Scientific Advertising

The Pet Business Link:
Better Marketing Series
Scientific Advertising
Claude C Hopkins
Everything You Ever Needed to Know
About Successful Advertising
http://www.PetBusinessLink.com
Scientific Advertising
By Claude C Hopkins

Chapter 01 – How advertising laws are established ________________ Page 01
Chapter 02 – Just salesmanship ________________________________ Page 04
Chapter 03 – Offer service ____________________________________ Page 06
Chapter 04 – Mail order advertising – what it teaches _____________ Page 07
Chapter 05 – Headlines _______________________________________ Page 10
Chapter 06 – Psychology ______________________________________ Page 12
Chapter 07 – Being specific ___________________________________ Page 15
Chapter 08 – Tell your full story _______________________________ Page 16
Chapter 09 – Art in advertising ________________________________ Page 19
Chapter 10 – Things to costly __________________________________ Page 21
Chapter 11 – Information _____________________________________ Page 23
Chapter 12 – Strategy ________________________________________ Page 25
Chapter 13 – Use of samples ___________________________________ Page 27
Chapter 14 – Getting distribution ______________________________ Page 30
Chapter 15 – Test campaigns __________________________________ Page 32
Chapter 16 – Leaning on dealers _______________________________ Page 34
Chapter 17 – Individuality ____________________________________ Page 35
Chapter 18 – Negative advertising ______________________________ Page 36
Chapter 19 – Letter writing ___________________________________ Page 37
Chapter 20 – A name that helps ________________________________ Page 39
Chapter 21 – Good business ___________________________________ Page 40

Chapter 1
How advertising laws are established
The time has come when advertising has in
some hands reached the status of a science. It
is based on fixed principles and is reasonably
exact. The causes and effects have been analysed
until they are well understood. The correct
method of procedure have been proved
and established. We know what is most effective,
and we act on basic law.
Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become,
under able direction, one of the safest
business ventures. Certainly no other enterprise
with comparable possibilities need involve
so little risk.
Therefore this book deals, not with theories
and opinions, but with well-proved principles
and facts. It is written as a textbook for
students and a safe guide for advertisers.
Every statement has been weighed. The book
is confined to establish fundamentals. If we
enter any realms of uncertainty we shall carefully
denote them.
The present status of advertising is due to
many reasons. Much national advertising has
long been handled by large organisations
known as advertising agencies. Some of these
agencies, in their hundreds of campaigns,
have tested and compared the thousands of
plans and ideas. The results have been
watched and recorded, so no lessons have
been lost.
Such agencies employ a high grade of talent.
None but able and experienced men can
meet the requirements in national advertising.
Working in co-operation, learning from each
other and from each new undertaking, some
of these men develop into masters.
Individuals may come and go, but they
leave their records and ideas behind them.
These become a part of the organisation's
equipment, and a guide to all who follow.
Thus, in the course of decades, such agencies
become storehouses of advertising experiences,
proved principles, and methods.
The larger agencies also come into intimate
contact with experts in every department of
business. Their clients are usually dominating
concerns. So they see the results of countless
methods and policies. They become a clearinghouse
for every thing pertaining to merchandising.
Nearly every selling question,
which arises in business, is accurately answered
by many experiences.
Under these conditions, where they long
exist, advertising and merchandising become
exact sciences. Every course is charted. The
compass of accurate knowledge directs the
shortest, safest, cheapest course to any destination.
We learn the principles and prove them by
repeated tests. This is done through keyed
advertising, by traced returns, largely by the
use of coupons. We compare one way with
many others, backward and forward, and record
the results. When one method invariably
proves best, that method becomes a fixed
principle.
Mail order advertising is traced down to
the fraction of a penny. The cost per reply
and cost per dollar of sale show up with utter
exactness.
One ad compared to another, one method
with another. Headlines, settings, sizes, arguments
and pictures are compared. To reduce
the cost of results even one per cent
means much in some mail order advertising.
So no guesswork is permitted. One must
know what is best. Thus mail order advertising
first established many of our basic laws.
In lines where direct returns are impossible
we compare one town with another.
Scores of methods may be compared in this
way, measured by cost of sales.
But the most common way is by use of the
coupon. We offer a sample, a book, a free
package, or something to induce direct replies.
Thus we learn the amount of action
which each ad engenders.
But those figures are not final. One ad may
bring too many worthless replies, another re2
plies that are valuable. So our final conclusions
are always based on cost per customer
or cost per dollar of sale.
These coupon plans are dealt with further
in the chapter on "Test Campaigns." Here we
explain only how we employ them to discover
advertising principles.
In a large agency coupon returns are
watched and recorded on hundreds of different
lines. In a single line they are sometimes
recorded on thousands of separate ads. Thus
we test everything pertaining to advertising.
We answer nearly every possible question by
multitudinous traced returns.
Some things we learn in this way apply
only to particular lines. But even those supply
basic principles for analogous undertakings.
Others apply to all lines. They become
fundamentals for advertising in general. They
are universally applied. No wise advertiser
will ever depart from those unvarying laws.
We propose in this book to deal with those
fundamentals, those universal principles. To
teach only established techniques. There is
that technique in advertising, as in all art, science
and mechanics. And it is, as in all lines,
a basic essential.
The lack of those fundamentals has been
the main trouble with advertising of the past.
Each worker was a law to himself. All previous
knowledge, all progress in the line, was a
closed book to him. It was like a man trying
to build a modern locomotive without first
ascertaining what others had done. It was like
a Columbus starting out to find an undiscovered
land.
Men were guided by whims and fancies -
vagrant, changing breezes. They rarely arrived
at their port. When they did - by accident
- it was by a long roundabout course.
Each early mariner in this sea mapped his
own separate course. There were no charts to
guide him. Not a lighthouse marked a harbour;
not a buoy showed a reef. The wrecks
were unrecorded, so countless ventures came
to grief on the same rocks and shoals.
Advertising was then a gamble - a speculation
of the rashest sort. One man's guess on
the proper course was as likely to be as good
as another's. There were no safe pilots, because
few sailed the same course twice.
The condition has been corrected. Now
the only uncertainties pertain to people and to
products, not to methods. It is hard to measure
human idiosyncrasies, the preferences
and prejudices, the likes and dislikes that exist.
We cannot say that an article will be
popular, but we know how to sell it in the
most effective way.
Ventures may fail, but the failures are not
disasters. Losses, when they occur, are but
trifling, and the causes are factors, which has
nothing to do with the advertising.
Advertising has flourished under these
new conditions. It has multiplied in volume,
in prestige and respect. The perils have increased
many folds. Just because the gamble
has become a science, the speculation is still
a very conservative business.
These facts should be recognised by all.
This is no proper field for sophistry or theory,
or for any other will-o'-the-wisp. The blind
leading the blind is ridiculous. It is pitiful in a
field with such vast possibilities. Success is a
rarity, and maximum success an impossibility,
unless one is guided by laws as immutable
as the law of gravitation.
So our main purpose here is to set down
those laws, and to tell you how to prove them
for yourself. After them come myriad variations.
No two advertising campaigns are ever
conducted on lines that are identical. Individuality
is an essential. Imitation is a reproach.
But those variable things, which depend
on ingenuity, have no place in a textbook
on advertising. This is for groundwork
only.
3
Our hope is to foster advertising through a
better understanding. To place it on a business
basis. To have it recognised as among
the safest, surest ventures, which lead to large
returns.
Thousands of conspicuous successes show
its possibilities. Their variety points out its
almost unlimited scope. Yet thousands who
need it - who can never attain their deserts
without it - still look upon its accomplishments
as somewhat accidental.
That was so, but it is not so now. We hope
that this book will throw some new lights on
the subject.
4
Chapter 2
Just salesmanship
To properly understand advertising or to
learn even its rudiments one must start with
the right conception. Advertising is salesmanship.
Its principles are the principles of
salesmanship. Successes and failures in both
lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising
question should be answered by the
salesman's standards.
Let us emphasise that point. The only purpose
if advertising is to make sales. It is
profitable or unprofitable according to its
actual sales.
It is not for general effect. It is not to keep
your name before the people. It is not primarily
to aid your other salesmen.
Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify
itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure
its cost and result. Accept no excuses which
good salesmen do not make. Then you will
not go far wrong.
The difference is only in degree. Advertising
is multiplied salesmanship. It may appeal
to thousands while the salesman talks to
one. It involves a corresponding cost. Some
people spend $10 per word on an average
advertisement. Therefore every ad should be
a super - salesman.
A salesman's mistake may cost little. An
advertisers mistake may cost a thousand
times that much. So be more cautious, more
exacting.
A mediocre salesman may affect a small
part of your trade. Mediocre advertising affects
all of your trade.
Many think of advertising as ad writing.
Literary qualifications have no more to do
with it than oratory has with salesmanship.
One must be able to express himself
briefly, clearly and convincingly, just as a
salesman must. But fine writing is a distinct
disadvantage. So is unique literary style.
They take attention from the subject. They
reveal the hook. Any studied attempt to sell,
if apparent, creates corresponding resistance.
That is so in personal salesmanship as in
salesmanship-in-print. Fine talkers are rarely
good salesmen. They inspire buyers with the
fear of over-influence. They create the suspicion
that an effort is made to sell them on
other lines than merit.
