Getting a Lot for a Little
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The Publicity Policy of a Small London Coach Concern
By Tony Hatton ADVERTISING within a strictly limited budget is a problem which confronts all small coach operators. To sell their tours they must keep, the public up to date with all the latest programmes, yet expenditure on' posters and pamphlets has to be carefully pruned to ensure that the best possible publicity results from the lowest outlay.
A man who has studied the question carefully over the past 20 years is Mr. William Wootten, managing director of W. Wootten and Sons, Ltd., 35 Nightingale Grove, London, S.E.13. He and his two brothers rely solely on excursions and tours to keep three coaches busy, and their 31 agents have to be supplied with regular batches of advertising material to compete with the campaigns of larger concerns.
Crowded out of the " popular " market, the Woottens have investigated every generally accepted method of preventing their programmes from being overlooked. Many ideas have had to be shelved because of expense, but now they are engaged in a new experiment to combat the healthice purses of their opponents.
Tucked away at the rear of their depot are a small, electrically powered printing press and silk-screen printing equipment, with which they are turning out publicity material as quickly and as effectively as their Competitors. Every week a new poster is delivered to each agent—more than 1,600 a year, An illustrated brochure has already run into 22,000 copies since January, and the company are now preparing for a reprint.
The brothers' vehicles—a 1948 32seat Foden, a 1949 33-seat Crossley and a 1956 41-seat Commer—carried an extra 3,000 passengers last year, which, Mr. Wootten claims, was due almost entirely to his vigorous advertising campaign.
He has decided views on what will, D I 0 and what will not, attract the public when there is tierce competition between
operators, The oldstyle blackboard giving a smudgy schedule which is discernible only from close quarters is, he says. finished. People will not 'trouble to read advertisements unless they are attractively and boldly presented, which is why he insists on a different-coloured poster for his agents each week.
Colour, however, is not enough to ensure that the sheets are read, so he uses a fluorescent background to make them stand out from neighbouring posters. They must be legible from across the street, so away have gone all the trimmings and pictures of coaches. Instead, the text is cut to a minimum and bold letters give a message which can be easily read from 20 ft.
These posters are produced on a
simple " do-it-yourself " silk-screen plant which cost the company £40 complete with inks. A stencil and 1,000 sheets of good-quality paper cost under £6, after which it was a matter of
running off prints as often as they were required.
Probably the company's most successful venture, however, has been their 28-page brochure, produced last year for the first time. It contained 40 halftone reproductions of places of interest, • and was printed on brush-coated art paper with a pulpboard cover. The front cover was occupied with a 4-in. by 6-in, picture of the Wye Valley, with three bold title lines.
The type was set commercially at a cast of about £30; and the blocks for the pictures cost an average of 30s, each. Much of the type was held over and was thus available for this year's booklet at no extra expense. --As the Planeta press cost £100, the saving in printers' bills has not yet been fully appreciated, but the company expect a reduction of at least half.
Added to this is the advantage of not having to suffer long delays through slow delivery of material—a key factor when schedules are constantly changing. The Woottons' enthusiasm and ingenuity appear to be reaping dividends this year, too, for already their " out-ofseason " cruises have broken all records.