The Harvester World: Volume 3, number 8, August 1912

              Current Advertising
Advertising That Counts

The International Harvester Company of America has certain set standards of advertis¬ ing in which it believes and which it practices. For instance, it believes that the best advertis¬ ing in the world is the service rendered its customers, that no advertisement is of partic¬ ular value unless it contains either educational features or actual selling talk, that the demand for an article must be created by showing plainly its value to the community or the com¬ munity's need for it. Mere publicity cards have not been a part of our scheme. If space is valuable enough to pay money for, it is valu¬ able enough to tell our story in. We believe that educational work free from advertising, such as "The Story of Bread," "The Golden Stream" and our other IHC books, will not only be useful to the agricultural world, but in the end will be of commercial gain to us. Our new masterpiece of a lecture, "The Dawn of Plenty," given by Mr. Joy, has not a word of advertising in it and yet it will react to our advantage for years to come. This is public service advertising from a company which believes it is a public servant.
These same ideas on advertising are followed independently by many IHC dealers. One in particular — E. F. Ervin, of Danbury, Neb., has come to our attention and of all the advertise¬ ments we have read, the kind Mr. Ervin uses ought to have the greatest influence in making him the center of trade for the farmers of his community. This advertisement took up one quarter of a page in " The Danbury News " and is therefore too long to reproduce here, hence we use only the last four paragraphs to show the general tone of Mr. Ervin's advertisement.
"There are at the present time four hundred and fifty- two bulletins issued, sixty-three of which arc experi¬ ment work done by the different Experiment Stations in each state, these sixty-three bulletins are perhaps of more direct benefit than most of the others. Besides the Government Service Bureau many of tbe manufac¬ turers, especially the implement companies, are creating branches in this line of work, one of the most prominent is the International Harvester Company, they issue a 96-page almanac that contains information in general and a 160-page book "For Better Crops," both are free for the asking.
Here is a proposition for you, Mr. Farmer, if you want any of the 452 bulletins issued by the Government or any of the above books mentioned, or if you have some iana problem that you cannot solve, if you will but let me know your wants I will be only too glad to help you to any information you may desire.
I have a number of the almanacs on hand and if you have not already received one come in and get one.
If you are interested in a silo, bulletins number 32 and 292 will tell you about them.
Consider me as your information bureau."
You notice the last sentence of this adver¬ tisement, "consider me as your information bureau."
That is the keynote of the ideal relationship between every dealer and the farmer. So many changes are taking place in the methods of agriculture, so much is being done to make farming easier and more profitable, so many ideas are being brought out by the Government and others that the man who speeds this gospel of improvement is more than a com¬ mercial entity. He is a force for betterment and as such will in the end have the good will of his neighbors. The IHC Service Bureau in a national way is doing what Mr. Ervin is doing in a local way. It is indirect advertising, but it is a useful work to the world and we join hands with him out there at Danbury and wish him success.
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