Successful salesmen are rarely good
speechmakers. They have few oratorical
graces. They are plain and sincere men who
know their customers and know their lines.
So it is in ad writing.
Many of the ablest men in advertising are
graduate salesmen. The best we know have
been house-to-house canvassers. They may
know little of grammar, nothing of rhetoric,
but they know how to use words that convince.
There is one simple way to answer many
advertising questions. Ask yourself, "Would
it help a salesman sell the goods?" "Would it
help me sell them if I met a buyer in person?"
A fair answer to those questions avoids
countless mistakes. But when one tries to
show off, or does things merely to please
oneself, one is unlikely to strike a chord,
which leads people to spend money.
Some argue for slogans, some like clever
concepts. Would you use them in personal
salesmanship? Can you imagine a customer
whom such things would impress? If not,
don't rely on them for selling in print.
Some say, "Be very brief. People will read
for little." Would you say that to a salesman?
With a prospect standing before him, would
you confine him to any certain number of
words? That would be an unthinkable handicap.
So in advertising. The only readers we get
are people whom our subject interests. No
one reads ads for amusement, long or short.
Consider them as prospects standing before
you, seeking for information. Give them
enough to get action.
5
Some advocate large type and big headlines.
Yet they do not admire salesmen who
talk in loud voices. People read all they care
to read in 8-point type. Our magazines and
newspapers are printed in that type. Folks are
accustomed to it. Anything larger is like loud
conversation. It gains no worth while attention.
It may not be offensive, but it is useless
and wasteful. It multiplies the cost of your
story. And to many it seems loud and blatant.
Others look for something queer and unusual.
They want ads distinctive in style or
illustration. Would you want that in a salesman?
Do not men who act and dress in normal
ways make a far better impression?
Some insist in dressy ads. That is all right
to a certain degree, but is quite important.
Some poorly dressed men prove to be excellent
salesmen. Over dress in either is a fault.
So with countless questions. Measure
them by salesmen's standards, not by amusement
standards. Ads are not written to entertain.
When they do, those entertainment
seekers are little likely to be the people
whom you want.
That is one of the greatest advertising
faults. Ad writers abandon their parts. They
forget they are salesmen and try to be performers.
Instead of sales, they seek applause.
When you plan or prepare an advertisement,
keep before you a typical buyer. Your
subject, your headline has gained his or her
attention. Then in everything be guided by
what you would do if you met the buyer faceto-
face. If you are a normal man and a good
salesman you will then do your level best.
Don't think of people in the mass. That
gives you a blurred view. Think of a typical
individual, man or women, who is likely to
want what you sell. Don't try to be amusing.
Money spending is a serious matter. Don't
boast, for all people resent it. Don't try to
show off. Do just what you think a good
salesman should do with a half-sold person
before him.
Some advertising men go out in person and
sell to people before they plan to write an ad.
One of the ablest of them has spent weeks on
one article, selling from house to house. In
this way they learn the reactions from different
forms of argument and approach. They
learn what possible buyers want and the factors,
which don't appeal. It is quite customary
to interview hundreds of possible customers.
Others send out questionnaires to learn the
attitude of the buyers. In some way all must
learn how to strike responsive chords.
Guesswork is very expensive.
The maker of an advertised article knows
the manufacturing side and probably the
dealer's side. But this very knowledge often
leads him astray in respect to customers. His
interests are not in their interests.
The advertising man studies the consumer.
He tries to place himself in the position of the
buyer. His success largely depends on doing
that to the exclusion of everything else.
This book will contain no more important
chapter than this one on salesmanship. The
reason for most of the non-successes in advertising
is trying to sell people what they do
not want. But next to that comes lack of true
salesmanship.
Some ads are planned and written with a
totally wrong conception. They are written to
please the seller. The interests of the buyer
are forgotten. One can never sell goods profitable,
in person or in print, when that attitude
exists.
6
Chapter 3
Offer service
Remember the people you address are selfish,
as we all are. The care nothing about
your interests or your profit. They seek service
for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a
common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising.
Ads say in effect, "Buy my brand.
Give me the trade you give to others. Let me
have the money." That is not a popular appeal.
The best ads ask no one to buy. That is
useless. Often they do not quote a price. They
do not say that dealers handle the product.
The ads are based entirely on service.
They offer wanted information. They site advantages
to users. Perhaps they offer a sample,
or to buy the first package, or to send
something on approval, so the customer may
prove the claims without any cost or risks.
Some of these ads seem altruistic. But
they are based on the knowledge of human
nature. The writers know how people are led
to buy.
Here again is salesmanship. The good
salesman does not merely cry a name. He
doesn't say, "Buy my article." He pictures
the customer's side of his service until the
natural result is to buy.
A brush maker has some 2,000 canvassers
who sells brushes from house to house. He is
enormously successful in a line, which would
seem very difficult. And it would be for his
men asked the housewives to buy.
But they don't. They go to the door and
say, "I was sent here to give you a brush. I
have samples here and I want you to take
your choice."
The housewife is all smiles and attention.
In picking out one brush she sees several she
wants. She is also anxious to reciprocate the
gift. So the salesman gets an order.
Another concern sells coffee etc, by wagons
in some 500 cities. The man drops in
with a half-pound of coffee and says, "Accept
this package and try it. I'll come back in
a few days to ask you how you liked it."
Even when he comes back he doesn't ask
for an order. He explains that he wants to
send the women a fine kitchen utensil. It isn't
free, but if she likes the coffee he will credit
five cents on each pound she buys until she
has paid for the article. Always some service.
The maker of the electric sewing machine
motor found advertising difficult. So, on
good advice, he ceased soliciting a purchase.
He offered to send to any home, through any
dealer, a motor for one week's use. With it
would come a man to show her how to operate
it. "Let us help you for a week without
cost or obligation," said the ad. Such an offer
was resistless and about nine in ten of the trials
led to sales.
So in many, many lines. Cigar makers
send out boxes to anyone and say, "Smoke
ten, then keep them or return them, as you
wish."
Makers of books, typewriters, washing
machines, kitchen cabinets, vacuum sweepers,
etc, send out their products without any
prepayment. They say, "Use them a week,
then do as you wish." Practically all merchandise
sold by mail is sent subject to return.
These are all common principles of salesmanship.
The most ignorant peddler applies
them. Yet the salesman-in-print very often
forgets them. He talks about his interest. He
blazons a name, as though that was of importance.
His phrase is, "Drive people to the
stores," and that is his attitude in everything
he says.
People can be coaxed but not driven.
Whatever they do they do to please themselves.
Many fewer mistakes would be made
in advertising if these facts were never forgotten.
7
Chapter 4
Mail order advertising - what it teaches
The severest test of an advertising man is in
selling goods by mail. But that is a school
from which he must graduate before he can
hope for success. Their cost and result are
immediately apparent. False theories melt
away like snowflakes in the sun. The advertising
is profitable or it is not, clearly on the
face of returns. Figures, which do not lie, tell
one at once the merits of an ad.
This puts men on their mettle. All guesswork
is eliminated. Every mistake is conspicuous.
One quickly loses his conceit by
learning how often his judgment errs - often
nine times in ten.
There one learns that advertising must be
done on a scientific basis to have any fair
chance of success. And he learns that every
wasted dollar adds to the cost of results.
Here is a tough efficiency and economy
under a master who can't be fooled. Then,
and only then, is he apt to apply the same
principles and keys to all advertising.
A man was selling a five-dollar article.
The replies from his ad cost him 85 cents.
Another man submitted an ad, which he
thought better. The replies cost $14.20 each.
Another man submitted an ad, which for two
years brought replies at an average of 41
cents each.
Consider the difference, on 250,000 replies
per year. Think how valuable was the
man who cut the cost in two. Think what it
would have meant to continue that $14.20 ad
without any key on returns.
Yet there are thousands of advertisers who
do just that. They spend large sums on a
guess. And they are doing what that man did
- paying for sales from 2 to 35 times what
they need cost.
A study of mail order advertising reveals
many things worth learning. It is a prime
subject for study. In the first place, if continued,
you know that it pays. It is therefore
good advertising as applied to that line.
The probability is that the ad has resulted
from many traced comparisons. It is therefore
the best advertising, not theoretical. It will
not deceive you. The lessons it teaches are
principles which wise men apply to all advertising.
Mail order advertising is always set in
small type. It is usually set in smaller type
than ordinary print. That economy of space is
universal. So it proves conclusively that
larger type does not pay.
Remember that when you double your
space by doubling the size of your type. The
ad may still be profitable. But traced returns
have proved that you are paying a double
price for sales.
In mail order advertising there is no waste
of space. Every line is utilised. Borders are
rarely used. Remember that when you are
tempted to leave valuable space unoccupied.
In mail order advertising there is no palaver.
There is no boasting, save of superservice.
There is no useless talk. There is no
attempt at entertainment. There is nothing to
amuse.
Mail order advertising usually contains a
coupon. That is there to get some action out
of the converts partly made. It is there to cut
out as a reminder of something the reader has
decided to do.
Mail order advertisers know that readers
forget. They are reading a magazine of interest.
They may be absorbed in a story. A large
percentage of people who read an ad and decide
to act will forget that decision in five
minutes. The mail order advertisers knows
that waste from tests, and he does not propose
to accept it. So he inserts that reminder
to be cut out, and it turns up when the reader
is ready to act.
