A History of Coffee Advertising

Among the many long-established advertised package-coffee successes may be mentioned:

Arbuckle's Yuban and Ariosa; McLaughlin's XXXX; Chase & Sanborn's Seal Brand; Dwinell-Wright's White House; Weir's Red Ribbon; B. Fischer & Company's Hotel Astor; Brownell & Field's Autocrat; Bour's Old Master; Scull's Boscul; Seeman Brothers' White Rose; Blanke's Faust; Baker's Barrington Hall; Woolson Spice Company's Golden Sun; International Coffee Company's Old Homestead; Kroneberger's Old Reserve; Western Grocer Company's Chocolate Cream; Leggett's Nabob; Clossett & Dever's Golden West; R.C. Williams' Royal Scarlet; Merchants Coffee Company's Alameda; Widlar Company's C.W. brand; Meyer Bros.' Old Judge; Nash-Smith Tea and Coffee Company's Wedding Breakfast; J.A. Folger & Company's Golden Gate; Ennis Hanley Blackburn Coffee Company's Golden Wedding; M.J. Brandenstein & Company's M.J.B.; Hills Brothers' Red Can, the Young & Griffin Coffee Company's Franco-American, and the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company's Maxwell House.

It was estimated that the amount of money spent by the larger coffee roasters upon all forms of publicity in the United States in 1920 was about $3,000,000.

Charts prepared by Charles Coolidge Parlin of the division of commercial research of the Curtis Publishing Company, and checked by the Publishers' Information Bureau, show the advertising for coffee and for coffee substitutes in thirty leading publications from 1911 to 1920; and compare the advertising for coffee and coffee substitutes in 1920 with a chart of per capita consumption. It should be noted that the figures exclude all other forms of advertising, such as newspapers, bill-posting, street-car signs, electric signs, and so forth.

Experience has proven that a package coffee, to be successful, must have back of it expert knowledge on buying, blending, roasting, and packing, as well as an efficient sales force. These things are essential: (1) a quality product; (2) a good trade-mark name and label; (3) an efficient package. With these, an intelligently planned and carefully executed advertising and sales campaign will spell success. Such a campaign comprehends advertising directed to the dealer and to the consumer. It may include all the approved forms of publicity, such as newspapers, magazines, billboards, electric signs, motion pictures, demonstrations, and samples. One phase of trade advertising which should not be overlooked is dealer helps. The extent to which the roaster-packer, or the promoter of a new package coffee, should utilize the various advertising media or go into dealer helps must, of course, depend upon the size of the advertising appropriation.

Many roaster-packers supply grocers handling their coffee with dealer helps in the shape of weather-proof metal signs for outside display, display racks, store and window display signs, cut-outs, blotters, consumer booklets, newspaper electros, stereopticon slides, moving pictures, demonstrations, samples, etc. Dealer selling schemes based on points have also been found helpful in promoting sales.

Until a comparatively recent date, the green coffee importer, selling the roasting trade, has not realized the need of advertising. He has inclined to the belief that he did not need to advertise, because, in most instances, green coffee is not sold by the mark; and, to a certain extent, price has been the determining factor.

During late years, however, many green coffee firms have come to realize that there is a good-will element that enters into the equation which can be fostered by the intelligent use of advertising space in the coffee roaster's trade journal. Also, a few importers are now featuring trade marks in their advertising, thus building up a tangible trade-mark asset in addition to good will.

For a number of years the green coffee trade used the business card type of advertisement; but some are now utilizing a more up-to-date style of copy, as typified by the advertisements of Leon Israel & Brothers and W.R. Grace & Company. Specimens of other green coffee advertising of the better kind are here reproduced.

Advertising campaigns in behalf of package coffees can not be fully effective without the proper use of trade publications. Advertising in the dealer's paper has many advantages. It is good missionary work for the salesman. It creates confidence in the mind of the dealer. It is an excellent means for demonstrating to the retailer that he is being considered in the scheme of distribution—that no attempt is being made to force the goods upon him through consumer advertising alone. Trade-paper advertising also offers the packer the opportunity to acquaint the dealer with the selling points in favor of the brand advertised, thus saving the time of the salesman. An increasing number of coffee packers are now using the advertising columns of trade papers, and some typical advertisements are reproduced herewith.

