The Dollar that Can't be Spent

Every dollar spent in advertising is not only a seed dollar which produces a profit for the merchant, but is actually retained by him even after he has paid it to the publisher.

Advertising creates a good will equal to the cost of the publicity.

Advertising really costs nothing. While it uses funds it does not use them up. It helps the founder of a business to grow rich and then keeps his business alive after his death.

It eliminates the personal equation. It perpetuates confidence in the store and makes it possible for a merchant to withdraw from business without having the profits of the business withdrawn from him. It changes a name to an institution—an institution which will survive its builder. It is really an insurance policy which costs nothing—pays a premium each year instead of calling for one and renders it possible to change the entire personnel of a business without disturbing its prosperity.

Advertising renders the business stronger than the man—independent of his presence. It permanentizes systems of merchandising, the track of which is left for others to follow.

A business which is not advertised must rely upon the personality of its proprietor, and personality in business is a decreasing factor. The public does not want to know the man who owns the store—it isn't interested in him but in his goods. When an unadvertised business is sold it is only worth as much as its stock of goods and its fixtures. There is no good will to be paid for—it does not exist—it has not been created. The name over the door means nothing except to the limited stream of people from the immediate neighborhood, any of whom could tell you more about some store ten miles away which has regularly delivered its shop news to their breakfast table. It is as shortsighted for a man to build a business which dies with his death or ceases with his inaction, as it is unfair for him not to provide for the continuance of its income to his family.