In mail order advertising the pictures are
always to the point. They are salesmen in
themselves. They earn the space they occupy.
8
The size is gauged by their importance. The
picture of a dress one is trying to sell may
occupy much space. Less important things
get smaller spaces.
Pictures in ordinary advertising may teach
little. They probably result in whims. But
pictures in mail order advertising may form
half the cost of selling. And you may be sure
that everything about them has been decided
by many comparative tests.
Before you use useless pictures, merely to
decorate or interest, look over some mail order
ads. Mark what their verdict is.
A man advertised an incubator to be sold
by mail. Type ads with right headlines
brought excellent returns. But he conceived
the idea that a striking picture would increase
those returns. So he increased his space 50
per cent to add a row of chickens in silhouette.
It did make a striking ad, but his cost per
reply was increased by exactly that 50 per
cent. The new ad, costing one-half more for
every insertion, brought not one added sale.
The man learned that incubator buyers
were practical people. They were looking for
attractive offers, not for pictures.
Think of the countless untraced campaigns
where a whim of that kind costs half
the advertising money without a penny in
return. And it may go on year after year.
Mail order advertising tells a complete
story if the purpose is to make an immediate
sale. You see no limitations there on the
amount of copy.
The motto there is, "The more you tell the
more you sell." And it has never failed to
prove out so in any test we know.
Sometimes the advertiser uses small ads,
sometimes-large ads. None are too small to
tell a reasonable story. But an ad twice larger
brings twice the returns. A four-times-larger
ad brings four times the returns, and usually
some in addition.
But this occurs only when the larger space
is utilised as well as the small space. Set halfpage
copy in a page space and you double the
cost in returns. We have seen many a test
prove that.
Look at an ad of the Mead Cycle Company
- a typical mail order ad. These have
been running for many years. The ads are unchanging.
Mr. Mead told the writer that not
for $10,000 would he change a single word in
his ads.
For many years he compared one ad with
the other. And the ads you see today are the
final results of all those experiments. Note
the picture he uses, the headlines, the economy
of space, the small type. Those ads are
as near perfect for their purpose as an ad can
be.
So with any other mail order ad which has
long continued. Every feature, every word
and picture teaches advertising at its best.
You may not like them. You may say they
are unattractive, crowded, and hard to read -
anything you will. But the test of results has
proved those ads the best salesman those
lines have yet discovered. And they certainly
pay.
Mail order advertising is the court of last
resort. You may get the same instruction, if
you will, by keying other ads. But mail order
ads are models. They are selling goods profitably
in a difficult way. It is far harder to get
mail order than to send buyers to the stores. It
is hard to sell goods, which can't be seen.
Ads, which do that, are excellent examples of
what advertising should be.
We cannot often follow all the principle of
mail order advertising, though we know we
should. The advertiser forces a compromise.
Perhaps pride in our ads has an influence. But
every departure from those principles adds to
our selling cost. Therefore it is always a
question of what we are willing to pay for our
frivolities.
9
We can at least know what we pay. We
can make keyed comparisons, one ad with
another. Whenever we do, we invariably find
that the nearer we get to proved mail order
copy the more customers we get for our
money.
This is another important chapter. Think it
over. What real difference is there between
inducing a customer to order by mail or order
from his dealer? Why should the methods of
salesmanship differ?
They should not! When they do, it is for
one of two reasons. Either the advertiser does
not know what the mail order advertiser
knows. Or he is advertising blindly. Or he is
deliberately sacrificing a percentage of his
returns to gratify some desire.
There is some apology for that, just as
there is for fine offices and buildings. Most
of us can afford to do something for pride
and opinion. But let us know what we are
doing. Let us know the cost of our pride.
Then, if our advertising fails to bring us the
wanted returns, let us go back to our model -
a good mail order ad - and eliminate some of
our waste.
10
Chapter 5
Headlines
The difference between advertising and personal
salesmanship lies largely in personal
contact. The salesman is there to demand attention.
He cannot be ignored. The advertisement
can be ignored.
But the salesman wastes much of his time
on prospects whom he can never hope to interest.
He cannot pick them out. The advertisement
is read only by interested people
who, by their own volition, study what we
have to say.
The purpose of the headline is to pick out
people you can interest. You wish to talk to
someone in a crowd, so the first thing you
say is, "Hey there, Bill Jones" to get the right
person's attention.
The same in an advertisement, what you
have will interest certain people only and for
certain reasons. You care only for those people,
so create a headline, which will hail
those people only!
Perhaps a blind headline or some clever
concept will attract many times as many. But
they may consist of mostly impossible subjects
for what you have to offer. And the
people you are after may never realise that
the ad refers to something they may want.
Headlines on ads are like headlines on
news items. Nobody reads a whole newspaper.
One is interested in financial news, one
in political, one in society, one in cookery,
one in sports, etc. There are whole pages in
any newspaper, which we may never scan at
all. Yet other people might turn directly to
those pages.
We pick out what we wish to read by
headlines, and we don't want those headlines
misleading. The writing of headlines is one
of the greatest journalistic arts. They either
conceal or reveal an interest.
Suppose a newspaper article stated that a
certain woman was the most beautiful in the
city. That article would be of intense interest
to that woman and her friends. But neither
she nor her friends would ever read it if the
headline was "Egyptian Psychology."
So in advertising it is commonly said that
people do not read advertisements. That is
silly of course. We who spend millions in
advertising and watch the returns marvel at
the readers we get. Again and again we see
20 per cent of all the readers of a newspaper
cut out a certain coupon.
But people do not read ads for amusement.
They don't read ads which, at a glance,
seem to offer nothing interesting. A doublepage
ad on a women's dresses will not gain a
glance from a man. Nor will a shaving cream
ad from a woman.
Always bear these facts in mind. People
are hurried. The average person worth cultivating
has too much to read. They skip threefourths
of the reading matter, which they pay
to get. They are not going to read your business
talk unless you make it worth their while
and let the headline show it.
People will not be bored in print. They
may listen politely at a dinner table to boasts
and personalities, life history, etc. But in
print they choose their own companions, their
own subjects. They want to be amused or
benefited. They want economy, beauty, labor
saving, good things to eat and wear. There
may be products, which interest them more
than anything else in the magazine, but they
will never know it unless the headline or
picture tells them.
The writer of this chapter spends far more
time on headlines that on writing. He often
spends hours on a single headline. Often
scores of headlines are discarded before the
right one is selected. For the entire return
from an ad depends on attracting the right
sort of readers. The best of salesmanship has
no chance whatever unless we get a hearing.
The vast difference in headlines is shown
by keyed returns, which this book advocates.
The identical ad run with various headlines
11
differs tremendously in its returns. It is not
uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply
returns by five or ten times over.
So we compare headlines until we know
what sort of appeal pays best. That differs in
every line, of course.
The writer has before him keyed returns
on nearly two thousand headlines used on a
single product. The story in these ads are
nearly identical. But the returns vary enormously,
due to the headlines. So with every
keyed return in our record appears the headline
that we used.
Thus we learn what type of headline has
the most widespread appeal. The product has
many uses. It fosters beauty. It prevents disease.
It aids daintiness and cleanliness. We
learn to exactness which quality most of our
readers seek.
That does not mean we neglect the others.
One sort of appeal may bring half the returns
of another, yet be important enough to be
profitable. We overlook no field that pays,
but we know what proportion of our ads
should, in the headline, attract any certain
class.
For this same reason we employ a vast
variety of ads. If we are using twenty magazines
we may use twenty separate ads. This
because circulation’s overlap, and because a
considerable percentage of people are attracted
by each of several forms of approach.
We wish to reach them all.
On soap, for instance, the headline "Keep
Clean" might attract a very small percentage.
It is too commonplace. So might the headline,
"No animal fat." People may not care
much about that. The headline, "It floats"
might prove interesting. But a headline referring
to beauty or complexion might attract
many times as many.
An automobile ad might refer in the headline
to a good universal joint. It might fall
flat, because so few buyers think of universal
joints. The same ad with a headline, " The
Sportiest of Sport Bodies," might out pull the
other fifty to one.
This is enough to suggest the importance
of headlines. Anyone who keys ads will be
amazed at the difference. The appeals we like
best will rarely prove best, because we do not
know enough people to average up their desires.
So we learn on each line by experiment.
But back of all lies fixed principles. You
are presenting an ad to millions. Among them
is a percentage, small or large, whom you
hope to interest. Go after that percentage and
try to strike the chord that responds. If you
are advertising corsets, men and children
don't interest you. If you are advertising cigars,
you have no use for non-smokers. Razors
won't attract women; rouge will not interest
men.
Don't think that those millions will read
your ads to find out if your product interests.
They will decide by a glance - by your headline
or your pictures. Address the people you
seek and them only.
12
Chapter 6
Psychology
The competent advertising man must understand
psychology. The more he knows about
it the better. He must learn that certain effects
lead to certain reactions, and use that knowledge
to increase results and avoid mistakes.
Human nature is perpetual. In most respects
it is the same today as in the time of
Caesar. So the principles of psychology are
fixed and enduring. You will never need to
unlearn what you learn about them.
