“ ‘Publicity,’ ” I repeated. “What’s that?”
“The article that you just read in the newspaper is publicity. It tells the Tutter people about our show in a news way. That’s publicity, Pa says.”
“It’s advertising,” I said.
“Publicity and advertising are much the same thing. Only, as I understand it, you get publicity [[34]]for nothing and you pay for advertising. By the way, Jerry, I told Mr. Stair that we would put an advertisement in his newspaper when we got ready to open up our show. Don’t let me forget about it. We’ve got to order tickets, too.”
“Why not get some more publicity,” I suggested, eager to hang on to our thirty dollars, “and let the advertising go. It’ll be cheaper for us.”
“We need advertising and publicity both,” Scoop waggled. “What we want to do, to make a success of our show,” he added, businesslike, “is to get everybody in town to talking about us. And to do that we’ve got to advertise, and we’ve got to have the newspaper further recognize us and print more news about us. Publicity news. A lot of people will laugh at the idea of four boys starting a boat show, and maybe they won’t pay any attention to us at the start. But after a day or two, knowing that we are still in business, they’ll begin to wonder if our show isn’t of some account after all. They’ll get curious to see it. And then, when they come to the boat to satisfy their curiosity, we’ll get their money. See?”
I had to admit to myself that Scoop was pretty smart.
“Wouldn’t it be darby,” I said, “if we could [[35]]hitch an engine to our boat, as the newspaper says. We could ride our audience up the canal, instead of giving our show here at the dock.”
Scoop scratched his head.
“That would be a slick stunt.”