Government Demands for Free Publicity Work Hardships They Make Honest Editorial Criticism Impossible, Says Writer in the re "The Liberty Loan flotation was important news. It would have received a lot of newspaper space for that reason. But it got a great deal more than it was entitled to on its news value alone. The Treasury Department quested it, almost hysterically, fearful lest the loan should fail. The newspapers not only gave the space, but many of them 'forced' the news on their front pages day after day, to save the situation. Toward the end of the campaign the Loan Committee began to specify the kind of typographical display it wanted its matter to have. It particularly wanted 'boxes' on the front pages. That was going far. Some newspapers gave 'boxes' on their front pages. Some didn't. It was haphazard. Some overplayed the news because they were asked to do so, some did it in spite of being asked. "But worse than anything else was the confusion about what to say. The loan committee in New York was for giving out the news of big subscriptions, and did it over the protest of the people at Washington. The Treasury Department, by its first foolish enthusiasm, had almost made the country believe that the bonds were flying out of the window. Then it rushed to the other extreme, and wished to create the idea that the loan was in danger of failing for want of popular support. More than once during the campaign the newspapers late at night were torn on the three horns of a dilemma-that is, whether to give the news the slant preferred by Washington or to take it as the New York committee gave it out, or to refuse at last to entertain suggestions from any source as to how it should present the truth. NEWSPAPERS COULD NOT COMMENT IMPARTIALLY "The publicity that resulted was effective, in that it did move the Liberty Loan, but it was wasteful, stultifying and illegal. If the newspapers had done for a private promotion what they volunteered to do and did willingly for this Government flotation they could have been prosecuted under the postal laws. It is not lawful to print advertising as reading matter. This is said only to point the extreme implications of the case. "If the Government had bought the space in which to present the Liberty Loan, instead of thrusting upon newspapers the moral responsibility for selling the bonds, the newspapers would have been free to comment upon it impartially and truthfully. They might have said, for instance, that Liberty bonds were very attract Circulation Methods SUCCESSFUL The door to the circulation department of Successful Farming is always open to any advertiser or agent who is looking for facts. If we did not believe that our methods were the best we would change them. We asked the opinion of two of our good advertisers on our plan to run a series of advertisements in Printers' Ink explaining our circulation methods. One of them said: "It does not especially interest me. I know Successful Farming pays us and increases the business of our dealers so your circulation methods must be right." The other said: "I will give a hundred dollars to any one who will find a paper that will bring me as much business at so low a cost as Successful Farming does. I am in favor of your methods because they bring business." For New Advertisers But these advertisements are for people who do not know by experience that Successful Farming pays advertisers. They have a right to know the basis of the service we are offering to sell them. This is the second of the series of frank discussions of our circulation methods. Sixty-six Per Cent by Mail Direct From Our Office Sixty-six per cent of our new subscriptions and renewals come to us in direct response from letters written from this office. No one sees them. No one talks to them. They simply answer our letters and send their money. In this advertisement we shall discuss new subscriptions only, secured in this way. We secure original letters written in answer to advertisements in farm papers by advertisers of seeds, incubators, fences, engines, manure spreaders, plows, cream separators, automobiles, tractors, hog waterers, etc. We first eliminate those letters that come from outside of our territory because we try to make Successful Farming one hundred per cent good in service to farmers in the North DEFINITE DATA MAP SUCCESSFUL FARMING SUCCESSFUL ARMING This map shows the distribution of the circulation of Successful Farming Central States and that gives us a We next discard letters from Then we lay aside all letters from people who are already subscribers. The letters that remain are, of course, from people who read farm papers, live on farms in the Great Wealth Producing Heart of the Country and who read advertisements and answer them. We Frankly Discussed can give these people good service and they are worth cultivating by our advertisers. Letter Goes with Sample We send them each a copy of Successful Farming and a letter with printed matter in which we explain our service to them and call special attention to the editorial features of the paper we have sent. PERCENTAGE BY EACH METHOD 1.