We learn, for instance, that curiosity is
one of the strongest human incentives. We
employ it whenever we can. Puffed Wheat
and Puffed Rice were made successful
largely trough curiosity. "Grains puffed to 8
times the normal size." "Foods shot from
guns." "125 million steam explosions
caused in every kernel." These foods were
failures before that factor was discovered.
We learn that cheapness is not a strong
appeal. Americans are extravagant. They
want bargains but not cheapness. They want
to feel that they can afford to eat and have
and wear the best. Treat them as if they could
not and they resent your attitude.
We learn that people judge largely by
price. They are not experts. In the British
National Gallery is a painting, which is announced
in a catalogue to have cost
$750,000. Most people at first pass it by at a
glance. Then later they get farther on in the
catalogue and learn what the painting cost.
They return then and surround it.
A department store advertised at one
Easter time a $100 hat, and the floor could
not hold the women who came to see it.
We often employ this factor in psychology.
Perhaps we are advertising a valuable
formula. To merely say that would not be
impressive. So we state - as a fact - that we
paid $100,000 for that formula. That statement
when tried has won a wealth of respect.
Many articles are sold under guarantee - so
commonly sold that guarantees have ceased
to be impressive. But one concern made a
fortune by offering a dealer's signed warrant.
The dealer to whom one paid his money
agreed in writing to pay it back if asked. Instead
of a far-away stranger, a neighbour
gave the warrant. The results have led many
to try that plan, and it has always proved effective.
Many have advertised, "Try it for a week.
If you don't like it we'll return your money."
Then someone conceived the idea of sending
goods without any money down, and saying,
"Pay in a week if you like them." That
proved many times as impressive.
One great advertising man stated the difference
this way: "Two men came to me,
each offering me a horse. Both made equal
claims. They were good horses, kind and
gentle. A child could drive them. One man
said, 'Try the horse for a week. If my claims
are not true, come back for your money.' The
other man also said, 'Try the horse for week.'
But he added, 'Come and pay me then.' I
naturally bought the second man's horse."
Now countless things - cigars, typewriters,
washing machines, books, etc. - are sent out
in this way on approval. And we find that
people are honest. The losses are very small.
An advertiser offered a set of books to
businessmen. The advertising was unprofitable,
so he consulted another expert. The ads
were impressive. The offer seemed attractive.
"But," said the second man, "let us add one
little touch which I have found effective. Let
us offer to put the buyer's name in gilt lettering
on each book." That was done, and with
scarcely another change in the ads they sold
some hundreds of thousands of books.
Through some peculiar kink in human
psychology the names in gilt gave much
added value to the books.
Many send out small gifts, like memorandum
books, to customers and prospects. They
get very small results. One man sent out a
13
letter to the effect that he had a leathercovered
book with a man's name on it. It was
waiting on him and would be sent on request.
The form of request was enclosed, and it also
asked for certain information. That information
indicated lines on which a man might be
sold.
Nearly all men, it was found, filled out
that request and supplied the information.
When a man knows that something belongs
to him - something with his name on - he will
make an effort to get it, even though the thing
is a trifle.
In the same way it is found that an offer
limited to a certain class of people is far more
effective than a general offer. For instance,
an offer limited to veterans of the war, or to
members of a lodge or sect, or to executives.
Those who are entitled to any seeming advantage
will go a long way not to lose that
advantage.
An advertiser suffered much from substitution.
He said, "Look out for substitutes,"
"Be sure you get this brand," etc., with no
effect. Those were selfish appeals.
Then he said, "Try our rivals' too" - said
it in his headlines. He invited comparisons
and showed that he did not fear them. That
corrected the situation. Buyers were careful
to get the brand so conspicuously superior
that its maker could court a trial of the rest.
Two advertisers offered food products
nearly identical. Both offered a full-size
package as an introduction. But one gave his
package free. The other bought the package.
A coupon was good at any store for a package,
for which the maker paid retail price.
The first advertiser failed and the second
succeeded. The first even lost a large part of
the trade he had. He cheapened his product
by giving a 15-cent package away. It is hard
to pay for an article, which has once been
free. It is like paying railroad fare after travelling
on a pass.
The other gained added respect for his article
by paying retail price to let the user try
it. An article good enough for the maker to
buy is good enough for the user to buy. It is
vastly different to pay 15 cents to let you try
an article that to simply say, "It's free."
So with sampling. Hand an unwanted
product to a housewife and she pays it slight
respect. She is in no mood to see its virtues.
But get her to ask for a sample after reading
your story, and she is in a very different position.
She knows your claims. She is interested
in them, else she would not act, and she
expects to find the qualities you told.
There is a great deal in mental impression.
Submit five articles exactly alike and five
people may choose one of them. But point
out in one some qualities to notice and everyone
will find them. The five people then
will all choose the same article.
If people can be made sick or well by
mental impressions, they can be made to favour
a certain brand in that way. And that, on
some lines, is the only way to win them.
Two concerns, side by side, sold women's
clothing on installments. The appeal, of
course, was to poor girls who desire to dress
better. One treated them like poor girls and
made the bare business offer.
The other put a woman in charge - a
motherly, dignified, capable woman. They
did business in her name. They used her picture.
She signed all ads and letters. She wrote
to these girls like a friend. She knew herself
what it meant to a girl not to be able to dress
her best. She had long sought a chance to
supply women good clothes and give them all
season to pay. Now she was able to do so,
with the aid of men behind her.
There was no comparison in those two
appeals. It was not long before this woman's
long established next-door rival had to quit.
The backers of this business sold house
furnishings on installments. Sending out
catalogues promiscuously did not pay. Of14
fering long-time credit often seems like a reflection.
But when a married woman bought garments
from Mrs _, and paid as agreed, they
wrote to her something like this: "Mrs._,
whom we know, tells us that you are one of
her good customers. She has dealt with you,
she says, and you do just as you agree, so we
have opened with you a credit account on our
books, good any time you wish. When you
want anything in furnishings, just order it.
Pay nothing in advance. We are very glad to
send it without any investigation to a person
recommended as you are.
That was flattering. Naturally those people,
when they wanted some furniture, would
order from that house.
There are endless phases to psychology.
Some people know them by instinct. Many of
them are taught by experience, but we learn
most of them from others. When we see a
winning method we note it down for use
when occasion offers.
These things are very important. An identical
offer made in a different way may bring
multiplied returns. Somewhere in the mines
of business experience we must find the best
method somehow.
15
Chapter 7
Being specific
Platitudes and generalities roll off the human
understanding like water from a duck. They
leave no impression whatever. To say, "Best
in the world," "Lowest price in existence,"
etc. is at best simply claiming the expected.
But superlatives of that sort are usually damaging.
They suggest looseness of expression,
a tendency to exaggerate a careless truth.
They lead readers to discount all the statements
that you make.
People recognise a certain license in selling
talk as they do poetry. A man may say,
"Supreme in quality" without seeming a liar,
though one may know that the other brands
are equally as good. One expects a salesman
to put his best foot forward and excuses some
exaggeration born of enthusiasm. But just for
that reason general statements count for little.
And a man inclined to superlatives must expect
that his every statement will be taken
with some caution
But a man who makes a specific claim is
either telling the truth or a lie. People do not
expect an advertiser to lie. They know that he
can't lie in the best mediums. The growing
respect in advertising has largely come
through a growing regard for its truth.
So a definite statement is usually accepted.
Actual figures are not generally discounted.
Specific facts, when stated, have
their full weight and effect.
This is very important to consider in
written or personal salesmanship. The weight
of an argument may often be multiplied by
making it specific. Say that a tungsten lamp
gives more light than a carbon and you leave
some doubt. Say it gives three and one-third
times the light and people realise that you
have made tests and comparisons.
A dealer may say, "Our prices have been
reduced" without creating any marked impression.
But when he says, "Our prices have
been reduced 25 per cent" he gets the full
value of his announcement.
A mail order advertiser sold women's
clothing to people of the poorer classes. For
years he used the slogan, "Lowest prices in
America." His rivals all copied that. Then he
guaranteed to undersell any other dealer. His
rivals did likewise. Soon those claims became
common to every advertiser in his line,
and they became commonplace.
Then under able advice, he changed his
statement to "Our net profit is 3 per cent."
That was a definite statement and it proved
very impressive. With their volume of business
it was evident that their prices must be
minimum. No one could be expected to do
business on less than 3 per cent. The next
year their business made a sensational increase.
At one time in the automobile business
there was a general impression that profits
were excessive. One well-advised advertiser
came out with this statement; "Our profit is 9
per cent." Then he cited actual costs on the
hidden costs of a $1,500 car. They amounted
to $735, without including anything one
could easily see. This advertiser made a great
success along those lines at that time.
Shaving soaps have long been advertised
"Abundant lather," "Does not dry on the
face," "Acts quickly," etc. One advertiser had
as good a chance as the other to impress
those claims.
Then a new maker came into the field. It
was a tremendously difficult field, for every
customer had to be taken from someone else.
He stated specific facts. He said, "Multiplies
itself in lather 250 times" "Softens the beard
in one minute." "Maintains its creamy fullness
for ten minutes on the face." "The final
result of testing and comparing 130 formulas."
Perhaps never in advertising has there
been a quicker and greater success in an
equally difficult field.
Makers of safety razors have long advertised
quick shaves. One maker advertised a
16
78-second shave. That was definite. It indicated
actual tests. That man at once made a
sensational advance in his sales.
