13. Advertising a city.—Campaigns to advertise cities are not strictly public sentiment campaigns. They are sales campaigns, intended to sell the city and its opportunities to factories looking for a home and to people looking for a desirable place to live in or to visit. Nevertheless, because they are con ducted in the interests of groups of people instead of single individuals or companies, and because they are not concerned with the sale of merchandise, they have more in common with public sentiment campaigns than with any other kind of advertising.
Some cities advertise to bring tourists and conven tions. The cities of the Pacific coast have done this to a large extent. Others wish to attract factories and to bring in permanent residents. This is a newer development in city advertising than advertising for tourist trade. Many cities have tried it—some of them in a spectacular way. A few years ago Des Moines, as "the city of certainties," was heralded in the advertising columns of many national magazines. Magazine advertising, however, is by no means the only sort of publicity that cities use to build up the communities. There is scarcely a chamber of com merce or commercial club in the United States that has not a more or less carefully planned campaign to attract visitors, interest factory owners and bring in residents. Usually the campaign consists entirely in the use of direct mediums. Booklets describing the city and its advantages are the mainstay of the pub licity. These booklets may be supplemented by let ters, trade excursions and a variety of other things that are expected to attract attention to a community and to arouse interest in it.
The value of city advertising depends on several things. First, there must be something to advertise. Unless there are some real reasons why people should buy a certain commodity it will do no good to adver tise that commodity. In like manner, a city that has no real advantages as a factory site or as a place of residence can scarcely expect to get results from ad vertising. The trouble with many town promotion campaigns is that there was no adequate "study of the product" before the campaign was undertaken. An analysis will often show that a town needs to "clean house" in many different ways before it can afford to set out consciously to attract attention to itself. Advertising that is better than the article advertised is as bad for a city as for a manufac turer.
Actual recorded results of city advertising cam paigns are difficult to get. A few are available, how ever. Among them perhaps the most successful re corded results were from a campaign conducted by Nashville in 1911. Booklets were prepared; maga zines and newspapers were used; and local campaigns with personal workers were carried on for short pe riods in the leading cities of the country. The re ported expenses and results were as follows: That it does not require excessive expenditures to build up a city if the city really has something to offer and the campaign is properly conducted, is indicated by the experience of Calgary, Alberta. In 1914, with an advertising expenditure of only $11, 000, Calgary was successful in attracting twelve new manufacturing enterprises.
14. Advertising members of the Portland Commercial Club, realizing that Portland is the largest city in Oregon, and estimating that of every dollar earned in the state sixty cents is spent in Portland, as early as 1907 developed a plan to adver tise the State of Oregon and its resources. The Ore gon Development Association was formed by the members of the Portland Commercial Club. Their motto is: "Not one cent to advertise Portland— everything for Oregon." Advertisements were inserted in many in order to elicit inquiries for literature about the state. Commercial clubs were organized in all the small towns, and a bulletin was issued twice a week to these commercial clubs giving the names and ad dresses of inquirers, together with the specific sub jects in which they appeared to be interested. The
Oregon Development Association mailed a booklet and a letter to each inquirer, and each community selected from the names of inquirers certain people on whom it concentrated its efforts.
As an example of how this plan worked, consider the case of Creswell, Oregon. When Creswell asso ciated itself with the campaign it was thirty-two years old, had a population of 300 and did not have a bank. A commercial club was organized, and an appropria tion of $1,500 to supplement the advertising of the Oregon Development Association was subscribed. The secretary of the commercial club asked each resi dent to fill out a card giving the section of the East in which he had once lived or in which he had friends. These cards were arranged geographically; when a list of inquirers was received from the Oregon De velopment Association, the local secretary entered into correspondence only with people located in dis tricts where the inhabitants of Creswell had friends. The secretary kept in constant telephone communica tion with the people in the town, and each inhabitant arranged a follow-up series of personal letters of his own to persons living near his old eastern home, who, by responding to the advertising of the Oregon De velopment Association, had shown an interest in the West and its opportunities. Not only would the father of the family write to the inquirer, but the chil dren would write to the children of the inquirer, and in some cases the wife of the Oregon man would write to the wife of the Easterner telling of her ex periences in Oregon, and urging the eastern woman to consider moving Wrest and becoming a neighbor again. Thru such cooperative effort has the West been built. In two years Creswell doubled in popula tion. The adjacent farm lands trebled in value. The new bank was a thriving institution. Concrete sidewalks were laid. New buildings went up, and the inhabitants of Creswell proved to the world that no city is too small to advertise.
15. a nation.—Some of the most inter esting uses of advertising have developed since the beginning of the European war. The experience of Great Britain with its elaborate poster and newspaper advertising campaign for recruits is well known.
While the United States government in its recruit ing departments, both of the army and of the navy. has long appropriated a certain amount of money for advertising purposes, the experience of Great Britain demonstrated to the United States more clearly than before the necessity of having in reach .
ness a definitely planned advertising campaign pealing to volunteers in case of war. At the delphia convention of the Associated AdvertiSing Clubs of the World, a committee was appointed rep resenting in its membership all the advertising me diums. This committee prepared and submitted to the United States government a complete plan for an advertising campaign for recruits, which is in readi ness for instant use if it should ever be needed.
In 1916, the five leading engineering associations of the United States, realizing the necessity of industrial and military preparedness, proposed to the Naval Board a survey of the industries of America in an effort to determine the classes of articles, their quan tity and quality, which could be furnished to the gov ernment in case of hostilities. That the manufactur ers of the country might know of the work of the en gineers, the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, thru its committee on national preparedness, conducted an advertising campaign in newspapers, magazines, trade papers and on posters, telling man ufacturers what the engineers were doing to facili tate their work. At the completion of the survey the engineers reported that they had been favorably re ceived everywhere and that they would not have been able to make the investigation in so short a time if it had not been for the advertising campaign conducted in their behalf.