Ames studied the document. Then he looked severely at Claus. “Sales less than last month,” he remarked dryly.
“It’s the local option law what done it, Mr. Ames,” replied the brewer apologetically. “Them women––”
“Bah! Let a few petticoats whip you, eh? But, anyway, you don’t know how to market your stuff. Look here, Claus, you’ve got to encourage the young people more. We’ve got to get the girls and boys. If we get the girls, we’ll get the boys easily enough. It’s the same in the liquor business as in certain others, Claus, you’ve got to land them young.”
“But, Mr. Ames, I can’t take ’em and pour it down their throats!” expostulated the brewer.
“You could if you knew how,” returned Ames. “Why, man! if I had nothing else to do I’d just like to devote myself to the sales end of the brewing business. I’d use mental suggestion in such a way through advertising that this country would drown in beer! Beer is just plain beer to you dull-wits. But suppose we convinced people that it was a food, eh? Advertise a chemical analysis of it, showing that it has greater nutriment than beef. Catch the clerks and poor stenographers that way. Don’t call it beer; call it Maltdiet, or something like that. Why, we couldn’t begin to supply the demand!”
“How would you advertise, Mr. Ames?”
“Billboards in every field and along all railroads and highways; boards in every vacant lot in every town and city in the country; electric signs everywhere; handbills; lectures––never thought of that, did you? And samples––why, I’d put samples into every house in the Union! I’d give away a million barrels of beer––and sell a hundred million as a result! But I’d work particularly with the young people. Work on them with literature 94 and suggestion; they’re more receptive than adults. The hypnotism that works through suggestive advertising, Claus, is simply omnipotent! How about your newspaper contracts?”
“We have all the papers, excepting the Express, Mr. Ames.”
“The Express?” Ames laughed. “Well, that’s a new venture. You can afford to pass it up. It’s run by a college professor and a doll-faced girl.”
“But, Mr. Ames, our advertising manager tells me that the publishers of the Express called a meeting of the managers of all the other city papers, to discuss cutting out liquor advertising, and that since then the rates have gone up, way up! You see, the example set by the Express may––”