The Parisian. (Paris, Tenn.) 1907-1962, 1920-12-24
CLEAR RETAIL SHELVES
WHEN BUSINESS OF COUNTRY LULLS
Hart Schafner and Marx BY Redoubling Ad
Uertising Space, Sell Goods While Com
petitors Brate Hard Times

day that should be eXpanded-in
1921-and that is the advertising de-
partment.
Retail dealers will appreciate ad-
vertising help now-especially local
paper newspaper advertising-more
than any year during the past ten.
Local newspaper advertising will be
the card of introduction and the key
to more new orders for 1921 than
any other means. And rightfully
so. Nineteen twenty-one will be
the time to cement dealer relation
ships, and those manufacturers who
send their statesmen out to sell goods
without an adequate plan in definite
form to help that dealer sell the
consumer might as we'll keep their
statesmen off the road-they will not
sell enough goods to pay their rail
road fare.
Neither will the dealer listen to
the fairy tales of general or nation
al neutrality-suspicious. mediums
That talk has been worn threadbare.
What the dealer wants is to have the
advertising appropriation spent in his
own home newspaper that he reads
and all his customers read, and if
you talk to such a dealer he is in
favor of small copy once or twice
a week and big copy occasionally
at the height of the selling season.
He knows that you cannot expect to
advertise today and sell tomorrow
'He knows that the manufactures
who starts his campaign in January
and strengthens it each month will
find at the end of six months that
the advertising has brought big re-
turns in sales. The manufacturer
who buys advertising on that basis
and with such a campaign behind
the right product will encourage the
dealer to stock the goods with full
confidence that the consumer will
buy the advertised product
Advertise the Year Round.
But beware of the flash in the
pan-three months out of twelve ad-
vertising campaigns! Dealers are
wise and know that many of those
campaigns succeeded in the past be-
cause of oversold conditions, but will
not do now.
Twelve months advertising, in
season and out, insures successful re-
tail sales for the retailer. Manu-
facturers like Hart Schaffner & Marx
know this to be true, and as a re-
suit are building their plans in that
direction instead of advertising three
months in the spring and three in
the fall.
THE department store knows the
value of all the year round advertis-
ing and when business is dull then
they redouble their advertising effort
and use more space in order to bring
customers to their stores in the dull
seasons
National advertisers of automo-
biles, tires, packing house products,
food products of all kinds, hats and
shoes, stocks, bonds, insurance, rail
roads-all can advertise proftably in
dull times and advertising can be
used as a business tonic to tone up
sales departments and sales forces,
and they in turn can use it as their
| best weapon to overcome the present
buying vacuum.
And the lesson we all may learn
from the experience of the most sue
cessful business houses of America
is that the time to go five years
ahead of your competitor is in an
off year when they are waiting for
business to get good before they ad-
vertise. The expense of such an
advertising campaign for 1921 could
well be charged proportionately to
the next five years-as an Investment
in goods that will help the retail
dealer when he needs the help the
most
The advertising of a house like
Hart Schaffner & Marx is paid for by
the competitor who does not ad
yertise in dull times. 1t takes ter
times as much electricity to start ar
electric car and get up momentum
as it does to keep it going-and the
same is true Of advertising"