In the old days all beers were advertised
as "Pure," The claim made no impression.
The bigger the type used the bigger the folly.
After millions had been spent to impress a
platitude, one brewer pictured a plate glass
where beer was cooled in filtered air. He
pictured a filter of white wood pulp through
which every drop was cleared. He told how
bottles were washed four times by machinery.
How he went down 4,000 feet for pure
water. How 1,018 experiments had been
made to attain a yeast to give beer that
matchless flavour. And how all the yeast was
forever made from that adopted mother cell.
All claims were such as any brewer might
have made. They were mere essentials in ordinary
brewing. But he was the first to tell
the people about them, while others cried
merely "pure beer." He made the greatest
success that was ever made in beer advertising.
"Used the world over" is a very elastic
claim. Then one advertiser said, "Used by the
peoples of 52 nations," and many others followed.
One statement may take as much room as
another, yet a definite statement is many
times as effective. The difference is vast. If a
claim is worth making, make it in the most
impressive way.
All these effects must be studied. Salesmanship-
in-print is very expensive. A salesman's
loose talk matters little. But when you
are talking to millions at enormous cost, the
weight of your claims is important.
No generality has any weight whatever. It
is like saying, "How do you do?" When you
have no intention of inquiring about one's
health. But specific claims when made in
print are taken at their value.
17
Chapter 8
Tell your full story
Whatever claims you use to gain attention,
the advertisement should tell a story reasonably
complete. If you watch returns, you will
find that certain claims appeal far more that
others. But in usual lines a number of claims
appeal to a large percentage. Then present
those claims in every ad for their effect on
that percentage.
Some advertisers, for sake of brevity, present
one claim at a time. Or they write a serial
ad, continued in another issue. There is
no greater folly. Those serials almost never
connect.
When you once get a person's attention,
then is the time to accomplish all ever hope
with him. Bring all your good arguments to
bare. Cover every phase of your subject. One
fact appeals to some, one to another. Omit
any one and a certain percentage will lose the
fact, which might convince.
People are not apt to read successive advertisements
on any single line. No more
than you read a news item twice, or a story.
In one reading of an advertisement one decides
for or against a proposition. And that
operates against a second reading. So present
to the reader, when once you get him, every
important claim you have.
The best advertisers do that. They learn
their appealing claims by tests - by comparing
results from various headlines. Gradually
they accumulate a list of claims important
enough to use. All those claims appear in
every ad thereafter.
The advertisements seem monotonous to
the men who read them all. A complete story
is always the same. But one must consider
that the average reader is only once a reader,
probably. And what you fail to tell him in
that ad is something he may never know.
Some advertisers go so far as to never
change their ads. Single mail order ads often
run year after year without diminishing returns.
So with some general ads. They are
perfected ads, embodying in the best way
known all that one has to say. Advertisers do
not expect a second reading. Their constant
returns come from getting new readers.
In every ad consider only new customers.
People using your product are not going to
read your ads. They have already read and
decided. You might advertise month after
month to present users that the product they
use is poison, and they would never know it.
So never waste one line of your space to say
something to present to users, unless you can
say it in your headlines. Bear in mind always
that you can address an unconverted prospect.
Any reader of your ad is interested; else
he would not be a reader. You are dealing
with someone willing to listen. So do your
level best. That reader, if you lose him now,
may never again be a reader.
You are like a salesman in a busy man's
office. He may have tried again and again to
get entree. He may never be admitted again.
This is his one chance to get action, and he
must employ it to the full.
This brings up the question of brevity. The
most common expression you hear about advertising
is that people will not read much.
Yet a vast amount of the best-paying advertising
shows that people do read much. Then
they write for a book, perhaps - for added
information.
There is fixed rule on this subject of brevity.
One sentence may tell a complete story
on a line like chewing gum. It may on an article
like Cream of Wheat. But, whether long
or short, an advertising story should be reasonably
complete.
A certain man desired a personal car. He
cared little about the price. He wanted a car
to take pride in; else he felt he would never
drive it. But, being a good businessman, he
wanted value for his money.
18
His inclination was towards a Rolls
Royce. He also considered a Pierce-Arrow, a
Locomobile and others. But these famous
cars offered no information. Their advertisements
were very short. Evidently the makers
considered it undignified to argue comparative
merits.
The Marmon, on the contrary, told a complete
story. He read columns and books about
it. So he bought a Marmon, and was never
sorry. But he afterwards learned facts about
another car at nearly three times the price,
which would have sold him the car, had he
known them.
What folly it is to cry a name in a line like
that, plus a few brief generalities. A car may
be a lifetime investment. It involves an important
expenditure. A man interested enough
to buy a car will read a volume about it if the
volume is interesting.
So with everything, you may be simply
trying to change a woman from one breakfast
food to another, or one toothpaste, or one
soap. She is wedded to what she is using.
Perhaps she has used it for years.
You have a hard proposition. If you do not
believe it, go to her in person and try to make
the change. Not to merely buy a first package
to please you, but to adopt your brand. A man
who once does that at a woman's door won't
argue for brief advertisements. He will never
again say, "A sentence will do," or a name
claim or a boast.
Nor will the man who traces his results.
Note that brief ads are never keyed. Note that
every traced ad tells a complete story, though
it takes columns to tell.
Never be guided in any way by ads, which
are untraced. Never do anything because
some uninformed advertiser considers that
something right. Never be led in new paths
by the blind. Apply to your advertising ordinary
common sense. Take the opinion of nobody,
whom knows nothing about his returns.
19
Chapter 9
Art in advertising
Pictures in advertising are very expensive.
Not in cost of good art work alone, but in the
cost of space. From one-third to one-half of
an advertising campaign is often staked on
the power of the pictures.
Anything expensive must be effective;
else it involves much waste. So art in advertising
is a study of paramount importance.
Pictures should not be used merely because
they are interesting, or to attract attention,
or to decorate an ad. We have covered
these points elsewhere. Ads are not written to
interest, please or amuse. You are not writing
to please the hoi- polloi. You are writing on a
serious subject - the subject of money
spending. And you address a restricted minority.
Use pictures only to attract those who may
profit you. Use them only when they form a
better selling argument than the same amount
of space set in type.
Mail order advertisers, as we have said,
have pictures down to a science. Some use
large pictures, some small, some omit pictures
entirely. A noticeable fact is that none
of them uses expensive artwork. Be sure that
all these things are done for reasons made
apparent by results.
Any other advertiser should apply the
same principles. Or, if none exist to apply to
his line, he should work out his own by tests.
It is certainly unwise to spend large sums on
a dubious adventure.
Pictures in many lines form a major factor.
Omitting the lines where the article itself
should be pictured. In some lines, like Arrow
Collars and most in clothing advertising,
pictures have proved most convincing. Not
only in picturing the collar or the clothes, but
also in picturing men whom others envy, in
surroundings which others covet. The pictures
subtly suggest that these articles of apparel
will aid men to those desired positions.
So with correspondence schools. Theirs is
traced advertising. Picturing men in high positions
of taking upward steps forms a very
convincing argument.
So with beauty articles. Picturing beautiful
women, admired and attractive, is a supreme
inducement. But there is a great advantage in
including a fascinated man. Women desire
beauty largely because of men. Then show
them using their beauty, as women do use it,
to gain maximum effect.
Advertising pictures should not be eccentric.
Don't treat your subject lightly. Don't
lessen respect for yourself or your article by
any attempt at frivolity. People do not patronise
a clown. There are two things about
which men should not joke. One is business,
the other is home.
An eccentric picture may do you serious
damage. One may gain attention by wearing
a fool's cap. But he would ruin his selling
prospects.
Then a picture, which is eccentric or
unique, takes attention from your subject.
You cannot afford to do that. Your main appeal
lies in headline. Over-shadow that and
you kill it. Don't, to gain general and useless
attention, sacrifice the attention that you
want.
Don't be like a salesman who wears conspicuous
clothes. The small percentage he
appeals to are not usually good buyers. The
great majority of the sane and thrifty heartily
despite him. Be normal in everything you do
when you are seeking confidence and conviction.
Generalities cannot be applied to art.
There are seeming exceptions to most statements.
Each line must be studied by itself.
But the picture must help sell the goods. It
should help more than anything else could do
in like space, else use that something else.
Many pictures tell a story better than type
can do. In advertising of Puffed Grains the
picture of the grains were found to be most
20
effective. They awake curiosity. No figure
drawing in that case compares in results with
these grains.
Other pictures form a total loss. We have
cited cases of that kind. The only way to
know, as is with most other questions, is by
compared results.
There are disputed questions in artwork,
which we will cite without expressing opinions.
They seem to be answered both ways,
according to the line, which is advertised.
Does it pay better to use fine art work or
ordinary? Some advertisers pay up to $2,000
per drawing. They figure that the space is expensive.
The art cost is small in comparison.
So they consider the best worth its cost.
Others argue that few people have art
education. They bring out their ideas, and
bring them out well, at a fraction of the cost.
Mail order advertisers are generally in this
class.
The question is one of small moment.
Certainly good art pays as well as mediocre.
And the cost of preparing ads is very small
compared with the cost of insertion.
