulties were experienced by
the statesmen or by bres kages Of the
valve; we took pains q to make the
valve as nearly mbreakabe as pos
sible
At one time in certain mining ais
trict. a certain rock drill (not the one
which was interested in) was pre-
dominant No one else could get t.
foothold. Months. yes, years of labor
and money had been expanded in eff
forts to Introduce other types, bur
without avail In another district I