ITH the conclusion on Tues

W day, June 26, of Red Cross

ex

week, what is probably the greatest co-ordinated and concentrated drive for money raising ever known, not excepting the Liberty Loan, ended with indications that a great deal more than the set minimum of one hundred million dollars had been subscribed or pledged. Advertising played a big part in the campaign, literally thousands of full-page advertisements having been donated and used in newspapers throughout the country, and filled with copy that "packed a gun." To be sure, the Red Cross drive inherited the greater part of the advertising machinery and ecutive personnel so hastily organized to help put over the Liberty Loan; and moreover, it had as a working model a campaign recently conducted in Chicago, which set out to secure 150,000 members for the Red Cross in that vicinity in four weeks, and actually secured 300,000. Then again, the representatives of the A. A. C. of W. in session at the convention in St. Louis pledged the support and experience of their local clubs gained in conducting Liberty Loan campaigns, to Red Cross week, and on the spot several hundred pages were promised, to be paid for by local clubs or advertisers.

While the bulk of the pledges and subscriptions were se

cured by the organizations of teams of solicitors, a great many of the small unit subscriptions, ranging from a few cents up were directly influenced, it is figured, by the advertising. This is because the teams worked most of the time on picked lists, and on the last two days only were they at liberty to solicit at large. In how great measure the advertising affected the decision of those solicited cannot, obviously, be de-. termined. Up to noon on Tuesday, June 26, in New York, for example, pledges or cash for $52,507 had come through the mails, 75 per cent of which it was figured was a result of some fifty

four full pages of advertising that appeared in that city, Brooklyn, etc. To 50 per cent of these, pledge coupons run in the newspapers were attached. This is not a remarkable return, as in this city $25,000 was donated, by persons whose names have not been made public, to buy advertising space. But when two subscriptions for fifty cents apiece from little girls in Bar Harbor, Me., arrived, saying they had earned the money picking stones out of gardens, and when messenger boys gave their mites, it is obvious that the advertising drew support from those who never would have been reached by_solicitation.

The campaign of solicitation was based on the intensive, or "whirlwind" plan developed by Charles Sumner Ward, secretary of the International Committee of Y. M. C. A.'s, for securing buildings and endowment for local Y. M. C. A.'s. Mr. Ward, as secretary of the War Finance Committee of the Red Cross, a sub-committee of the war council appointed by President Wilson, was in charge of the plan for the whole country, working from New York. A brief manual of the plan of organization was sent out to all towns and cities, telling how the teams, ranging from ten to thirty, according to the city's size, should be chosen, how the executive committees should be chosen, the lists for solicitation worked up, and the methods planned for apportioning the names among teams and members of teams for solicitation. Publicity plans were suggested, and examples from the experiences of various Y. M. C. A.'s cited as models for procedure. The first five days were given over to soliciting the lists, and on the last two days team members were allowed to hunt at large, while all the time it was left up to the advertising to fill in the chinks where personal calls were impossible.

Accompanying this manual was another, giving a concise and comprehensive system for accounting for the various funds

received, whether by individuals, teams, or from other sources, including the mails; every card necessary for entering results, the source, whether a contribution was pledged, or made outright in cash, with daily and final reports for main headquarters in Washington was covered in this book, so that, even under conditions of hasty organization, by this simplified and proved system the immense sums collected in so brief a period could be accounted for. Incidentally, no part of the funds collected will enter into the overhead or maintenance of the Red Cross machinery.

APPEAL FROM NATIONAL ADVERTISING ADVISORY BOARD

On Monday, June 18, as vicechairman of the National Advertising Advisory Board, William H. Rankin sent out from Chicago a letter to national advertisers, asking them to contribute full page advertisements, each in one paper of their cities, and requesting them to try and get other local advertisers to do the same. Two days later he mailed to the presidents of all the local advertising clubs proofs of two of the full page advertisements previously used for the Liberty Loan, showing how they might be modified to meet the Red Cross situation.

In the East, O. C. Harn, of the Plan and Scope Committee of the National Advertising Advisory Board, had charge of arrangements. The response by press, business and individuals was titanic stickers and billboards making their appearance by the thousands, millions of lines of news appearing, together with cartoons, comics and serio-comics throughout the country. There was nothing niggardly about the space, the great percentage of which consisted of full pages. Later in the week what was known as the "corporation plan" was developed; a committee for trying to get some 700 large corporations to contribute dividends to the fund. This action is not, however, binding on the individual shareholders.

The copy that filled the space was contributed by some of the best known advertising men in the country-though not all was by advertising men. A piece headed, "Private and Confidential -Through a Megaphone" appearing in the Indianapolis News of June 20, was signed by George Ade. The full page drawing by Gordon Grant, which is republished on page 25, was utilized in newspaper advertisements and stickers alike. Another, which appeared generally throughout the country, shows a wounded American soldier staggering through a doorway with a flag in hand. The door is being opened by a girl, and discloses a home scene, with mother and father sitting about. "Suppose this man came

to

YOUR door-" says the copy. "You would take him in-you would bathe his bleeding wounds -you would place him in a clean cool bed-you would provide him surgical attention. In the name of mercy you would do all in your power to restore him to

strength and manhood. You would not feel it a duty-you would consider it a privilege and an honor!

"It's just this, fellow-Americans, that you do when you contribute to the Red Cross."

While a complete account of all local activities is manifestly impossible, the city of Elizabeth, N. J., deserves mention for its record in this connection. For four days in succession of Red Cross week one paper alone carried three full page advertisements in addition to smaller space in the same editions; sixteen full page spreads within the week.