An Effective Cut-Out
Many roaster-packers supply grocers handling their coffee with dealer helps in the shape of weather-proof metal signs for outside display, display racks, store and window display signs, cut-outs, blotters, consumer booklets, newspaper electros, stereopticon slides, moving pictures, demonstrations, samples, etc. Dealer selling schemes based on points have also been found helpful in promoting sales.
Advertising to the Trade
Until a comparatively recent date, the green coffee importer, selling the roasting trade, has not realized the need of advertising. He has inclined to the belief that he did not need to advertise, because, in most instances, green coffee is not sold by the mark; and, to a certain extent, price has been the determining factor.
During late years, however, many green coffee firms have come to realize that there is a good-will element that enters into the equation which can be fostered by the intelligent use of advertising space in the coffee roaster's trade journal. Also, a few importers are now featuring trade marks in their advertising, thus building up a tangible trade-mark asset in addition to good will.
For a number of years the green coffee trade used the business card type of advertisement; but some are now utilizing a more up-to-date style of copy, as typified by the advertisements of Leon Israel & Brothers and W.R. Grace & Company. Specimens of other green coffee advertising of the better kind are here reproduced.
Advertising campaigns in behalf of package coffees can not be fully effective without the proper use of trade publications. Advertising in the dealer's paper has many advantages. It is good missionary work for the salesman. It creates confidence in the mind of the dealer. It is an excellent means for demonstrating to the retailer that he is being considered in the scheme of distribution—that no attempt is being made to force the goods upon him through consumer advertising alone. Trade-paper advertising also offers the packer the opportunity to acquaint the dealer with the selling points in favor of the brand advertised, thus saving the time of the salesman. An increasing number of coffee packers are now using the advertising columns of trade papers, and some typical advertisements are reproduced herewith.
Advertising by Various Mediums
Billboard and other outdoor advertising, also car cards, are being used to a considerable extent for coffee publicity. Painted outdoor signs have been the back-bone of one middle-west roaster's campaign for a number of years. Both car cards and billboards are growing in popularity because they enable the coffee packer to reproduce his package in its natural colors and permit also of striking displays. Such firms as Arbuckle Brothers, New York; Dayton Spice Mills, Dayton, Ohio; W.F. MCLaughlin & Company, Chicago; the Puhl-Webb Company, Chicago; the Bour Company, Toledo; B. Fischer & Company, New York; and the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, Nashville and New York, are consistent users of this character of advertising. Electric signs also have proved effective for coffee advertising. Reproductions of some characteristic outdoor and car-card advertisements are to be found in these pages.
Motion pictures are a comparatively new development in coffee advertising. One of the first coffee roasters to adopt this plan of publicity was S.H. Holstad & Company, Minneapolis. The film used depicted the cultivation and preparation of coffee for the market, also the complete roasting and packaging operations. The A.J. Deer Company, manufacturers of coffee mills and roasters, Hornell, N.Y., was another pioneer in the use of coffee films. Jabez Burns & Sons, coffee-machinery manufacturers, followed with an educational coffee picture. The National Packaging Machinery Company, of Boston, is another concern that has utilized films for advertising purposes, showing its machines in operation in a coffee-packing plant. Many roasters made use of the coffee film produced by the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee.