By Good Service and Publicity

“Advertising, backed by service and by the efforts of those salesmen employed by the Railroads, has made a race of travellers on this continent,” said Sir Henry W. Thornton, Chairman and President Canadian National Railways, in an address before the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World during their annual convention at Philadelphia. Continuing, Sir Henry said, “It grew from a small beginning, step by step, but it proved its own value, and this year the two great Canadian systems will expend approximately four million dollars in advertising to induce travel.

“In the railway world the agate line, which you of the advertising fraternity employ as a unit of measurement, plays a large and useful part, more particularly in the development of passenger business and with respect to those railways which are greatly interested in presenting the allurements of transportation to tourists. Advertising to tourists has kept abreast of general improvement in advertising, as a whole, and as an outgrowth of the old time-table advertisements of ten or fifteen years ago, we have to-day the highest type of sales copy, prepared and presented by experts—advertising which excites the reader to travel and which is inducing countless thousands to turn their faces towards the beauty spots of America and Canada.

Service That Satisfies

Sir Henry W. Thornton, whose work as head of the Canadian National Railways has done so much to build up one of the world's most efficient Railway organisations, acknowledges the great advertising value of good service. He also believes that every employee can help to attract some business to his employer.

“The advertising of the Canadian railways is spread all over the globe—from the Orient and Australia to Scandinavia, and from the Mexican border to the Arctic Circle, in this continent. My company—the Canadian National Railways system—which is the largest system in point of mileage on the North American continent, did a business last year close to quarter of a billion dollars, and has found advertising particularly necessary, for reasons that I will explain.

“The Canadian National Railways system, although great in mileage, is a newcomer in the railway industry and an infant in years, since it has been functioning as a united railway system only since 1922. It found itself confronted by a long-established competitor—the Canadian Pacific, which, because of its long-established relations with the public, was well-known not only on this continent but throughout the world. Hence the Canadian National Railways system, in addition to facing strong competition, was confronted by the even more difficult problem of making itself known to the travelling and shipping public. In short, we are introducing at new commodity; and everyone knows the introduction of a new product requires more intensive advertising than is necessary in the case of a long-established product. Therefore, the railway system, over which I have the honour to preside, has adopted all of the well-known forms of advertising and one at least—which I shall refer to later—has become a potent influence. Newspapers, magazines, periodicals of all sorts, pamphlets and so forth, are well-known weapons of attack. I need not dwell upon them because you are all familiar with their uses; but with your indulgence I want to refer to certain indirect methods of advertising which I have found to be highly effective. First, to give continually improved ‘service.’

“Service is to transportation what excellence is to manufactured product. The patronage of the railway depends largely upon the character of its service. To the passenger, service consists of punctuality of trains, clean and comfortable cars, courteous and obliging employees, and excellence of dining facilities. If these are provided, every passenger becomes a potential advertiser. He speaks with satisfaction and sometimes with pleasure of his journey, advises his friends to travel by the route which has given him satisfaction, and they in turn tell others.

“Next to service I put the mobilisation of every employee into an army of passenger and freight solicitors, and this can be applied to every enterprise producing articles and commodities which are purchased by the public. This is the essence of salesmanship and the line between advertising and salesmanship is not to page 15 be found, because one merges automatically into the other. True, every manufacturing concern has its own sales department whose objective is to attract business, but every individual in the service can, in one way or another, throughout the year, attract some business, be it ever so small, to his employer. The effort of a single employee may not in itself be great, but the united effort of some hundreds of thousands of employees creates an irresistible force.

“With modesty, but with accuracy, I may say that the Canadian National Railways system has met with a marked response from its ninety thousand employees to an appeal for that service which will satisfy the public and for individual effort in the attraction of business, both freight and passenger, to the Company's lines. Whatever measure of success we may have achieved has been due largely to the fine spirit of service and salesmanship which has been developed amongst our employees from the highest to the humblest, plus a large measure of publicity.

“There is one other angle of railway advertising to which I must allude; I refer to the educational feature. If one had kept a scrap-book of the advertising done by railroads in the United States and Canada during the past decade he would find written therein much of the history of these two countries. Railroad builders were always pioneers and men of vision and you advertising men have capitalised this to a large extent in your copy. And while you have been attempting to sell the services of the railroads you have also written an epic and have produced literature which has been educational as well as productive of business. In this you have accomplished much through the use of the agate line.”

Courtesy lives by a multitude of little sacrifices, not by sacrifices of sufficient importance to impose any burdensome sense of obligation. These little sacrifices may be both of time and money, but more of time, and the money sacrifice should be just perceptible, never ostentatious.