“DAD.”
Dad Tells the Boy Why It Pays to Advertise
Dear Hal:
The letter Mother and I received from you just last night proved very interesting to me and I’ve been thinking about it all day, for you unconsciously wrote quite an essay on advertising.
From the general tone of your letter, I imagine that you have not given any serious consideration to the many ramifications of advertising and the true meaning of the word, for you seem to think that those in charge of your business have a brother-in-law in the advertising game whom they have to support and that therefore, they’re spending a lot of money uselessly, that they had better put into salesmen’s salaries.
Now, I’m not an advertising expert, or very much up on the line of argument that a real advertising man would turn loose on you under similar circumstances. All I know about it has been learned in just the old-fashioned school of common-sense plus what I see around me every day and I am more than surprised to think that a red-headed scamp with horn-rimmed goggles couldn’t see certain signs as clearly as I do.
You seem to have the idea that because your line of goods is the finest thing in cans on the market, and has been so for fifty years, that the world and some parts of Missouri know it, never will forget it and chant it as an ode before breakfast every morning and that therefore, the constant advertising that your company keeps up is all unnecessary. I further gather that you think the glib tongues of yourself and salesmen, plus the glibness of your predecessors are entirely responsible for the business you enjoy.
Now, I’m not denying for an instant the insistent urge of the contents of the can on the appetite of the consumers or the efforts—Real Sales Efforts—of the hard-hitting salesmen on your company’s payroll, both now and in the by-gone days, but I would like you to appreciate that those things were nothing more than ADVERTISING and the other kind of advertising that you are talking about is but another form that augments the other and that all of it working together has been able to produce this present result and to attempt to minimize the effect of any of it is as foolish as the argument of the backwoods hill billy who argued against giving his son an education because he had never had one.
Now, Red, you’ve traveled some and still do and I wonder if you ever got acquainted with that black bound book with the red edges that lies on the table in most hotel rooms. On the back of the book is a picture of a water-pitcher and underneath it says something about being placed there by the Gideon Society and if you ever looked in it, you’d find it was that (almost obsolete to some salesmen) gem of literature known as The Holy Bible. No, I’m not starting to preach—fact is, preachers are not the only ones who read the Bible. I’ll admit that it isn’t always as lively reading as Ade or Ibanez, but strange as it may seem to you, you heathen, this Book is not only found in hotel rooms, but on the reading desks of our best citizens—and there’s a reason.