_Repetition means reputation._
Celebrities are often credited with having said things which they never
thought of. There are a hundred and one stories told on Abraham Lincoln
that poor Honest Abe never even heard.
Barnum is quoted as having said: “The American public like to be
humbugged,” but it is a significant fact that whatever feature the wily
P. T. brought out—whether it was Jenny Lind or Jumbo—he always gave the
dear public a good run for their money.
And so it always will be—you must deliver the goods in order to make
good. Bill-posting is an accredited medium of advertising simply because
it deserves it—it has won its spurs.
Posting has many advantages over other methods of advertising. First
may be mentioned the large display which it makes possible, and its
consequent conspicuousness. You simply cannot get away from it, and,
consciously or otherwise, it burns its way into the mind through an ever
alert vision. It appeals to masses and classes—every one who passes.
The size of an eight-sheet poster is 84 inches by 112 inches, and,
outside of painted boards and electric signs, it is not possible to get
such a display in any other medium of advertising. The possibility of
reproducing a trade-mark, figure, or the article itself, in mammoth size
tends to impress it upon the mind in an uncommon way and with great force.
Another distinct advantage which bill-posting has over most other
advertising mediums is the opportunity it offers for the use of colors.
Colors are agreeable to the eye, they command attention, and the
advertiser who fails to utilize the full possibilities of color in
getting out his posters is missing his opportunity. It costs just as much
to post a poorly printed sheet or an ineffective one- or two-color poster
as it does one printed in bright, clear-cut, attention-commanding colors
which the eye cannot pass.
Without going into the respective results to be obtained, posting is the
cheapest medium for local advertising. The cost per town is less than any
respectable sort of a campaign could be conducted for in any other medium.
It has been contended that poster advertising is only good as publicity
advertising for a well-known product needing mainly a constant reminder
to keep it before the public. I believe, however, that posting is
effective and can be made profitable for even a new product, for, while
a detailed story cannot be told on a poster, one single argument can be
brought out on each poster, and, in time, the complete argument given.
_Advertising has made more reputations than literature—Scott’s
Emulsion is better known than Scott’s Marmion, the grim pill
of Dr. Munyon takes the palm from the Pilgrim of John Bunyon,
while Douglas, the $3 shoe man, won fame, fortune and a
governorship, while Stephen A. Douglas, the little giant and
foe of Abe Lincoln, is almost forgotten._