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Show TROTH about HDUEOTISSIJO I By CHARLES B. ROTH COST: 3 CENTS SOME of the critics of advertising and in this world there are those who criticize every good thing - level their lances at what they think is a weak spot: its cost. They read of the million-dollar advertising ad-vertising appropriations, they brood on the cost of a full page of advertising in a metropolitan newspaper or a national na-tional magazine and then they loose their sharpest barbs against the waste which they say is involved in-volved in this costly process. Their only trouble is that they iudae I is? without having all , ,. ... Charles Roth che facts. For the truth is that advertising is the least expensive cost of doing business. Everything else costs a good deal more in proportion than the advertising. adver-tising. The wise and capable business man bases the amount of money he spends for advertising upon the volume of business he either is doing do-ing or expects to do. This money set aside to advertise is called the appropriation. It seldom runs, take the country over, more than 3 per cent, which means that for every dollar of sales made the advertising cost will be just three pennies. That is all three pennies. The large advertising appropriations appropria-tions come when a business, through the help of intelligent advertising, becomes so great that its annual volume runs into many millions of dollars a year. But whether an advertiser ad-vertiser spends $10,000 a year or $10,000,000, his percentage remains the same an average of 3 per cent. The amount of money spent in advertising well-known products is so small as to be ridiculous, when you really know ihe facts. Take oranges. How much do you suppose the growers spend to advertise ad-vertise their product? A third of a cent per dozen is all. A national cracker baker reveals that he sets aside only one-tenth of a cent to advertise a package of crackers, while the manufacturer of a soft drink spends 1,576100,000 of a cent in advertising a five-cent glass of his product. The manufacturer of a medium-priced medium-priced automobile spends less than 3 per cent for advertising he spends only $12 in making a $1,000 sale. And even this small amount, this three cents on the dollar, isn't an expense, an added premium on the business. By spending three cents out of every dollar for advertising, the manufacturer or merchant can sell for less and give you more for your money. Charles B. Roth. |