VOL. XV.

IRVING P. Fox,

FRANK FARRINGTON, L. W. MARSHALL, CHARLES A. MILLER,

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No. I

F course it takes an optimist to cheer up under some conditions, but after all, optimism is very much a matter of habit. The man who makes it a point to look cheerful even when

he feels downcast will soon be affected by his own external looks and will find himself feeling habitually cheerful. Likewise the man who, no matter how many clouds obscure his horizon, acts as if all was right with his world, will soon find that all is right. The man who lacks the ambition to arouse himself from his downheartedness, may be more inclined to do so when he realizes that there is more money in it than in anything else he can do. It pays to cheer up.

A Success Maker.

One of the things that business depression is not generally supposed to do is to make success, but it is one of the greatest success makers known. Many a man now at the top of the ladder is there because general business depression sometime. made it necessary for him to arouse himself and use his ability instead of taking things easily as they came. Nothing

will so quickly put a damper upon ambition as what is called good luck. The man to whom things come easily will never stir himself to see how much better he might do. He will take what comes and let it go at that. When things begin to go the other way and he finds that his income is slipping away, he will quite likely be aroused to strenuous endeavors by the necessity for saving his financial life, and once his energy is under way it will carry him on to real success. Business depression puts the weak ones under but it pushes the strong to the top.

Heading Advertisements.

Some advertisers have the idea that the kind of a head for an advertisement to bear if it would be successful, is one that will arrest attention, no matter how it does it. That is to say, that the way to gain a man's attention for a moment is by slapping him in the face if nothing less will do it. As a matter of fact, all the goods one could sell to a man whose attention had been arrested by a slap in the face would not be many. The sensational heading which has no real refer ence to the subject matter of the ad is worse than useless. The reader who stops at "Terrible Accident!" only to find that he is expected to read a cough cure advertisement, will be disgusted and will carry away an unfavorable opinion of the goods and the store. The right kind of a heading is one which suggests the line of goods described beneath it, sug gests it in catchy form but without a deception of any sort. There is no use in attracting to your ad the attention of a man who has no use for the goods. You

could not make money getting sound men to read advertisements of cork legs. Make the heading right and it will get the attention of everyone whose interest in the goods is worth while. A study of the headings of the news paragraphs in the papers would help one to know how to head advertisements. The news heads are made up by men who are experts at the work.

Show Cards.

Theoretically every druggist knows the value of show cards as advertising matter and as salesmen. He knows it but he doesn't make proper use of his knowledge. A good show card is a salesman who draws no pay and makes many sales. He is on duty every minute and always polite. A tactful clerk may often call attention to a special line of goods without giving offence. Still there are many, probably a majority of times when he must not do it. Customers are sometimes offended by suggestion that they buy things not asked for. A show card never gives offence and it suggests alike to all classes of persons. It stands in no awe of the richest and it is never afraid of calling a poor man's attention to something high priced. The show card tells the quality and the price at a glance. It doesn't wait to be asked. It volunteers its information. To produce the right effect a show card should tell its story in the least possible words and the plainest lettering, and it should not be so fancy that the observer will notice what a pretty card it is and forget about the goods. It is the goods that are to be sold, not the card.

Get Your Money's Worth.

A good many advertisers fail to get their money's worth out of their advertising because they do not get the cumulative effect they should have. They advertise here and there, now in this style and now in that, with a constantly changing program and with no resemblance between the ad of today and that of a week from today. As a result each advertisement stands alone. It has the pulling power of its own merit and lacks almost entirely the ability to pile up cumulative effect for the store. To get the most of this accumulating value one should carry through all advertising a similar line of policy and a somewhat similar typographical effect. The makeup of the various circulars sent out from time to time should bear a mechanical resemblance and the store name should be the same in all advertising, not Smith's Drug Store this time and The Corner Pharmacy next time. Keep hammering one main idea into people's minds all the time and in addition to the value of each individual ad there will be a growing effect as that one idea becomes more and more generally known. Advertising Appropriation.

The per cent which a drug store should devote to advertising depends upon many things. It depends upon location and isolation, upon competiton, population, neighborhood, etc. As a safe average it may perhaps be said that three per cent of the total sales of the store for one year ought to be used for an advertising appropriation the following year. The small appropriation will of course bring

small results. Any appropriation steadily used year after year will bring steady results and up to a reasonable amount the results will be in proportion to the size of the appropriation. In case of a neighborhood store which has no direct competitor and has only to keep the local trade from going " down town," the advertising needs mainly to be direct and can stop with the necessary cost of going right to the accessible families once or twice a month. There are few stores, though, where there is not a chance to branch out

if the proprietor looks around. The best trade is that which comes back year after year. But such families are constantly changing more or less and there must be