United States a Fertile Field.
There have been other forms of advertising used in automobile selling, besides space in publications, and they are forms the value of which cannot be discounted. “A satisfied customer is the best advertisement” is one of the oldest slogans of advertising. And it is true. The automobile manufacturers of the United States know it is true, and have been guided by it.
Road races, speed and endurance contests, employment of racing drivers with records, automobile shows, outdoor displays—all have been forms of advertising employed in the industry, and all have played their part and exerted their influence to one common end—that of putting the industry in the United States on the highest pinnacle it has attained anywhere in the world in seventeen years.
And while full credit must be given the vision and capabilities of the manufacturers, and the productive value of advertising in all forms, meed for the results can not be withheld from that element, which, in the final analysis, makes all things possible—the people, the base and groundwork on which all successful industrial structures are erected.
All the business ability of all the automobile makers, however great, and all the advertising, however convincing, that could be written, could not have made the automobile business of today if the people had not taken hold of the automobile and put their stamp of approval on it.
“Power of the Press”—what is it but the “Power of the People” expressed on paper? Power of the People—the force that revolves the world, revolved the wheels of millions of automobiles, and will go on turning the wheels of millions more.
The people of the United States supplied the fertile field in which the American automobile grew and blossomed.
The reason France, although it took the lead in the commercialization of the motor car, could not hold it in the race with this country is to be found in the difference between the peoples of the two countries.
France had good roads—has had them as has Europe for hundreds of years. The French had money—they are the greatest savers in the world.
But if you put your money in rentes or savings banks, you do not spend it for automobiles or anything else. The reason the French have money is the reason they do not buy automobiles.
No people in the world have learned, as have Americans, to spend money to make money. No people in the world take the chances Americans do, and no people win as the Americans do. In this is found one of many causes for the commercial success of the automobile in America.
The American is good to himself as is the man of no other nationality. He is further advanced in general knowledge, mostly gained by experience through intercommunication with his fellows. His bon camaraderie is effervescent, giving him opportunities to learn things denied to the self-restrained European. His school is the broad school of the world. He doesn’t have to travel to see the world; the world is in America and comes to him.
So, with the opportunities natural to a new country, with the standards of living and the mode of thought that they are in the United States, the 103,000,000 people of continental United States are a market for automobiles that dwarf the 464,000,000 people of Europe.
What such a market has been during the last decade and a half may be gathered from the fact that in the last sixteen years the population of the United States increased at a greater rate than ever in its history. The increase of the people of the United States in the sixteen years the automobile industry has been commercialized, was 25,887,904. In the previous twenty years the increase was 25,838,792.
People without money can not buy automobiles, so what has been the increase in wealth in the United States in this same period?
In the last twelve years it has been $99,221,764,315.
Staggering, you say? Rather, when you know that the increase in wealth in the United States in the last twelve years was nearly double the increase in the twenty years which preceded the last twelve years.
No epoch in the world’s history, therefore, was so favorable as the period of 1900-1917 for commercializing the automobile. It was timed just to the moment for quick and dramatic success. The period was coincident with the high water marks reached in the increase of population and in the nation’s money-making. Advertising had reached a stage of development it had not attained before.