% No. 3-Clubbing .01% No. 7-Bulk To attract their attention, secure their good will and induce them to read our letters, we enclose a package of post cards costing less than three cents which we spend on the same principle that you spend extra money for a big headline or an illustration. Two more followup letters with enclosures referring to specific issues of the paper are sent to those who do not respond the first time. If a premium is offered, the prospective subscriber is charged extra for same to approximately cover its cost to us. From eighteen per cent to twenty-two per cent of these prospects have subscribed by the time we have written them the third letter. The average length of a subscription is about two and one-half years. Extra Circulation Cost Justified By the use of clubbing offers, subscription agencies, and bulk sales methods, we could materially reduce the cost of securing these subscriptions and at the same time increase the percentage of responses but we would not be able, under these methods, to select our subscribers as we select them now. We believe that this point is important enough to warrant the extra cost of securing paid subscriptions direct from this office from people who have been selected because of their known interest in the practical problems of real farm families in the Great Wealth Producing Heart of the Country. We submit to you that subscriptions secured in this way by a paper like Successful Farming which gives them a definite and practical editorial service are of real value to the advertisers who use our columns in an effort to sell merchandise of quality to the farm families of the North Central States. In Other methods will be discussed in later advertisements in Printers' Ink. other advertising journals we are presenting a series of advertisements on editorial policy, a series showing the value of our service to certain classes of advertising and a series showing specific instances where Successful Farming has made good. We shall be pleased to discuss your problems with you. E. T. MEREDITH Publisher Successful Farming DES MOINES, IOWA Member of Audit Bureau of Circulations. Covers the Great Wealth Producing Heart of the Country Chicago Office 1119 Advertising Building New York Office 1 Madison Avenue PE ERHAPS it will be a daring, timely article that will attract you. Perhaps you like verse of an exceptional sort. Or perhaps your interest will lie in a story which later will be mentioned widely for its technique as well as its substance. In any event, if you are eager to find something a little more carefully written than most of the material you see, you will want to become acquainted with THE SEVEN ARTS Frankly, you will probably never put this magazine upon a list until you do see it. So we should like to have the privilege of sending you a specimen copy if you are concerned with purchasing advertising space. May we? THE SEVEN ARTS PUB. CO., Inc. 132 Madison Ave. NEW YORK ive for the purpose of investment to the very rich, with surtaxes to pay, whereas to the small investor they could be recommended not as an investment strictly, but as a souvenir of patriotism. "Second, the Red Cross campaign. That followed immediately on the heels of the Liberty Loan. The moral responsibility again was put upon the newspapers beforehand. If they would only give enough publicity the money could be raised. Again they were stultified. No newspaper could consistently give of its front-page space to the day's news of the Red Cross campaign and print elsewhere, say, in its editorial page, the opinion that the cost of mending men should be as much a part of war's current expense as oats for the horses' bellies or explosives for the guns, and should not be met by charity. No paper could say that without hurting the campaign or the feelings of the charming women who came personally to the editorial offices to solicit front-page display typography. If_it_pleases people to treat the Red Cross separately as an emotional thing on which to exercise their generosity in preference to having it charged to the cost of war and paid for by taxation, why, all very well. Sentimental preferences are not arguable. But there is no reason why the sentimentalists should commandeer newspaper space any more than shoes. Besides, the emotional way is wasteful. Even now, with the thing accomplished, people know much less about Red Cross work than they should, because the news came to be largely that of competitive giving. There was more interest in the dynamics of fund-raising than in the work for which the money will be spent. "The Red Cross raising $100,000,000, the Treasury Department selling $2,000,000,000 Liberty bonds, the Government in its adventures with public sentimentthey seem all more interested in the end than in the means. The means is free publicity. The United States Government has its press agent; its press agent has a staff. The value of the press agent and his organization must be judged by the quantity of desirable publicity delivered. The Government is where the private corporation was twenty years ago. It may be deceived in the same way by the very success of its publicity agents. "The first results are satisfying. It seems so easy. All you do is to furnish copy to the newspapers. They print it and public opinion is produced. But publicity procured in the guise of news failed the corporation at last and became a scandal in the land. The corporation learned that there was only one way to tell its story and to get its case before the public, and that was to address the public directly in the first person, in type of its own selection, in space of its own choosing, when and where and as it wished to do so. A corporation learned at last that it had something to sell besides merchandise. It had to 'sell' to the public a theory of its work and existence as a corporation. And then it discovered that the effective way to 'sell' this imponderable thing was to advertise it directly to the public in its own words, the same as tangible merchandise. After that free publicity became the resort of predatory business only. WHAT THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT LEARNED "Besides Liberty bonds, the Government has an imponderable thing to 'sell'; namely, its understanding or theory of the war. A salesman would say: 'The Government has a war to sell to the public.' He would mean that the Government has the task before it of bringing the public to an adequate realization of what the war means morally, emotionally and in material terms. The way effectively to 'sell' a war and the way properly to sell Liberty bonds is the same. Any government should 'sell' its war in the first person, in space acquired for that purpose at space rates, in |