Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1916-03-09
ADVERTISINGCL CLUB
ORGANIZED in CITY
BY THE MERC CHANTS
ORGANIZED TO PROMOTE BETTER
ADVERTISING AND BETTER
MERCHANDISING. "
All Business and Professional Men
Eligible to Membership The
u. Work Outlined for Future. q

PresidentJohn IA. Conley.
Vice President II. III. Prey.
SecretaryLon MacDoWell,
Treasurer-C. C.. Whistler
4 The foregoing constitute the. officAs
srs OF the advertising club which was i
4 organized at the Lincoln hotel last
/ Friday evening when two or three
4 experts on advertising from the twin
icities were present&to outline the gem
ieral plan of the associated advertis-
ling clubs of America
Eligible to Memberships.
4 The membership Of the club is not
.Iconfined to retail merchants. nor vet
to wholesalers and retailers, nor to-
members of the Merchants S Associa-
.itfon, but any business or professional
imam is eligible to membership. This
iinesades also the newspaper publish
i ers, the chief aim of the organization
being to promote efficiency in advers;s
tising and to discourage untruthfuls
land Improbable advertising.
4, In this matter of efficiency and
truthfulness, the newspa pe2s, said
1.-THE advertising experts, are especial
ny helpful. and in all tho towns where
: clubs have been organized, they aver
4 red, the newspapers oil starding have
lent their iSs1nence TO curtain unde-5
a siIalhIe and misleading advertising
| land to the promotion of better meth
a of]s,
j. TO Shoulder Responsibilities.
The local advertising club will take
! lover from the shoulders OF the Mer-
lchants s Association a phase OF work
: (which the association has sought to
promote for some years past partic-5
Y lularly for the past two or three years
Soon after the association was Orr
Il lganized In this cityssit Was reaiiaedi
that, in order TO reduce advertising
Ito that science which 1t should attain.
something would have to be done to-
Icurtail AMI cut ont lot of untruthfui
L and misleading and improbable adj
vertising, some of which was decided
l. ly spurious.
An Illustration.
VI As an illustration, a case may be
cited wherein the advertiser, who was
doing Dur a comparatively small busis
ness in his line, advertised, as Il
q I"drawing card certain well known
Q article at an especially low price,
$ recognized as below cost. When
u prospective purchasers called to get
lit, they were informed that the sup
eslpii llpiiy was exhausted; wfiem, as a matter
= Iof fact, the house never carried a
{, stock OF any consequence
= 1t was merely an advertising dodge
IS to draw people to its establishment
land the purchasers who called learned
= SO to recognize III. The result was
I. that confidence i'll advertising, gen
y orally speaking, was not strengthened
= by this lapse Of the advertisers in
8 tegrity, or his attempt to fool the
z public.
= To Promote Efficiency.
Aside from the encouragement oi
= unsTuthful and improbable adVertis
:, ing, and the effort to bring about thu
= enactment of adequate laws to sup
press untruthful advertising, the
:, principal phase of the work OF the
= advertising club will be to elevate
y the whole plane of advertising in such
I. way that when Watertown fmer
! chants, for instance, or those OF an,
z iother club belonging to the associated
W advertising clubs of America, SET
forth advertising matter it will be ac.
e lcepted at its face value anywhere
eI This Involves, also, the elevation
8 Iof the plane of general merchandising
# in SO far as it bears relation to adj
with the result that the
: merchant and the public is drawn to-
ri gether into closer bonds of friefMshin
g and to better understanding OF the
= mutual interests OF both the Seller
o and the buyer
r Experts Offer Suggestions.
e Following the dinner in the Dntch
room OF the Lincoln, Fl. B. William
: son brought TO the attention Of the
4 thirty TO thirty-fiye present the mat.
! tier OF organizing a club He intro
I duced Messrs. Guy Cleveland and
4 Maurice Wolff, the advertising ex-
y perts OF two Of the leading twin city
houses. These gentlemen, in CON
s3 else addresaasss a plA1hed the aims
and objects of the associated adrer.i
/ tisfng clubs and outlined the plans by
2 which they had succeeded in bring
:: Ing about vast improvement In adj
s5 vertising efficiency Snd In curtailing
\ misleading advertising.
~ Their addresses w5re re-enforced
by pointed and telling remarks by B.
A. Bates OF the Minneapolis Adyertis-
q ing Forum, of which the speakers pre-
cedlng him were also members. Ut
/ was then that the organization was
\ enected and the officers noted at the
head Sof this repCr elected.
vote Of thanks was extended toS
q the speakers and also to Lon Mac
II DoWesll for his efforts IN inyf ftine
{ them to visit the city. q
AZ q subsequent meeting, to- re-
called BY the president, the organ
y llzaslon VIII be perfected sin etajl