Should every ad have a new picture? Or
may a picture be repeated? Both viewpoints
have many supporters. The probability is that
repetition is an economy. We are after new
customers always. It is not probable that they
remember a picture we have used before. If
they do, repetition does not detract.
Do colour pictures pay better than black
and white? Not generally, according to the
evidence we have gathered to date. Yet there
are exceptions. Certain food dishes look far
better in colours. Tests on lines like oranges,
and desserts etc. show that colour pays. Colour
comes close to placing the products on
actual exhibition.
But colour used to amuse or to gain attention
is like anything else that we use for that
purpose. It may attract many times as many
people, yet not secure a hearing from as
many whom we want.
The general rule applies. Do nothing to
merely interest, amuse, or attract. That is not
your province. Do only that which wins the
people you are after in the cheapest possible
way.
But these are minor questions. They are
mere economies, not largely affecting the results
of a campaign.
Some things you do may cut all your results
in two. Other things can be done which
multiply those results. Minor costs are insignificant
when compared with basic principles.
One man may do business in a shed,
another in a palace. That is immaterial. The
great question is one's power to get the
maximum results.
21
Chapter 10
Things too costly
Many things are possible in advertising
which are too costly to attempt. That is another
reason why every project and method
should be weighed and determined by a
known scale of cost and result.
Changing people's habits is very expensive.
A project, which involves that, must be
seriously considered. To sell shaving soap to
the peasants of Russia one would first need to
change their beard wearing habits. The cost
would be excessive, Yet countless advertisers
try to do things almost as impossible. Just
because questions are not ably considered,
and results are traced but unknown.
For instance, the advertiser of a dentifrice
may spend much space and money to educate
people to brush their teeth. Test, which we
know of, have indicated that the cost of such
converts may run from $20 to $25 each. Not
only because of the difficulty, but because
much of the advertising goes to people already
converted.
Such a cost, of course, is unthinkable. One
might not in a lifetime get it back in sales.
The maker who learned these facts by tests
make no attempt to educate people to the
tooth brush habit. What cannot be done on a
large scale profitably can not be done on a
small scale. So not one line in any ad is devoted
to this object. This maker, who is constantly
guided in everything by keying every
ad, has made remarkable success.
Another dentifrice maker spends much
money to make converts to the toothbrush.
The object is commendable, but altruistic.
The new business he creates is shared by his
rivals. He is wondering why his sales increase
is in no way commensurate with his
expenditure.
An advertiser at one time spent much
money to educate people to the use of oatmeal.
The results were too small to discover.
All people know of oatmeal. As a food for
children it has age-old fame. Doctors have
advised it for many generations. People who
don't serve oatmeal are therefore difficult to
start. Perhaps their objections are insurmountable.
Anyway, the cost proved to be
beyond all possible return.
There are many advertisers who know
facts like these and concede them. They
would not think of devoting a whole campaign
to any such impossible object. Yet they
devote a share of their space to that object.
That is only the same folly on a smaller scale.
It is not good business.
No one orange grower or raisin grower
could attempt to increase the consumption of
those fruits. The cost might be a thousand
times his share of the returns. But thousands
of growers combined have done it on those
and many other lines. There lies one of the
great possibilities of advertising development.
The general consumption of scores of
foods can be profitably increased. But it must
be done on wide co-operation.
No advertiser could afford to educate people
on vitamins or germicides. Such things
are done by authorities, through countless
columns of unpaid-for space. But great successes
have been made by going to people
already educated and satisfying their created
wants.
It is a very shrewd thing to watch the development
of a popular trend, the creation of
new desires. Then at the right time offer to
satisfy those desires. That was done on
yeast’s, for instance, and on numerous antiseptics.
It can every year be done on new
things which some popular fashion or widespread
influence is bring into vogue. But it is
a very different thing to create that fashion,
taste or influence for all in your field to
share.
There are something's we know of which
might possibly be sold to half the homes in
the country. A Dakin-fluid germicide, for instance.
But the consumption would be very
small. A small bottle might last for years.
22
Customers might cost $1.50 each. And the
revenue per customer might not in ten years
repay the cost of getting. Mail order sales on
single articles, however popular, rarely cost
less than $2.50 each. It is reasonable to suppose
that sales made through dealers on like
articles will cost approximately as much.
Those facts must be considered on any onesale
article. Possibly one user will win others.
But traced returns as in mail order advertising
would prohibit much advertising, which is
now being done.
Costly mistakes are made by blindly following
some ill-conceived idea. An article,
for instance, may have many uses, one of
which is to prevent disease. Prevention is not
a popular subject, however much it should
be. People will do much to cure trouble, but
people in general will do little to prevent it.
This has been proved by many disappointments.
One may spend much money in arguing
prevention when the same money spent on
another claim would bring many times the
sales. A heading, which asserts one claim,
may bring ten times the results of a heading,
which asserted another. An advertiser may go
far astray unless he finds out.
A toothpaste may tend to prevent decay. It
may also beautify teeth. Tests will probably
show that the latter appeal is many times as
strong as the former. The most successful
toothpaste advertiser never features tooth
troubles in his headlines. Tests have proved
them unappealing. Other advertisers in this
line center on those troubles. That is often
because results are not known and compared.
A soap may tend to cure eczema. It may at
the same time improve complexion. The eczema
claim may appeal to one in a hundred
while the beauty claims would appeal to
nearly all. To even mention the eczema
claims might destroy the beauty claims.
A man has a relief for asthma. It has done
so much for him he considers it a great advertising
possibility. We have no statistics on
this subject. We do not the percentage of
people who suffer from asthma. A canvass
might show it to be one in a hundred. If so,
he would need to cover a hundred useless
readers to reach one he wants. His cost of
result might be twenty times as high as on
another article, which appeals to one in five.
That excessive cost would probably mean
disaster. For reasons like these every new
advertiser should seek for wise advice. No
one with the interests of advertising at heart
will advise any dubious venture.
Some claims not popular enough to feature
in the main are still popular enough to
consider. They influence a certain number of
people - say one-fourth of your possible customers.
Such claims may be featured to advantage
in a certain percentage of headlines.
It should probably be included in every advertisement.
But those are not things to guess
at. They should be decided by actual knowledge,
usually by traced returns.
This chapter, like every chapter, points out
a very important reason for knowing your
results. Scientific advertising is impossible
without that. So is safe advertising. So is
maximum profit.
Groping in the dark in this field has
probably cost enough money to pay the national
debt. That is what has filled the advertising
graveyards. That is what has discouraged
thousands who could profit in this field.
And the dawn of knowledge is what is
bringing a new day in the advertising business
23
Chapter 11
Information
An ad-writer, to have a chance at success,
must gain full information on his subject.
The library of an ad agency should have
books on every line that calls for research. A
painstaking advertising man will often read
for weeks on some problem, which comes up.
Perhaps in many volumes he will find few
facts to use. But some one fact may be the
keynote of success.
This writer has just completed an enormous
amount of reading, medical and otherwise,
on coffee. This to advertise a coffee
without caffeine. One scientific article out of
a thousand perused gave the keynote for that
campaign. It was the fact that caffeine
stimulation comes two hours after drinking.
So the immediate bracing effects which people
seek from coffee do not come from the
caffeine. Removing caffeine does not remove
the kick. It does not modify coffee's delights,
for caffeine is tasteless and odourless.
Caffeine-less coffee has been advertised
for years. People regarded it like near beer.
Only through weeks of reading did we find a
way to put it in another light.
To advertise toothpaste this writer has also
read many volumes of scientific matter dry as
dust. But in the middle of one volume he
found the idea which has helped make millions
for that tooth paste maker. And has
made this campaign one of the sensations of
advertising.
Genius is the art of taking pains. The advertising
man who spares the midnight oil
will never get very far.
Before advertising a food product, 130
men were employed for weeks to interview
all classes of consumers.
On another line, letters we sent to 12,000
physicians. Questionnaires are often mailed
to tens of thousands of men and women to
get the viewpoint of consumers.
A $25,000-a-year man, before advertising
outfits for acetylene gas, spent weeks in going
from farm to farm. Another man did that
on a tractor.
Before advertising a shaving cream, one
thousand men were asked to state what they
most desired in a shaving soap.
Called on to advertise pork and beans, a
canvass was made of some thousand of
homes. Theretofore all pork and bean advertising
has been based on "Buy my brand."
That canvass showed that only 4 per cent of
the people used any canned pork and beans.
Ninety-six per cent baked their beans at
home. The problem was not to sell a particular
brand. Any such attempt appealed to only
four per cent. The right appeal was to win the
people away from home-baked beans. The
advertising, which without knowledge must
have failed, proved a great success.
A canvas is made, not only of homes, but
also of dealers. Competition is measured up.
Every advertiser of a similar product is
written for his literature and claims. Thus we
start with exact information on all that are
rivals are doing.
Clipping bureaus are patronised, so that
everything printed on our subject comes to
the man who writes ads.
Every comment that comes from consumers
or dealers goes to this man's desk.
It is often necessary in a line to learn the
total expenditure. We must learn what a user
spends a year, else we shall not know if users
are worth the cost of getting.
We must learn the total consumption, else
we may overspend.
We must learn the percentage of readers
to whom our product appeals. We must often
gather this data on classes. The percentage
may differ on farms and in cities. The cost of
advertising largely depends on the percentage
of waste circulation.