Billboard and other outdoor advertising, also car cards, are being used to a considerable extent for coffee publicity. Painted outdoor signs have been the back-bone of one middle-west roaster's campaign for a number of years. Both car cards and billboards are growing in popularity because they enable the coffee packer to reproduce his package in its natural colors and permit also of striking displays. Such firms as Arbuckle Brothers, New York; Dayton Spice Mills, Dayton, Ohio; W.F. MCLaughlin & Company, Chicago; the Puhl-Webb Company, Chicago; the Bour Company, Toledo; B. Fischer & Company, New York; and the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, Nashville and New York, are consistent users of this character of advertising. Electric signs also have proved effective for coffee advertising. Reproductions of some characteristic outdoor and car-card advertisements are to be found in these pages.

Motion pictures are a comparatively new development in coffee advertising. One of the first coffee roasters to adopt this plan of publicity was S.H. Holstad & Company, Minneapolis. The film used depicted the cultivation and preparation of coffee for the market, also the complete roasting and packaging operations. The A.J. Deer Company, manufacturers of coffee mills and roasters, Hornell, N.Y., was another pioneer in the use of coffee films. Jabez Burns & Sons, coffee-machinery manufacturers, followed with an educational coffee picture. The National Packaging Machinery Company, of Boston, is another concern that has utilized films for advertising purposes, showing its machines in operation in a coffee-packing plant. Many roasters made use of the coffee film produced by the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee.

In using advertising films, it is customary for the roaster to arrange for a showing at one or more theaters. The advertising in the local papers features the coffee brands, also the name of the local dealer, the latter being furnished with tickets which he distributes among his retail customers. There are several concerns making a business of supplying commercial films and of getting distribution for them.

Another form of theater publicity is that of the advertising slide—stereopticon views thrown upon the screen between feature pictures. Many packers find these are effective for cultivating the dealer, it being customary to show the brand name, together with that of the local distributer.

When retailers analyze the people to whom they sell coffee, they usually find three types. First, there is the woman who thinks she is an expert judge of coffee, but who is unable to find anything to suit her cultivated taste. Then there is the new housewife, possibly a bride of a few months, who knows very little about coffee, but wants to find a good blend that both she and her husband will like. The third is the most acceptable class, the satisfied people who have found coffee that delights them, day after day.

How Coffee is Advertised to the Trade
Left to right, good examples of green coffee publicity—center, well-arranged package-coffee copy

W. Harry Longe, a Texas retailer, has prepared the following "ready made" copy appeals for the three classes. To "Mrs. Know-it-all-about-Coffee," this style has been found effective:

IMPROVE THE COFFEE AND YOU IMPROVE THE MEAL

The corner of the table that holds the coffee urn is the balancing point of your dinner. If the coffee is a "little off" for some reason or other—probably it's the coffee's own fault—things don't seem as good as they might; but when it is "up to taste" the meal is a pleasure from start to finish. If the "balancing point" is giving you trouble, let Any Blend Coffee properly regulate it for you. 35 cents, three pounds for $1.

ANY TEA & COFFEE COMPANY

For the good lady who is anxious to find a suitable blend of coffee, and who desires information, this is a good appeal:

A SUCCESSFUL SELECTION

Of the coffee that goes into the every-morning cup will arrive on the day when Any Blend is first purchased. Many homes have been without such a success now for a long time, but, of course, they didn't know of Any Blend—and even now it is hard to really know Any Blend till you try it. That is why we seem to insist that you ask for an introduction by ordering a pound.

ANY BLEND TEA & COFFEE COMPANY

"BLENDED TO BALANCE"

Is a good descriptive phrase of Any Blend coffee, for care is taken in the preparation that the strength does not overpower the flavor. The aim of the blender is to get an acceptable and delightful drinking quality. He has been more than successful, as you will see when you try Any Blend, 35 cents, three pounds for $1.

ANY TEA & COFFEE COMPANY

The satisfied class, of course, is not averse to making a change, and it is well, occasionally, for the dealer to let his own satisfied customers know he still believes in his goods. The argument might take this form:

A SERVICE THAT SAVES

Is the serving of Any Blend, when coffee is desired. Any Blend saves many things. It saves worry, for it is always uniform in flavor and strength. It saves time, for when you order Any Blend we grind it just as fine or just as coarse as your percolator or pot demands. Any Blend also saves expense, because there is no waste, as you know just how much to use, every time, to make a certain number of cups. 35 cents, three pounds for $1.

