Traveling publicity campaigns

The message of the campaign includes the ideas, facts, and plans to be presented to the audiences. The choice of a topic or its scope, what to say about it, and how much, are questions deserving more thoughtful consideration and real work than is usually given to them. The most important and the most difficult thing in preparing the message is to have constantly in mind a picture of the way in which it is to be delivered. If, for example, the project takes the form of an exhibit and lecture train in which visitors will spend part of their time listening to a talk and the remainder passing through several cars to examine displays, we should, as we plan the message, try to picture the train on the siding at, let us say, Jonesville. We should also visualize the numbers and types of people likely to come, how they will divide their time between the talks and the exhibits, how long they will stay, or how long we will wish them to stay, what they know about the subject already, and what they will want to know, what they could do with this or that kind of information, and how much and what part of the message they are likely to remember. If the campaign is carried on with a truck and its program includes a demonstration which only a few people can see, and a motion picture and lecture program for much larger numbers, there are two problems; first, visualizing the small groups for the demonstration, and second, the larger audience for the more popular program.

Reports of topics and methods of presenting them that have come in from many and varied traveling campaigns indicate that much more attention could be given to this question of preparing the message, and that frequently topics have been selected and the form of presentation worked out with only a very hazy visualization of the conditions and the people to be encountered at Jonesville and other points along the route.

Choice of a Topic

Experience leads most directors, sooner or later, to choose a single topic that is definite and concrete, rather than a group of topics or one that is broad in scope. This limiting of the topic is all the more likely to be important where the subject of the campaign is unfamiliar to the prospective audience. The titles given to many of the agricultural trains indicate that their directors have found the concrete and single topic satisfactory. Trains have been called the “Stump Pulling Special,” “Wheat Special,” “Better Seed Car,” and “Dairy Train.”

In the health field the topics have often been very general, as “Child Welfare” or merely “Public Health.” One public health car, which seemed to be fairly typical, carried exhibits on the prevention and cure of tuberculosis, care of babies, the duties of the school nurse, food adulteration, communicable diseases, playgrounds, venereal diseases, and a description of the functions of the State Health Department. The more inclusive and thus less specific the topic the more vague and general will be the talk about it afterward by those who visited the train.

A reason sometimes given for presenting varied and general topics is that the purpose is not so much to give definite information which will be remembered and acted on, as to impress people with the scope and importance of the subject. For example, the visitors to a public health car in which many phases of the subject are touched upon may carry away a conviction that public health work is important to the community and should be supported although their ideas of it were very vague. This result may satisfy the purpose of some campaigns, but more often directors who present a variety of topics hope that something about each will be remembered; and there is reason for believing that their hope will not come as near to realization, or at least that the information will not be of as great utility, as it might if the subjects were fewer and more specifically treated.

Another argument frequently brought forward in favor of including several topics is that all sorts of people will visit the train or truck, and while one will be interested in one subject others will be more interested in something else. When those in charge of the program are meeting only a few people at a time, they can talk separately to each visitor about special problems, but the brief stops made on most tours require the message to be presented to a large group at one time or at least in quick succession, so that in practice it usually happens that all the visitors see and hear the same things. In this case the more closely a single and concrete topic is adhered to, the more hopeful campaigners may be that what is said or displayed will be remembered.

An equally important reason for limiting the number of topics is the desirability of having your whole audience get the same message. In connection with the Wheat Specials, for example, not alone should the farmer and the farmer’s wife and the farmer’s children be informed about the wheat problems of the locality, but the local banker and business man stand in need of much the same information. The preacher and the doctor will help to spread the doctrine, and the school teacher can make good use of what he learns. The more nearly the entire community, young and old, understands and is interested in the same message, the more likely that the desired results will follow.

Occasionally two or three topics may be presented on the same train by having separate cars for each topic and a separate audience for each. Thus, on one train a car containing household labor-saving devices was designed to interest the wives of farmers, and a pure-seed car the farmers. Or several topics may be combined in such a way that they are made parts of one large idea. Health topics might be brought together under “The Health of the Family,” and divided into instruction about the care of the baby, the child at school, the teaching of social hygiene to older boys and girls, and the sanitation of the household. But even when thus closely related to the family interests of the visitors, this group of topics is still too varied to permit any one to make a strong and lasting impression.

What to Tell

Having chosen a topic, there is sure to be so much to tell about it that careful selection again becomes necessary. The best guide in preparing the subject matter of the program is the visualization of expected audiences already referred to. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the relation of the subject matter to their interests, circumstances, and habits will largely determine their response to the suggestions given. Often this relationship exists, but is not explained clearly enough to be readily understood. The fact that the traveling campaigners come from a distance, bringing new ideas expressed in an unfamiliar way, leads an audience to look upon the whole project as something which is no doubt very interesting to see and hear about, but of no immediate concern to themselves. It is worth while to make a very special effort to overcome this attitude of aloofness and to make the audiences see that what you are bringing is something that they have been wanting all the time, without their fully realizing it.

Making up the Program

The term program is used here to include the combined activities and displays that make up what is presented to visitors at each stopping point. It may consist of music, talks, demonstrations, motion pictures, or displays of posters and objects, or several of these features combined, with varying emphasis on one or the other form.

