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Show TRUTH abouTADUERTISinGl By CHARLES B. ROTH THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SUCCESS WE OFTEN say when we discuss dis-cuss various things we acquire that it isn't the original cost that counts. It Is the upkeep. This is particularly true of success. The fact is that there is a responsibility re-sponsibility of success which failure or mediocrity never knows. The man who is successful, w ho achieves in whatever line he may enter, has an obligation and a responsibility which requires that he continue to do his very best. Especially Is this true of business. To make a brief success of a business busi-ness Isn't hard. To build a lasting success requires close application and a fine sense of the obligation which success implies and demands. If advertising served no other purpose pur-pose than to create the obligation of success it wouiu . perform a useful social so-cial and economic act, for advertising holds up this obligation obliga-tion of success and demands that it be observed constantly. Whenever a manufacturer manu-facturer or a merchant mer-chant begins to advertise ad-vertise he sets self-imposed self-imposed standards -..Hi i itii f 1 t : on himself. By these Charles Roth standards do others judge him. By these standards do they also classify him. He has an obligation to live up to every day thenceforward. If he hadn't advertised, uc v.oU.-give v.oU.-give good quality one day and poor auahtv the next and get by with it. But when he comes out boldly in print and advertises, the die is cast, and he must forever live up to the highest ideals. Shrewd men have thought that they could controvert this law. By putting quality and good value into a product and then by advertising it they have succeeded in a short time in building up a big business. And then came temptation. Why maintain all this quality?' they ask themselves. The public will never know. Why not cut the quality but continue the advertising and clean up? They have tried. But the public does know quality, is quick to perceive deception, and abandons the man or product which tries to substitute inferiority for honest hon-est merchandise. There is no quicker way to rum a business than to set up a standard and then violate it There is no better bet-ter way to build a business than to set up a standard and then live up to it. Advertising is the great setter of standards in American business life, and advertised goods are the standards stand-ards by which you spend your Income, In-come, confident of getting your money's mon-ey's worth every day. The man who advertises has assumed as-sumed the responsibility for success. You'd rather deal with a responsible responsi-ble man, wouldn't you? Charles B. Roth. |