ANY TEA & COFFEE COMPANY

TO PROVE YOUR APPROVAL

Of Any Blend coffee, you are asked to try just one pound. We know you will like it, for it is blended and roasted and ground as an exceptional coffee should be, with the care that a good coffee demands. Prove to yourself that you approve of this method of preparing coffee. 35 cents, three pounds for $1.

ANY TEA & COFFEE COMPANY

In some households the cook is permitted to do the ordering, and usually the cook does not read the daily papers with an eye for coffee ads. To reach this individual through her mistress:

CAN YOU NAME YOUR COFFEE?

Or is it one of those many unknown brands that comes from the store at the order of your cook? Let the cook do the ordering, for you are lucky if you have one you can rely upon, but tell her you prefer Any Blend to the No-Name Blend you may now be using. Any Blend has one distinct advantage over all others; It Is freshly roasted. Tell the kitchen-lady, now, to order Any Blend.

ANY TEA & COFFEE COMPANY

Advertising coffee by government propaganda has been indulged in with more or less success by the British government in behalf of certain of its colonial possessions; by the French and the Dutch; by Porto Rico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Brazil. The markets most cultivated have been Italy, France, England, Russia, Japan, and the United States.

Great Britain began the development of coffee cultivation in its colonies in 1730. Parliament first reduced the inland duties. In many ways it has since sought to encourage British-grown coffee, building up a favoritism for it that is still reflected in Mincing Lane quotations. The Netherlands government did the same thing for Java and Sumatra; and France rendered a similar service to her own colonies.

Since Porto Rico became a part of the United States, several attempts have been made by the island government and the planters to popularize Porto Rico coffee in the United States. Scott Truxtun opened a government agency in New York in 1905. Acting upon the counsel and advice of the author, he prosecuted for several years a vigorous campaign in behalf of the Porto Rico Planters' Protective Association. The method followed for coffee was to appoint official brokers, and to certify the genuineness of the product. Owing to insufficient funds and the number of different products for which publicity was sought, the coffee campaign was only moderately successful.

Mortimer Remington, formerly with the J. Walter Thompson Company, a New York advertising agency, was appointed in 1912 commercial agent for the Porto Rico Association, composed of island producers and merchants. Some effective advertising in behalf of Porto Rico coffee was done in the metropolitan district, where a number of high-class grocers were prevailed upon to stock the product, which was packed under seal of the association. As before, however, the other products handled—including cigars, grape-fruit, pineapples, etc.—handicapped the work on coffee, and the enterprise was abandoned. Subsequent efforts by the Washington government to assist the Porto Ricans in evolving a practical plan to extend their coffee market in the United States came to naught because of too much "politics."

Beginning with the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, the government of Guatemala started a propaganda for its coffee in the United States; as the European market, which had up till then absorbed seventy-five percent of its product, was closed to it, owing to the World War. E.H. O'Brien, a coffee broker of San Francisco, directed the publicity. Some full pages were used in newspapers, but the main efforts were directed at the coffee-roasting trade. The campaign, so far as it went, was highly successful.

Costa Rica also gave special encouragement to coffee-trade interests that offered to expand the United States market for Costa Rica coffee during the World War.

For many years Colombia has been talking of making propaganda here for its coffee, but thus far nothing of a constructive character has been done.

São Paulo began in 1908 to make propaganda for its coffee by subsidizing companies and individuals in consuming countries to promote consumption of the Brazil product. A contract was entered into between the state of São Paulo and the coffee firms of E. Johnston & Company and Joseph Travers & Son, of London, to exploit Brazil coffee in the United Kingdom. Similar contracts were made with coffee firms in other European countries, notably in Italy and France. The subsidies were for five years and took the form of cash and coffee. The English company was known as the "State of São Paulo (Brazil) Pure Coffee Company, Ltd." Fifty thousand pounds sterling was granted this enterprise, which roasted and packed a brand known as "Fazenda;" promoted demonstrations at grocers' expositions; and advertised in somewhat limited fashion. The general effect upon the consumption of coffee in England was negligible, however, although at one time some five thousand grocers were said to have stocked the Fazenda brand. A feature of this propaganda was the use of the Tricolator (an American device since better known in the United States) to insure correct making of the beverage, Brazil also made propaganda for its coffee in Japan, in 1915, as part of certain undertakings involving the immigration of Japanese laborers to Brazil.

