“If I Don’t Go, I Don’t Get”

This ad was written in 1975 for The Warner & Swasey Company of Cleveland, Ohio, manufacturer of heavy industrial equipment and machinery, the latest installment (at that time) in a series of 1000 such advertising messages the company had been running since 1941 in Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Business Week, Forbes, Industry Week, and the Wall Street Journal.

Warner & Swasey’s corporate advertising wasn’t intended simply to sell their products (although a  small portion of each advertisement did provide a showcase for this purpose – an ad within the ad).

Mainly, these messages were intended to promote larger concepts: opportunity under America’s system of free enterprise, the contributions of business to our nation’s well-being, the dignity and fruits of hard work.

       In the South is an old man with a rowboat who ferries passengers across a mile-wide river for ten cents.

       Asked, “How many times a day do you do this?” he said, “As many times as I can because the more I go, the more I get.  And if I don’t go, I don’t get.”

       That’s all you need to know–all there is to know–about business, economics, prosperity-and self-respect.

It’s one thing to tell a story about your products or services, but quite another to convey your company’s values, in such a way that you affect in a positive way how people think about themselves, their community, their country. The folks at Warner & Swasey did this for over 40 years.

What’s your story?  What does your company stand for?

And how effectively are you communicating this to your customers and your community?

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