It may be held inside of railroad cars or in an open space, using for a stage a flat car, the rear platform of a passenger car, or a temporary structure. Or it may be given in a hall in the town. Sometimes the program includes both indoor and outdoor features.

It is usually a good idea to arrange what might be called a “unit” program that will include everything that it is desirable for a given visitor or group of visitors to do, see, and hear in order to fully understand and enjoy the message. This unit program has an important place in the arrangement of itinerary, schedule, and the arrangements made for the attendance. For example, if the unit program lasts an hour we have a means of deciding the number of times it needs to be repeated in order to reach the desired number of visitors. If it lasts two or three hours we are likely to find that in our advance work we will need to make a greater effort to attract a carefully selected audience, since the longer the program in most cases the fewer the people who could enjoy it even once. The suggestions below have to do with some of the factors to take into account in selecting and combining features of this unit program.

Features intended wholly or mainly as attractions, such as music, or dramatic or comic films, should not be placed in competition with educational features for getting attention or holding interest. They may be said to compete when they distract attention from the main topic or take up an undue share of the time of visitors, or are so much more popular in form than the educational topics as to be more talked about and remembered afterward.

The program should be arranged so that the one idea or set of facts which it is the purpose of the tour to deliver holds the center of the stage at all times, and so that it commands attention whether it takes the form of a talk or exhibit, or both. As has already been said, the main idea should not be overshadowed or lost sight of through the rivalry of other attractions. Finally, so that there may be no doubt that it is understood and remembered, the main idea should be repeated in different forms, in talks, demonstrations, exhibits, and printed matter.

If the visitor is obliged to stand during all or the greater part of the time he is not likely to give more than an hour of interested attention to talks and displays. Many will give much less. The actual period that the average visitors will remain under certain conditions is soon learned by experimenting, and each feature should be timed so that a satisfactory presentation of the subject can be assured for the majority of them.

However attractively the subject is presented through motion pictures or other displays, a good talker is about the most important element in getting the idea across to the visitors. Whether the speaker accompanies his talk with slides or objects, conducts a demonstration, explains exhibits, or makes running comments on motion pictures, his ability to be heard, to hold interest, and to express himself simply, briefly, and concretely will often be the chief factor in the success of the program. Lecturers for traveling campaigns should be chosen as much for their ability as speakers as for their knowledge of the subject matter.

Programs of Exhibit Trains

The following plan for a program was announced for one of the Liberty Loan trains:

The trains for which this program was planned made short stops and the talks were given from a platform or from one of the flat cars. A large crowd could be reached by a single speaking program. In this case the speaking was the important feature, and the exhibits of war material were an “attraction” rather than an educational feature. It satisfied the purpose of the tour to have most of the time devoted to speeches, followed by a rapid view of exhibits.

The extension division of the Texas State College of Agriculture reports the following program method:

Here again the speaking and the outdoor demonstrations are evidently regarded as the important features. Such a plan should not be considered if the exhibits are of real importance. The audience that has been standing during the program of perhaps half an hour or more, and has then waited in line to go through the train, is a tired audience and not nearly so responsive as though its members came fresh to the exhibits. It is also true that when the program is so arranged that the whole crowd is ready at one time to start through the train, there is much more difficulty in managing the people and much more dissatisfaction on the part of those at the rear end of the line. It is difficult to get careful attention for exhibits from people who are being moved ahead to make way for an impatient crowd standing in long lines behind them. The managers of trains will do well to decide in advance whether the speaking or the exhibits constitute the really important feature of the program. If it is the exhibits, then the speaking should be made incidental, perhaps, by having a ten-minute talk given from the platform at regular intervals as a new group is to be started through the train.

A Program Combining Demonstrations and Exhibits

A method of dividing the time between demonstrations in two cars and an exhibit car was worked out satisfactorily on the Pennsylvania Food Conservation Train. All the audience passed through the train in the same direction, starting at the same point, except that at the beginning of the session all the cars were filled at once to avoid delays. When the first car was filled a talk on canning started. No attempt was made to demonstrate a complete process, but different vegetables or fruits were in various stages of preparation continuously, so that a fifteen-minute illustrated talk brought out the points that required emphasis. After about five minutes of questions and looking at displays of equipment and canned articles, this crowd moved on to the next car, while the first car was filled again with the next group of arrivals. In the second car a similar program was given on uses of wheat substitutes. In the third car two explainers met the audience and explained the exhibits found there. As the topics in all three cars were closely related (the demonstrations showing how to save food and the exhibits showing why food saving was necessary), an hour spent in three cars gave variety enough to keep interest awake and still kept closely to the one big idea—“Save Food.”

Outdoor Speaking at Trains

If speaking to a general audience is the important thing, a talk from the outside of the train would seem better than crowding people into the cars; but even outside speeches from the platform or a flat car, or an especially built platform at the train present many difficulties. The location of the train frequently does not provide good standing room for the crowds; there is frequently distraction from the noise of other trains and persistent rainy weather must be reckoned with also. It is very important to have speakers with good outdoor voices, for the effect on the audience of straining to hear a speaker is irritating and leaves behind a bad impression.