Poster advertising space is sold on monthly con tract. The advertiser usually furnishes the bill-post ing company with the printed or lithographed sheets for posting, providing about twenty per cent more sheets than will be actually displayed in order to cover waste in posting and to permit new postings when old sheets are mutilated or destroyed.
A clever use of posting is employed by the Way Sagless Spring Company. This advertiser "travels" a poster display in Chicago. Monthly contracts are made for posters in different parts of the city. One month the posters appear on the North Side, the next month on the South Side, and the next month on the West Side. Each part of the city is billed regularly, but only for a month at a time.
8. Use of painted bulletins.—Painted bulletins may be used in, practically, all the ways in which posters are used. They are ordinarily more expensive than posters except when only a few displays are wanted. In this case the painted display is usually the cheaper because the advertiser is spared the expense of pre paring lithographed sheets.
In localities where poster or regular bulletin board displays are unavailable, advertisers find wall signs of advantage. Many advertisers make a custom of painting the blank walls of their local distributors. Just as it was formerly the custom among farmers to depend on national advertisers for the painting of their barns, so today many dealers rely on national advertisers for the painting of their store buildings. It is not an easy thing for a national advertiser to choose among posters, painted bulletins and wall signs. Most of the larger advertisers employ all three methods, choosing one or another for a com munity as local conditions may dictate.
9. Use of street-car cards.—The street-car card is primarily an urban advertising medium. Altho elec tric railways are fast stretching their fingers thru the rural districts, street-car advertising up to the present has been planned chiefly to reach the inhabi tants of large cities and thickly populated districts. The street-car card is a sign, and is ordinarily used as any other sign—for bold display and small amount of copy, intended to make a quick, strong impres sion. Nevertheless it is possible to say more on a car card than on almost any other kind of sign me dium.
Before 1900 space in street cars was usually sold by individual street railway companies to advertising companies which solicited advertisements locally. Now car advertising all over the country is controlled for the most part by one company. The national ad vertiser can buy space in cars in all cities, if he wants to, on a single contract.
The present recognition of the possibilities of street car advertising is largely attributable to Thomas Bal mer. Before he was appointed advertising director
of the Street Railways' Advertising Association, street-car cards were usually thought of as permanent signs; very little copy was used and few changes of copy were employed. Mr. Balmer showed advertisers the possibilities of copy on street-car cards, possibili ties of teaser campaigns and the advantages of insert ing cards in series. Today some large national adver tisers use as many as six different cards in the street cars of the same city during a month. A passenger transferring from car to car obtains a new impres sion or a reenforcement of an old impression in each car he enters.
As our cities become more congested and each in dividual becomes more dependent on the transit com panies, advertisers have been quick to see the great possibilities of reaching people at central points in the transportation system. The elevated and subway posters, which are generally classed with car cards, are fast becoming valuable advertising mediums. Many advertisers who use cards in the cars also use posters carrying the same designs, at the elevated and sub way stations.
10. Parades as advertising mediums.—The parade may be an advertising. medium. When so used, it should be classed with the other sign mediums. Com mercial parades seem to be increasing in popularity, despite the fact that most advertisers furnish floats under protest. A properly representative float for a parade in a large city can seldom be prepared for less than $200, and some of the most elaborately de signed and lighted floats have cost as much as $20, 000. When it is realized that a float is seldom used but once, the question of the advisability of this form of advertising is well worthy of consideration. An advertiser in answering this question should apply the same test that he would apply to any other medium: What is the cost per possible purchaser reached, and what is the prestige of the medium in the minds of possible purchasers? Is the crowd, which will see the float, made up of possible purchasers, and how large will that crowd be? Is the parade of sufficient im portance in the minds of those watching it to make lack of representation by any advertiser notice able? It has become a custom at the annual convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World to have one large parade. This seems to set the stamp, highest authority, on the value of the parade as an advertising medium. The parade is purely a supple mentary medium. It is of little value unless the ad vertiser is already known to his audience, because it is impossible in a parade to do more than give bold display to a name, a product or an idea.