The same may be said of the later poster campaigns. A glance at the hoardings in the big cities will show that there are six or eight seaside resorts for every one advertised a few years ago, and the posters used and the way they are displayed, suggest that the pictures have been prepared by the towns themselves and orders for their circulation given by officials in the borough. Up to the present, the seaside resort has not quite seen the possibilities of publicity on the grand scale, as usually its operations are carried on under a committee of business men working locally, who have not studied publicity in the same way as the expert who operates in a larger field. They are consequently tied down to traditional methods and in many cases do not make the most of the money allotted by the towns for purposes of publicity.
In the development of a seaside town much might be done by a committee which acted on the advice of an expert advertising man. Such a man might be a servant of the borough, but as a rule the advertising departments of these towns are not spending sufficient to make it worth their while to add the salary of a competent expert to administer the account. The next best alternative is to place the business in the hands of competent service agents for advertising, who would apply to the problem of calling attention to a town the same kind of knowledge they apply to the problem of calling attention to various goods bought by the public. Under such direction many muni cipalities, spending considerable sums of money in publicity, would have their advertisements put into papers much more likely to influence the class of people they cater for than the papers they are already using. They would also get more attractive presentation of the case for the town, both in the illustration and the copy used, while incidentally various economies might be made in the actual working cost of the advertising operations.
Advertising is a business in which much money can be lost and must be lost by people who are not familiar with its details, and it almost follows that local administrators, no matter how able they may be, have not the same grip on the problem as men who are accustomed to handling large accounts for various forms of industrial advertising. An excellent scheme for advertising a locality would be definitely to allot a certain amount for the purpose, and for anything like an ambitious advertising campaign 11000 for the season would be, perhaps, the least amount that should be contem plated. This amount might be split up in press advertising and in the preparation of a booklet, the aim of the press advertising being to cover as wide an area as possible of people who are likely to use the resort adver tised. Press advertising would be more advantageous to the rising seaside resort than the poster, as the poster has become a conventionality in the advertising of pleasure grounds. The poster is, at its best, limited to a picture, and if the town is not well known the picture is hardly sufficient. It would be preferable to take space in a carefully selected list of news papers, and set out to educate the people in the attractions of the town, in the same way that a private concern sets out to educate people in the value of their goods. To carry the work of this detailed campaign on, the
probabilities are that an effective result would be secured by the chairman and perhaps one other member of the committee acting in conjunction with a recognised advertising expert. The average account of a seaside resort, while not being sufficient to justify the entire employment of a man who knows the advertising field, would be sufficient to get the best services, both from the advisory and administrative point of view, of a leading firm of advertising agents giving complete service. Such an agent in consultation with members of the committee would achieve a much better result than if the committee administered the whole account themselves, making the mistakes incidental to a lack of familiarity with the conditions.
That advertising pays a resort just as much as it pays the private trader is proved by the startling growth of towns which have laid themselves out to influence the public in their direction. Blackpool, in the North of England, certainly draws more visitors annually than possibly any seaside town in the British Isles. It is true, it is near a wonderful district, crowded with working class people, and that it is easy of access, but it is by no means the most beautiful resort on either side of the country. It owes its position entirely to the enterprising manner in which it has set about the task of providing, annually, fresh visitors to the town, and seeing that they are properly catered for when they arrive there. Brighton, which gets more free publicity than any town in England, holds its own for the same reason that it is constantly in the public eye. Even more startling is the rapid development of the nearer continental resorts. A few years ago no one thought of going to Switzerland for the skating in winter ; of late years there has been a huge public for the district, increasing every year. - The reason of this is that the localities where these winter sports are in progress have seen the value of publicity and have kept their attractions well before the British public at seasonable intervals. Continental summer resorts are developing the same ideas, and across Channel traffic shows a startling increase each year—so startling, in fact, that watering-places, particularly on the South Coast, are grumbling at the leakage of their possible supporters who are being persuaded across the Channel.
The popular resort to-day cannot hope to retain its position, or to increase its revenue from visitors, by leaving affairs to take their course. It has more competition within its own country and a great deal more competition from the outside. Means of travelling are increasing, and journeys which were long distances ten years ago are now comparatively easy for even elderly people. The only method of maintaining the position and increasing the progress of the town, is to keep its attractions well before the public and to present them in such a form that more and more people are deliberately influenced in the direction of the town each year.