24
Thus a very large volume of data usually
precedes an advertising campaign. Even an
experimental campaign, for effective experiments
cost a great deal of work and time.
Often chemists are employed to prove or
disprove doubtful claims. An advertiser, in
all good faith, makes an impressive assertion.
If it is true, it will form a big factor in advertising.
If untrue, it may prove a boomerang.
And it may bar our ads from good mediums.
It is remarkable how often a maker proves
wrong on assertions he has made for years.
Impressive claims are made far more impressive
by making them exact. So many experiments
are made to get the actual figures.
For instance, a certain drink is known to have
a large food value. That simple assertion is
not very convincing. So we send the drink to
the laboratory and find that its food value is
425 calories per pint. One pint is equal to six
eggs in calories of nutriment. That claim
makes a great impression.
In every line involving scientific details a
censor is appointed. The ad-writer, however
well informed, may draw wrong inferences
from facts. So an authority passes on every
advertisement.
The uninformed would be staggered to
know the amount of work involved in a single
ad. Weeks of work sometimes. The ad
seems so simple, and it must be simple to appeal
to simple people. But back of that ad
may lie reams of data, volumes of information,
months of research.
So this is no lazy man's field.
25
Chapter 12
Strategy
Advertising is much like war, minus the
venom. Or much, if you prefer, like a game
of chess. We are usually out to capture others'
citadels or garner others' trade.
We must have skill and knowledge. We
must have training and experience, also right
equipment. We must have proper ammunition,
and enough. We dare not underestimate
opponents. Our intelligence department is a
vital factor, as told in the previous chapter.
We need alliances with dealers, as another
chapter tells. We also need strategy of the
ablest sort, to multiply the value of our
forces.
Sometimes in new campaigns comes the
question of a name. That may be most important.
Often the right name is an advertisement
in itself. It may tell a fairly complete
story, like Shredded Wheat, Cream of Wheat,
Puffed Rice, Spearmint Gum, Palmolive
Soap, etc.
That may be a great advantage. The name
is usually conspicuously displayed. Many a
name has proved to be the greatest factor in
an article's success. Other names prove a distinct
disadvantage - Toasted Corn Flakes, for
instance. Too many others may share a demand
with the man who builds it up.
Many coined names without meaning
have succeeded. Kodak, Karo etc., are examples.
They are exclusive. The advertiser who
gives them meaning never needs to share his
advantage. But a significant name, which
helps to impress a dominant claim, is certainly
a good advantage. Names that tell stories
have been worth millions of dollars. So a
great deal of research often precedes the selection
of a name.
Sometimes a price must be decided. A
high price creates resistance. It tends to limit
one's field. The cost of getting an added
profit may be more than the profit.
It is a well-known fact that the greatest
profits are made on great volume at small
profit. Campbell's Soups, Palmolive Soap,
Karo Syrup and Ford cars are conspicuous
examples. A price, which appeals only to -
say 10 percent - multiplies the cost of selling.
But on other lines high price is unimportant.
High profit is essential. The line may
have small sale per customer. One hardly
cares what he pays for a corn remedy because
he uses little. The maker must have a large
margin because of small consumption.
On other lines a higher price may even be
an inducement. Such lines are judged largely
by price. A product which costs more than
the ordinary is considered above the ordinary.
So the price question is always a very big
factor in strategy.
Competition must be considered. What are
the forces against you? What have they in
price or quality or claims to weigh against
your appeal? What have you to win trade
against them? What have you to hold trade
against them when you get it?
How strongly are your rivals entrenched?
There are some fields, which are almost impregnable.
They are usually lines, which create
a new habit, or custom and which typify
that custom with consumers. They so dominate
a field that one can hardly hope to invade
it. They have volume, the profit to make
a tremendous fight.
Such fields are being constantly invaded.
But it is done through some convincing advantage,
or through very superior salesmanship-
in-print.
Other lines are only less difficult. A new
shaving soap, as an example. About every
possible customer is using a rival soap. Most
of them are satisfied with it. Many are wedded
to it. The appeal must be strong enough
to win those people from long-established
favour.
Such things are not accomplished by haphazard
efforts. Not by considering people in
26
the mass and making blind stabs for their favours.
We must consider individuals, typical
people who are using rival brands. A man on
a Pullman, for instance, using his favourite
soap. What could you say to him in person to
get him to change to yours? We cannot go
after thousands of men until we learn how to
win one.
The maker may say that he has no distinctions.
He is making a good product, but much
like others. He deserves a good share of the
trade, but he has nothing exclusive to offer.
However, there is nearly always something
impressive which others have not told. We
must discover it. We must have a seeming
advantage. People don't quit habits without
reason.
There is the problem of substitution and
how to head it off. That often steals much of
one's trade. This must be considered in one's
original plan. One must have foresight to see
all eventualities, and the wisdom to establish
his defenses in advance.
Many pioneers in the line establish large
demands. Then, through some fault in their
foundations, lose a large share of the harvest.
Theirs is a mere brand, for instance, where it
might have stood for an exclusive product.
Vaseline is an example. That product established
a new demand, then almost monopolized
that demand through wisdom at the
start. To have called it some different brand
of petroleum jelly might have made a difference
of millions in results.
Jell-O, Postum, Victrola, Kodak, etc. established
coined names, which came to typify
a product. Some such names have been admitted
to the dictionary. They have become
common names, though coined and exclusive.
Royal Baking Powder and Toasted Corn
Flakes, on the other hand, when they pioneered
their fields, left the way open to perpetual
substitution. So did Horlick's Malted
Milk.
The attitude of dealers must be considered.
There is a growing inclination to limit lines,
to avoid duplicate lines, to lesson inventories.
If this applies to your line, how will dealers
receive it? If there is opposition, how can we
circumvent it?
The problems of distribution are important
and enormous. To advertise something that
few dealers supply is a waste of ammunition.
Those problems will be considered in another
chapter.
These are samples of the problems which
advertising men must solve. These are some
of the reasons why vast experience is necessary.
One oversight may cost the client millions
in the end. One wrong piece of strategy
may prohibit success. Things done in one
way may be twice as easy, half as costly, as
when done another way.
Advertising without this preparation is
like a waterfall going to waste. The power
might be there, but it is not made effective.
We must center the force and direct it in a
practical direction.
Advertising often looks very simple.
Thousands of men claim ability to do it. And
there is still is a wide impression that many
men can. As a result, much advertising goes
by favour. But the men who know realise that
the problems are as many and as important as
the problems in building a skyscraper. And
many of them lie in the foundations.
27
Chapter 13
Use of samples
The product itself should be its own best
salesman. Not the product alone, but the
product plus a mental impression, and atmosphere,
which you place around it. That being
so, samples are of prime importance. However
expensive, they usually form the cheapest
selling method. A salesman might as well
go out without his sample case as an advertiser.
Sampling does not apply to little things
alone, like foods or proprietaries. It can be
applied in some way to almost every thing.
We have sampled clothing. We are now sampling
phonograph records.
Samples serve numerous valuable purposes.
They enable on to use the word "Free"
in ads. That often multiplies readers. Most
people want to learn about any offered gift.
Test often show that samples pay for themselves
- perhaps several times over - in multiplying
the readers of your ads without additional
cost of space.
A sample gets action. The reader of your
ad may not be convinced to the point of
buying. But he ready to learn more about the
product that you offer. So he cuts out a coupon,
lays it aside, and later mails it or presents
it. Without that coupon he would soon
forget.
Then you have the name and address of an
interested prospect. You can start him using
your product. You can give him fuller information.
You can follow him up.
That reader might not again read one of
your ads in six months. Your impression
would be lost. But when he writes you, you
have a chance to complete with that prospect
all that can be done. In that saving of waste
the sample pays for itself.
Sometimes a small sample is not a fair
test. Then we may send an order on the
dealer for a full-size package. Or we may
make the coupon good for a package at the
store. Thus we get a longer test.
You say that is expensive. So is it expensive
to gain a prospect's interest. It may cost
you 50 cents to get the person to the point of
writing for a sample. Don't stop at 15 cents
additional to make that interest valuable.
Another way in which samples pay is by
keying your advertisements. They register the
interest you create. Thus you can compare
one with the another ad, headline, plan and
method.
That means in any line an enormous saving.
The wisest, most experienced man cannot
tell what will most appeal in any line of
copy. Without a key to guide you, your returns
are very apt to cost you twice what they
need cost. And we know that some ads on the
same product will cost ten times what others
cost. A sample may pay for itself several
times over by giving you an accurate check.
Again samples enable you to refer customers
where they can be supplied. This is
important before you attain general distribution.
Many advertisers lose much by being
penny wise. They are afraid of imposition, or
they try to save pennies. That is why they ask
ten cents for a sample, or a stamp or two.
Getting that dime may cost them from 40
cents to $1. That is, it may add that to the
cost of replies. But it is remarkable how
many will pay that addition rather than offer
a sample free.
Putting a price on a sample greatly retards
replies. Then it prohibits you from using the
word "Free," and as we have stated, that word
"free" will generally more than pay for your
samples.
For the same reason some advertisers say,
"You buy one package, we will buy the
other." Or they make a coupon good for part
of the purchase price. Any keyed returns will
clearly prove that such offers do not pay. Before
a prospect is converted, it is approxi28
mately as hard to get half price for your article
as to get the full price for it.
