“To Err is Human”
The Bill-Poster is just as prone to errors, both of omission and commission, as men in any other business, and while in the case of Associated Bill-Posters service is guaranteed, it is advisable even with them to check wherever possible so as to make sure that service has been actually rendered as guaranteed.
The importance of this is illustrated in the writer’s own experience with every showing that goes up. The following are but a few of the “errors” that were discovered by check, even in large towns where the bill-posting plants are supposedly at their best. Posters have been found put up on the leaves of a double gate which stood open all day. Posters have been put up on walls covering windows, and the paper was punched through to let in the light. Occasionally posters are put up with a sheet blank; one section of the poster was probably left out by the lithographer in collating, and the bill-poster made no effort to replace it. Other posters have been found on fences not high enough to accommodate the whole poster and strips have been torn off at the top or bottom. Showings have been billed that our checker found never went up. Paper has been covered at the end of two or three weeks and never replaced. Once in a while checkers run across a town where a strike is on among the bill-posters, and the paper disfigured by big smudges of lamp black.
The best time to make this check is open to some difference of opinion. Some advertisers prefer to check just as soon as the paper goes on the boards so that complaints may be adjusted early in the life of the showing. Others prefer to check toward the end of the service so they may satisfy themselves that the paper has been kept in good condition, and that none of the stands has been covered by other paper. The advertiser who is posting generally will, however, be glad if he can have check made any time during the life of the posting, especially in towns where he has no local representative.
The main difficulty on a general showing is to secure people to make the check. In towns where you have branch houses, local salesmen, or exclusive dealers, check lists may be forwarded to these. Otherwise it is necessary to depend on your traveling salesman covering the towns in his territory during the life of the posting, or else send the check lists to some local dealer, with a request that he look over and report on the showing for you. Arrangements for checking can also be made, we understand, through the telegraph companies who would have the work done by one of their messengers.
Four things are necessary to watch in checking the showing, viz., Position of the boards on which your paper is posted; position on the boards; condition of the paper; and contiguity to your own posters or those advertising competitive products.
In regard to the first you will of course want a fair share of the paper to go on boards in the center of the town, on the most traveled thoroughfares. You do not want the paper all on the outskirts of the town, or posted in alleys and other inconspicuous places. In regard to the position on the board, the ends of the board are of course preferred positions, and the more posters you can get on corners the stronger the showing will be. In regard to the condition of paper, a glance will be sufficient to satisfy your checker whether the paper is in good order, or whether it needs renewing.
It is also desirable that no two of your own posters be posted too close together on the same board (as a matter of fact it is best to put up each poster on a separate board) and of course it is decidedly objectionable to have paper advertising competitive products put up next to your posters.
The following are illustrations of forms used in checking.