Motography (Jan-Jun 1913)

April 5, 1913 MOTOGRAPHY 221 C. W. Post Uses Advertising Films By Watterson R. Rothacker CW. POST probably knows the value of advertising better than any individual one can men* tion. Mr. Post has, by consistently conducted advertising, fought his way to the top of the millionaire column and won an enviable reputation which extends from coast to coast, from the northern extremities of Canada to Cape Horn, and into remote points abroad, without skipping the most obscure whistling station. Everybody has heard about C. W. Post and, through Mr. Post, they know Battle Creek, Michigan, as a pure food center. Now Mr. Post has hit upon a plan to bring the pure food industry of Battle Creek to the very eyes of the public, who, by means of his enterprise, and moving pictures, can see just how pure foods are manufactured without the expenditure of time and money necessary to an actual trip to Battle Creek. Mr. Post's selection and use of moving pictures for advertising purposes is significant. It is notable for the very good reason that Mr. Post is a post graduate of the advertising experience school ; he knows what's what among advertising media and when he picks a medium it is equivalent to the announcement that the medium selected has survived the most severe acid test. Mr. Post is utilizing moving pictures on a characteristically broad scale. He is using them along educational lines ; he is, on film, throwing open the doors of his big Battle Creek plant and bidding the public everywhere to come and see for itself that "There's a Reason" for the Post success and for the goodness of the foodstuffs carrying the Post name. The first visit to the great Postum factories at Battle Creek is a revelation. It is different from anything the uninitiated might expect. Who would imagine that in a business office could be found magnificent paintings, statues and curios which would be a credit to the British Mr. Post in His Office. Art Museum? Who would harbor the impression that a firm whose yearly advertising appropriation approaches nearly two million dollars and whose business involves many times that magnificent amount, would have any time to make the individual visitor feel as though it was the one great pleasure in life to show and explain every thing? Nevertheless this is true at the Postum plant, for there, in with the bustle and buzz of an immense industry, you will find the most wonderful art treasures and the most unusual courtesy. The only trouble is that the thousands who have made the visit and the hundreds who take advantage of the opportunity daily are as a drop in the ocean to the millions at distant points A Machine in the Postum Plant. who can't afford the time or money necessary to enjoy these interesting things at first hand. So Mr. Post has put his art galleries, his offices, his wonderful machinery and his. splendid factory operation on film and is bringing the mountain to Mohammed. Mr. Post has entitled his film story "The Making of Pure Foods in Battle Creek," and in it gives an eye trip through his institution. He has taken great care that the pictures are free from blunt commercialism and that the story is reliably presented and replete with educational interest. The first scenes show the administration building and grounds of the Postum Cereal Company at noon hours. Here crowds of happy Post employees are depicted in recreation. Groups of young men and women are shouting in the glee of a snow ball battle while the older folks look on as the fun progresses. Then follows a picture of the factory and office buildings — not quite so graceful as the administration building but models of their kind and immaculately clean. We now enter the reception room for visitors and for the moment are amazed. Here there is not the suggestion of anything commercial. It is as though one was visiting a baronial hall where the huge fire place roars an unqualified "Welcome !" Up a stairway and we are at the entrance to Mr. C. W. Post's private office. Fortunately Mr. Post is in. He looks young to be one of the big makers of advertising history. His face shows no mark of his early struggles. His manner has none of that one might expect from a real captain of industry, but there is about him the indefinable something which commands respect and at the same time establishes a democratic footing. One instinctively senses Mr. Post's bigness. To see him at his desk weighing big affairs in a moment, decisively