Page:The Science of Advertising (1910).djvu/60

56 all the economies of a steady and tremendous trade. Yet because we have everywhere ocular evidence of the immense sums these houses pay in advertising, we still assume—most of us—that with every pair of shoes and every article of clothing, we are paying besides an advertising bill.

I asked one of the largest and most successful manufacturers and sellers of shoes how much his advertising cost the public per pair of shoes. He answered me thus:

He took an ordinary shoe store which, he knows, sells on the average about forty pairs of shoes a day. This store does not sell an advertised line of shoes; and there is no expense except a few window cards and displays which could be called advertising.

However, the cost of running the store—rent, light, wages and so on—is about $20 a day. When you buy a pair of shoes at that store, then, you pay for no "advertising;" but you pay just 50 cents per pair for the cost in the store of selling you those shoes.

This advertiser of shoes has in the same small city a similar store where his shoes are sold, costing also approximately $20 a day to keep open. From his national advertising campaign cost, he figures he fairly counts that the share of advertising which would accrue to the store is $20 more a day. In all, the cost of that store is