The Comité Français du Café was formed in Paris in July, 1921, to co-operate with Brazil in an enterprise designed to increase the consumption of coffee in France.

The chief fault in most of the coffee propagandas here and abroad has been the doubtful practise of subsidizing particular coffee concerns instead of spending the funds in a manner designed to distribute the benefits among the trade as a whole. This mistake, and local politics in the producing countries, have made for ultimate failure. A notable exception is the latest propaganda for Brazil coffee in the United States, where all the various interests, the the São Paulo government, the growers, exporters, importers, roasters, jobbers, and dealers, have co-operated in a plan of campaign to advertise coffee per se, and not to secure special privilege to any individual, house, or group.

Twenty years ago the author began an agitation for co-operative advertising, by the coffee trade. He suggested as a slogan, "Tell the truth about coffee;" and it is gratifying to find that many of his original ideas have been embodied in the present joint coffee trade publicity campaign, now in its fourth year.

The coffee roasters at first were slow to respond to the co-operative advertising suggestion, because in those days competition was more unenlightened than now, and therefore more ruthless. It needed organization to bring the trade to a better understanding of the benefits certain to be shared by all when their individual interests were pooled in a common cause. Leaders of the best thought in the trade, however, were quick to realize that only by united effort was it possible to achieve real progress; and when it was suggested that the first step was to organize the roasting trade, the idea took so firm a hold that it only needed some one to start it to bring together in one combination the keenest minds in the business.

The coffee roasters organized their national association in 1911. The author of this work urged that co-operative advertising based upon scientific research should be done by the roasters themselves independently of the growers; but it was found impracticable to unite diverging interests on such an issue, and so the leaders of the movement bent all their energies toward promoting a campaign that would be backed jointly by growers and distributers, since both would receive equal benefit from any resulting increase in consumption. Brazil, the source of nearly three-quarters of the world's coffee, was the logical ally; and an appeal was made to the planters of that country. A party of ten leading United States roasters and importers visited Brazil in 1912 at the invitation of the federal government.

In Brazil, as in the United States, progress resulted from organization. The planters of the state of São Paulo, who produce more than one-half of all coffee used in the United States, were the first to appreciate the propaganda idea. After their attempts to interest the national government failed, the São Paulo coffee men founded the Sociedade Promotora da Defesa do café (Society to Promote the Defense of Coffee), and persuaded their state legislature to pass a law taxing every bag of coffee shipped from the plantations of that state in a period of four years. This tax, amounting to one hundred reis per bag of 132 pounds, or about two and one-half cents United States money at even exchange rates, is collected by the railroads from the shippers, and turned over to the Sociedade.

The Brazilian Society sent to the United States a special envoy, Theodore Langgaard de Menezes, to conclude arrangements; and on March 4, 1918, in New York, the pact was signed whereby São Paulo was to contribute to the publicity campaign in the United States approximately $960,000 at the rate of $240,000 a year for four years; and the members of the trade in the United States were to contribute altogether $150,000. The success of the negotiations was due to the skilful management of Ross W. Weir in the United States, and to the superior salesmanship of Louis R. Gray, the Arbuckle representative in Brazil.

Supervision of the advertising in the United States was delegated to five men, representing both the importing and roasting branches of the trade, and designated as the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee of the United States. Three of these committeemen, Ross W. Weir, of New York; F.J. Ach, of Dayton, Ohio; and George S. Wright, of Boston, are roasters; and two, William Bayne, Jr., and C.H. Stoffregen, both of New York, are importers and jobbers, or green-coffee men. The committee organized with Mr. Weir as chairman, Mr. Wright as treasurer, and Mr. Stoffregen as secretary. At the invitation of the committee, C.W. Brand of Cleveland, then president of the National Coffee Roasters Association, attended committee meetings, and assisted in determining the policies of the campaign. Headquarters were established at 74 Wall Street, in the heart of the New York coffee district, with Felix Coste as secretary-manager, and Allan P. Ames as publicity director. N.W. Ayer & Son, advertising agents of Philadelphia, who had engineered the plan of campaign from the start of the movement in the National Coffee Roasters Association, handle the advertising account.

São Paulo's contribution to the advertising fund is sent in monthly instalments to the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee under an agreement that it shall be expended only for magazine and newspaper space.