DAIRY PRODUCE BOARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 10

DAIRY PRODUCE BOARD

PUBLICITY CAMPAIGNS THE PERSONAL APPEAL. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, September 13. In October the Dairy Produce Board will begin a publicity campaign in Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester. Later, •the efforts of the board and its propaganda travellers will be directed towards Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, and the work will take until the end of May, 1934. The board have arranged their programme to suit themselves, having regard to the arrivals of butter and cheese, but they will work in conjunction with the other boards and with the Publicity Department of the High Commissioner’s Office when the occasion and times are suitable.

Undoubtedly, the most effective method of influencing the retail trade is by means of personal canvassing. At present there are two propaganda travellers on duty. Another late member of the Empire Marketing Board is about to be engaged, and when the intensive campaign begins the board will have five men “on the road.” In each centre the board take a shop where they stage an effective display and sell butter and cheese samples. Then by newspaper advertising _ and posters the attention of the public is directed to the sliop. The board’s staff canvasses all the shops in the district, and window-dressing competitions are arranged. In connection with this there is a “ spot-the-w inner ” _ competition for the public. A prize is offered to those who give premier place to the window display which afterwards the judges declare the winner. This gives a very decided incentive to tlm public to examine the shops with intelligence.

The ordinary work of the travellers is to call on retailers, talk of New Zealand produce, and bring them to the point of consenting to try a box of New Zealand butter or New Zealand cheese. The name of the retailer’s wholesale merchant is then ascertained and the traveller gets into communication with the latter and leaves him to carry on the good work. Special retail demonstrations are also organised. Publicity matter and a demonstration are supplied to any retailer who desires to make a special appeal. Such special shows are iu progress at the Civil Service Stores and at Selfridgcs at the present time.