Page:The Science of Advertising (1910).djvu/66

62 use, it was not better for the dealer to make profits on in selling it to customers.

By advertising, the manufacturer of quality product can place his merits before the people. He gets enough people to ask for his product to force the dealers to put it on their shelves. And the consumer, selecting the product he wants out of the many that are put before him through advertising, can establish it even against the preference of the house that supplies it. The pure foods, the superior clothing, the stronger shoes, and the better grades in a hundred lines have been presented to the consumer and maintained through the advertising appeal to the people direct. I do not mean that all superior products have been or must be so introduced—that no unadvertised goods have quality; any more than that no good leaders have come up in politics under the old methods. But our selection of goods presented directly to us through the choice of advertising brings us a greater percentage of best products.

Now the manufacturer is using the direct primaries of advertising. It remains for the people to take the final step—to use this advertising in order to make the most intelligent and advantageous selection for themselves.

Advertised products are the field for the consumer's selection, because they present their merits and are willing to stand on them.