8. Putting the organization behind the campaign. —An advertising campaign is the expression of the advertiser's sales policy. It is his most important way of talking to the public and of telling them about himself and his goods. But it is not the only way. Every letter that goes out from a business establish ment advertises that establishment. It creates a good or a bad impression, and the bad impression may be so bad that no amount of general advertising can remove it. Every time an employe of a business house comes into contact with the public he helps or he hurts his employer. No matter how casual may be the personal contact between visitors and em ployes of the store, office or factory, every time there is any personal contact the visitor receives a good or a bad impression of the house that the employe repre sents. The factory can nullify thousands of dollars' worth of advertising by failing to turn out satisfac tory goods, by failing to take proper care of orders, by failing to make prompt deliveries and by failing to do many other things which good service demands.
It is not a difficult matter to tell the public about high ideals, courteous service, careful attention to orders, good products and honest treatment, but it is often a very difficult matter to be sure that every employe of the advertiser lives up to the spirit and policy behind the advertising. The advertiser who fails to see that all the members of his organization are imbued with his ideals and that they do their best to back up the advertising, is failing in a very important respect in coordinating the various things that go to make up a successful advertising campaign.
One advertiser says, "I want every one of my ad vertisements to be so written that, when they are shown to my employes, everyone in my plant V from the office boy to the most skilled engineer will feel a pride in the organization." He realizes that no matter how good may be the quality of the raw ma terial, the quality of the finished product depends on the skill and intelligence of the labor, and skill and in telligence will be exercised to the degree that the work ers take pride in their tasks. There are many in stances in which the spirit of an organization has been greatly improved by inspiring in the employes the de sire to live up to the spirit and promises of the adver tising.
9. Two fundamental laws of are two basic laws which every advertising man should understand and apply to his advertising campaign. While both have already been referred to in a gen eral way, we have left a detailed discussion of them for the last chapter, so they may have the emphasis that they deserve. The first is a law of economics;
the second is a law of psychology. The first is the law of diminishing returns. The second is the law of repetition and cumulative effect. In a sense they are two balancing forces. They are to advertising what centrifugal and centripetal force respectively are to physics. The first limits the advertiser. The sec ond provides him with his opportunity.
10. The point of diminishing returns.—The prin ciple of diminishing returns rests on two laws of eco nomics. The first is: That the resultant power of one unit is greater than half the power of two units. The second is: That every element has its boundar ies.
One man or one horse or one advertisement work ing singly is likely to accomplish more than half as much as two working together. Two men or two horses or two advertisements working together are usually more efficient than four working separately. The most efficient unit is, therefore, one man, or one horse, or one advertisement. Every time you add a salesman to your payroll you have to add an addi tional expense for supervision—an additional expense in teaching that salesman how to drive in the team with the other salesmen. A business man who is his own salesman requires no supervision. When he adds an other man to help him sell, he is required to spend part of his time supervising the sales of the other man and teaching him the business. When he has added four or five salesmen, he finds that they require so much supervision that he is compelled to give up selling himself, and to spend all his time supervising and di recting the efforts of his salesmen in order to develop proper team work.
As the business grows he discovers that the com bined efforts of himself and the five salesmen do not give him as large a percentage of profit on his invest ment as when he was working alone. A sales man ager and five salesmen usually cost more per thousand dollars' worth of goods sold than six times what one man working alone costs per thousand dollars' worth of goods sold.
Then as a business grows, there comes a time when there is no possibility of increased sales in the im mediate neighborhood; in order to develop, the busi ness must branch out into new fields. This calls for traveling expenses for salesmen, which perhaps dou bles the former sales expense without bringing any thing like proportionate returns.