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You Can't Sell 'em Where They Ain't

December 08, 1931
Detroit News Quilt History Project; Michigan State University Museum; Susan Salser
Detroit, Michigan, United States
An advertisement for The Chicago Daily News
You Can't Sell 'em Where They Ain't

Beaver hat. Checkered vest. A guitar to do his advertising. But make no mistake - there was a salesman! You never found him out at the edge of town, wasting his breath on the wide open spaces of Scatterville. Not on your life! He was always on the public square and just as close up to the courthouse as he could get - town marshal and tin badge notwithstanding. His market was the crowd. He made his profit off people. And to him must go credit for the immortal saying so dear to every sales manager's heart: "You can't sell 'em where they ain't!"

Times have changed. The roar of industry has drowned out the strumming of the guitar in the hands of O. Henry's medicine man. Neon signs have replaced kerosene lamps. Pink snake oil, in bottles, has givein away to merchandise of known merit. But the impulse of the human heart, the habits of the crowd and the basic principles of doing business at a profit remain the same - you still can't sell 'em where they ain't!"

The modern chain store, for example, makes money - and one big reason for its success is that chain stores never cross the waste-line - never go into Scatterville. They stick just as close to the crowd as they can get. They have learned that the law of averages needs no enforcement squad - neither can it be repealed. Theres are so many buyers out of every so many people, and the more crowds you reach the more sales you make.

What is true of chain stores is equally true of your business. To sell at a profit you must reach the crowd. And here in Chicago you can do it best through just one newspaper - The Chicago Daily News - which stays on its side of the waste-line and never spends its money or your own prospecting out in Scatterville. It sticks close to the cream of the buying millions of the Real Chicacgo - and what is equally important - Chicago sticks to The Chicago Daily News, reads and believes it.

Four and a half million people, five and a half billions of spendable wealth, fifty-four thousand stores - that's the tremendous market Chicago offers for your goods through the one paper that unquestionably goes where the people are and doesn't fool around where they "Ain't."

Isn't It Significant That -
801.8% of all the chain stores in the 40-mile official Chicago A.B.C. trading area is in Cook County and that -
96% of the circulation of The Chicago Daily News is in Cook County
80.8% of the chain stores of Cook County is in Chicago and -
92% of the Cook County circulation of The Chicago Daily News is in Chicago

Concentrate With The Chicago Daily News
The Quality Quantity Concentrated Evening Circulation
National Advertising Representative
George A. McDevitt Co.

New York, Pastun Bldg., 250 Park Ave.
Chicago, Palmolive Buld., 919 N. Michigan Ave.
Philadelphia, Record Bldg., Broat St.,
Detroit, New Center Bldg., Jesse F. Spencer, Mgr.
San Franscisco, Monadnock Bldg., H. H. Conger, Mgr.
Financial Advertising Offices:
New York, 165 Broadway, R. S. Farley, Mgr.
Chicago, 29 S. La Salle St., F.R. McFadden, Mgr.

Courtesy of The Detroit News Archives.

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