Supplementing this Brazilian contribution, is the fund raised by voluntary subscriptions from the coffee trade of the United States on the basis of one cent per bag handled annually. This American fund is used for the expenses of administration, for educational advertising outside of magazine and newspaper space, and for various kinds of trade promotion and dealer stimulation.
The Joint Committee's House Organ
The first advertising appeared in April, 1919, in 306 leading newspapers in 182 large cities, with a total circulation of more than 16,000,000. The cities chosen represented all the centers of wholesale coffee distribution.
Magazine advertising began in June of the same year, using twenty-one periodicals, all of national circulation. This list has been changed from time to time to meet the special needs of the campaign.
More than fifty grocery-trade magazines have carried the committee's dealer advertising, although not all of these have been used continuously. Every part of the country was represented on the trade-paper list.
Full pages have been run each month in nine of the leading national medical journals. These advertisements were written by a physician of national reputation. Under the caption, "The Case for Coffee," these advertisements have discussed the properties of coffee from the physiological standpoint, and have asked the doctors to judge it fairly.
From the start the committee's advertising has been broadly educational. The properties of coffee have been discussed; charges against coffee have been answered. The housekeeper has been told how to get the best results from the coffee she buys; hotel and restaurant proprietors have been reminded that many of them owe their prosperity largely to a reputation for serving good coffee; new uses have been exploited for coffee, as a flavoring agent for desserts and other sweets; employers have been taught the important service good coffee may render in increasing the comfort and efficiency of their working forces.