SUCCESS IN BUSINESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 7, 8 December 1930, Page 2

SUCCESS IN BUSINESS.

EXPERIENCE OF LARGE COMPANIES. A story of the part played by newspaper advertising in the business successes of fifty large corporations is told in a booklet just issued by the Bureau of Advertising of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association, entitled “Fifty National Advertisers—Their Experiences with Newspaper National Advertising.” The fifty advertisers, it is stated, invested more than £13,400,000 in newspaper advertising in 1929, or more than a fourth of the £52,000,000 estimated as the total for national newspaper advertising in that year. An instance cited is the amazing increase in business done by the American Tobacco Company, described in “Editor and Publisher.” George W. Hill, President of the company, was quoted as saying: “We sincerely attribute a large measure of the prosperity of our company to the assistance that newspaper advertising has given to us.” The Arcturus Radio Tube Company, according to a statement bv I. P. Naylor, sales manager, last fall, “proved that newspaper advertising has secured for us a consumer acceptance in .less time and over a greater area than by any otlier means that we might employ.” Mr Naylor told how the company had begun its newspaper advertising in 17 cities, extended it to 53 cities, and later extended its schedule to nearly 800 newspapers in all cities of 10,000 population or more.

“At every stage we received immediate response in proportion to the increase,’’ he said. A questionnaire sent to all distributors showed a 56 per cent preference fpr newspaper advertising as against all other forms.

Tho Associated Oil Company in 1929 “again chose daily newspapers for carrying the brunt of its comprehensive drive for dominance of its markets” according to a statement quoted from Harold R. Deal, advertising manager. Careful tests of advertisements in all types of media by the Koppers Seaboard Coke Company, according to Donald Craig, advertising manager, proved that “generally speaking, we have received our most economical results from tho newspaper advertisements.” ■ All advertising of this company is keyed and results checked, with allowances made for weather and other uncontrollable factors. Facts uncovered by a study of the results ultimately made possible an increase of 250 per cent in customers gained per unit of cost. Tho company found it impossible to test advertising by asking its customers whether they, read it, and . Mr Craig reported that “apparently people either do not like to admit that they are sold by advertising or else they do not realise they are being sold by it.” “For instance,” he w'rote, “at one stage all customers were asked how they learned about Koppers’ Coke. The ansiyer was. almost unanimous, ‘A friend told me,’ yet the ratio between -money spent for advertising and customers gained remained surprisingly constant. ’