7. When distribution preceded advertising .— When, in 1906, William Wrigley, Jr., jumped into advertising with an appropriation of $250,000, many people called it plunging. They did not know about the long years of preparatory work in an effort to obtain a nation-wide distribution. Practically all the $250,000 was spent in out-door display, street-car cards and window trims. Before a cent of this ap propriation was spent almost complete distribution had been obtained thru direct advertising to dealers. Mr. Wrigley started in business with a capital of $32. He attempted distribution thru premiums. His first venture was in lamp chimneys. He filled lamp chimneys full of gum and sold the gum, throwing in the lamp chimney. He studied dealers, and offered as premiums the things they really wanted. A cer tain retail grocer needed, say, a special counter scale. Along came a circular from Wrigley offering an at tractive scale free if the grocer would go to his whole saler and buy $15 worth of gum.
Thus, step by step, Wrigley obtained a foothold. Then he established a great direct-by-mail advertis ing campaign to dealers. Multigraphed circulars were mailed every thirty days to 250,000 dealers whom Mr. Wrigley wished to get into line. If 12, 000 of these prospects were turned into customers in any given month and the prospect list thus reduced to 238,000, an addition was immediately made to the list so that the number of names was brought up to 250, 000. The list of dealer prospects was always main tained at the 250,000 mark.
The national advertising did not commence until the company had been in business fourteen years. Therefore, when the quarter of a million advertising campaign was undertaken, the foundation of distribu tion had been laid. This foundation was laid so suc cessfully and the business showed such a fast, steady increase after the national advertising had appeared, that before the end of 1916 the company was spend ing two million dollars a year in advertising.
8. Using established good-will to obtain distribu tion.—When Mr. put Doublemint gum on the market, he was able to use the thousands of deal ers who were already handling his earlier brand. In less than sixty days 500,000 distributers for the new gum were obtained. These were enlisted from the 800,000 who were then selling Spearmint. Each of these 800,000 received a coupon entitling him to one box of the new gum, provided the dealer handed it to his jobber with an order for one box of Spearmint before the time-limit indicated on the coupon expired.
The William Wrigley, Jr., Company redeemed these coupons from the jobbers at the regular price of sixty cents a box, thus allowing the jobber his usual twelve cents profit; or, to put it in another way, the company paid the jobber twelve cents to deliver the sample box to the dealer. The expense was very great; in all, $300,000 was paid out in redemption money to secure distribution, but for every box of the new gum given away, a box of the old brand was sold ; in this way the expense was largely offset. The plan enabled the company to take advantage of distribution already secured, and this immediate distribution made possible immediate consumer advertising on a na tional scale. Furthermore, by getting immediate distribution the danger of substitution was greatly reduced. If the company had started to advertise with haphazard distribution, dealers might have been inclined to talk their customers into using other gums, and the new brand would have been deprived of an opportunity to demonstrate its merit.