AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7232, 19 October 1901, Page 8

AN INTERESTING INTERVIEW

A CLIPPING PROM THE "ADELAI: ■ ADVERTISER," a3th APRIL, 1901. * ' Mr E. A. Gilbert, who is staying at i_**^ Ybrk Hotel, granted a representative of ♦he •• Advertiser " an interview yesterday. Vie Gilbert is tie Australian manager of th« Bile Bean Manufacturing Company, nn<l is in Adelaide on business ior his finnVr "This is one of my periodical visits to your city," said Mr Gilbert, " and I can assure you when the time comes for me to leave Adelaide lam invariably sorry. Since I was here last the. popularity of Bile Beans has increased beyond my most sanguine hopes. At the present time they have the largest sale of any proprietary medicine. Their popularity mignt be assumed •when it is known that 250,000 doses of Bile Beans are- consumed every night throughout the world." •' Tne work to be done in Australia alone must be heavy, then?" " Yes, for instance, the millions of pamphlets or booklets of the kind the public rind at times under their doors, are in themselves a business to create and distribute. With our English and Australian branches there is not a minute of the twenty -four hours passes without a Bile Bean book being placed under a door." "Are your English sales as great as ever, Mr Gilbert?" "Yes, in one of the last letters I received from Mr Fulfcrd, our English manager, that gentleman writes me that our laboratories are^ comparatively speaking, going night and* day to cope with the demand." •• What would* you describe as the principal reason, fot the wholesale consumption of your company's medicine?" '"Well, '\ answered Mr Gilbert, " there are many reasons. Sifting down everything, however, I might say it is actuaUy the •' acknowledged merit of the article. When Bile Beans first mode their appearance on the Australian "market they were, of course, untried, and sufferers took, them, as a sample, as it were. Gaining benefit, they recommended them to their friends, and their friends recommended them again, and ■oon." " "It must cost an enormous sum of money to advertise to the extent you do ?" "Yes," good-naturedly said Mr Gilbert, "I don't tnink you could run it, because they tell me that, as a rule, Press representatives are not millionaires. Apart irom thie maintaining branches and staffs throughout Australasia, the advertising aepartment would tax the banking account of a healthy capitalist, I can assure you. There is hardly a newspaper in the colonies, of any standing, in which we do" not advertise." "Do you rely solely upon advertising for the sale of the Beans ':" " "Certainly not," emphatically answered Mr Gilbert. "Advertising is all very good in its way, but thousands of pounds spent would not create and maintain the sa'ie of . an article unless that article has merit. How often do you see an article boomed aad advertised to an enormous extent, yet in a year, perhaps, it goes olf the market. No, it is merit, and merit "alone, that we rely upon for the enormous sale of the Beans." " Will Federation increase the price per box of Bile Beans?" " No, not in the slightest. Though I •eallr believe that if there were an almost prohibitive tariff in the Commonwealth, snaking the price of Bile Beans two or . tJucc times as high as they are at present, the public would take them just the same. Ot course, if our pales were not enormous we could not possibly s-ell the Beans at thirteen pence halfpenny per box — it is the millions and millions sold during the year that enables us to sell tliem at such alow figure." The interviewer thanked Mr Gilbert for the timo he had given him, and the manager of the Bile Bean Manufacturing Company hurried off to keep an iinpuilunt business appointment 1908 j