Bear in mind that you are the seller. You
are the one courting interest. Then don't make
it difficult to exhibit that interest. Don't ask
your prospects to pay for your selling efforts.
Three in four will refuse to pay - perhaps
nine in ten.
Cost of requests for samples differ in
every line. It depends on your breadth of appeal.
Some things appeal to everybody, some
to a small percentage. One issue of the papers
in Greater New York brought 1,460,000 request
for a can of evaporated milk. On a
chocolate drink, one-fifth the coupons published
are presented. Another line not widely
used may bring a fraction of that number.
But the cost of inquiries is usually enough
to be important. Then don't neglect them.
Don't stint your efforts with those you have
half sold. An inquiry means that a prospect
has read your story and is interested. He or
she would like to try your product and learn
more about it. Do what you would do if that
prospect stood before you.
Cost of inquiries depends largely on how
they come. Asking people to mail the coupon
brings minimum returns. Often four times as
many will present that coupon for a sample at
the store.
On a line before the writer now, sample
inquiries obtained by mail average 70 cents
each. The same ads bring inquiries at from 18
cents to 22 cents each when the coupons are
presented at a local store.
Most people write few letters. Writing is
an effort. Perhaps they have no stamps in the
house. Most people will pay carfare to get a
sample rather than two cents postage. Therefore,
it is always best, where possible; to
have samples delivered locally.
On one line three methods were offered.
The woman could write for a sample, or telephone,
or call at a store. Seventy per cent of
the inquiries came by telephone. The use of
the telephone is more common and convenient
than the use of stamps.
Sometimes it is not possible to supply all
dealers with samples. Then we refer people
to some central stores. These stores are glad
to have many people come there. And other
dealers do not generally object so long as
they share in the sales.
It is important to have these dealers send
you the coupons promptly. Then you can
follow up the inquiries while their interest is
fresh.
It is said that sample users repeat. They do
to some extent. But repeaters form a small
percentage. Figure it in your cost.
Say to the woman, "Only one sample to a
home" and few women will try to get more of
them. And the few who cheat you are not
generally the people who would buy. So you
are not losing purchasers, but the samples
only.
On numerous lines we have for long offered
full-sized packages free. The packages
were priced at from 10 cents to 50 cents each.
In certain territories for a time we have
checked up on repeaters. And we found the
loss much less than the cost of checking.
In some lines samples would be wasted on
children, and they are most apt to get them.
Then say in your coupon "adults only."
Children will not present such coupons, and
they will rarely mail them in.
But one must be careful about publishing
coupons good for a full-size package at any
store. Some people, and even dealers, may
buy up many papers. We do not announce the
date of such offers. And we insert them in
Sunday papers, not so easily bought up.
But we do not advocate samples given out
promiscuously. Samples distributed to
homes, like waifs on the doorsteps, probably
never pay. Many of them never reach the
house the housewife. When they do, there is
no prediction for them. The product is cheapened.
It is not introduced in a favorable way.
29
So with demonstrations in stores, there is
always a way to get the same results at a
fraction of the cost.
Many advertisers do not understand this.
They supply thousands of samples to dealers
to be handed out, as they will. Could a trace
be placed on the cost of returns, the advertiser
would be stunned.
Give samples to interested people only.
Give them only to people who exhibit that
interest by some effort. Give them only to
people whom you have told your story. First
create an atmosphere of respect, a desire, an
expectation. When people are in that mood,
your sample will usually confirm the qualities
you claim.
Here again comes the advantage of figuring
cost per customer. That is the only way to
gauge advertising. Samples sometimes seem
to double advertising cost. They often cost
more than the advertising. Yet, rightly used,
they almost invariably form the cheapest way
to get customers. And that is what you want.
The arguments against samples are usually
biased. They may come from advertising
agents who like to see all the advertising
money spent in print. Answer such arguments
by tests. Try some towns with them, some
without. Where samples are effectively employed,
we rarely find a line where they do
not lesson the cost per customer.
30
Chapter 14
Getting distribution
Most advertisers are confronted with the
problem of getting distribution. National advertising
is unthinkable without that. A venture
cannot be profitable if nine in ten of the
converts fail to find the goods.
To force dealers to stock by bringing repeated
demands may be enormously expensive.
To cover the country with a selling
force is usually impossible. To get dealers to
stock an unknown line on promise of advertising
is not easy. They have seen to many
efforts fail, too many promises rescinded.
We cannot discuss all plans for getting
distribution. There are scores of ways employed,
according to the enterprise. Some
start by soliciting direct sales - mail orders -
until the volume of demand forces dealers to
supply.
Some get into touch with prospects by a
sample or other offer, then refer them to certain
dealers who are stocked.
Some well-known can get a large percentage
of dealers to stock in advance under
guarantee of sale. Some consign goods to
jobbers so dealers can easily order. Some
name certain dealers in their ads until dealers
in general stock.
The problems in this line are numberless.
The successful methods are many. But most
of them apply to lines too few to be worthy
of discussion in a book like this.
We shall deal here with articles of wide
appeal and repeated sales, like foods or proprietary
articles.
We usually start with local advertising,
even though magazine advertising is best
adapted to the article. We get our distribution
town by town, then change to national advertising.
Sometimes we name the dealers who are
stocked. As others stock, we add their names.
When a local campaign is proposed, naming
certain dealers, the average dealer wants to
be included. It is often possible to get most of
them by offering to name them in the first
few ads.
Whether you advertise few or many dealers,
the others will stock in very short order if
the advertising is successful. Then the trade
is referred to all dealers.
The sample plans dealt with in the previous
chapter aid quick distribution. They often
pay for themselves in this way alone.
If the samples are distributed locally, the
coupon names the store. The prospects who
go there to get the samples know that those
stores are supplied, if a nearer dealer is not.
Thus little trade is lost.
When sample inquiries come to the advertiser,
inquiries are referred to certain dealers
at the start. Enough demand is centered
there to force those dealers to supply it.
Sometimes most stores are supplied with
samples, but on the requirement of a certain
purchase. You supply a dozen samples with
a dozen packages, for instance. Then inquiries
for samples are referred to all stores. This
quickly forces general distribution. Dealers
don't like to have their customers go to competitors
even for a sample.
Where a coupon is used, good at any store
for a full-size package, the problem of distribution
becomes simple. Mail to dealer’s
proofs of the ad, which will contain a coupon.
Point out to each that many of his customers
are bound to present that coupon.
Each coupon presents a cash sale at full
profit. No average dealer will let those coupon
customers go elsewhere.
Such a free-package offer often pays for
itself in this way. It forms the cheapest way
of getting general distribution.
Some of the most successful advertisers
have done this in a national way. They have
inserted coupon ads in magazines, each coupon
good at any store for a full-size package.
A proof of the ad is sent to dealers in ad31
vance, with a list of the magazines to be used,
and their circulation.
In this way, in one week sometimes, makers
attain a reasonable national distribution.
And the coupon ad, when it appears, completes
it. Here again the free packages cost
less than other ways of forcing distribution.
And they start thousands of users besides.
Palmolive Soap and Puffed Grains are among
the products, which attain their distribution in
that way.
Half the circulation of a newspaper may
go to outside towns. That half may be wasted
if you offer a sample at local stores. Say in
your coupon that outside people should write
you for a sample. When they write, do not
mail the sample. Send the samples to a local
store, and refer inquiries to that store. Mailing
a sample may make a convert who cannot
be supplied. But the store, which supplies the
sample, will usually supply demand.
In these ways, many advertisers get national
distribution without employing a single
salesman. They get it immediately. And they
get it at far lower cost than by any other
method. There are advertisers who, in starting,
send every dealer a few packages as a
gift. That is better, perhaps, than losing customers
created. But it is very expensive.
Those free packages must be sold by advertising.
Figure their cost at your selling price,
and you will see that you are paying a high
cost per dealer. A salesman might sell these
small stocks at a lower cost. And other methods
might be vastly cheaper.
Sending stocks on consignment to retailers
is not widely favoured. Many dealers resent
it. Collections are difficult. And unbusinesslike
methods do not win dealer respect.
The plans advocated here are the best
plans yet discovered for the lines to which
they apply. Other lines require different
methods. The ramifications are too many to
discuss in a book like this.
But don't start advertising without distribution.
Don't get distribution by methods too
expensive. Or by slow old-fashioned methods.
The loss of time may cost you enormously
in sales. And it may enable energetic
rivals to get ahead of you.
Go to men who know by countless experiences
the best plan to apply to your line.
32
Chapter 15
Test campaigns
Almost any questions can be answered,
cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign.
That is the way to answer them, not by
arguments around a table. Go to the court of
last resort. The buyers of your product.
On every new project there comes up the
question of selling that article profitably. You
and your friends may like it, but the majority
may not. Some rival product may be better
liked or cheaper. It may be strongly entrenched.
The users won away from it may
cost too much to get.
People may buy and not repeat. The article
may last too long. It may appeal to a
small percentage, so most of your advertising
goes to waste.
There are many surprises in advertising. A
project you will laugh at may make a great
success. A project you are sure of may fall
down. All because tastes differ so. None of
us know enough people's desires to get an
average viewpoint.
In the old days, advertisers ventured on
their own opinions. The few guessed right,
the many wrong. Those were the times of advertising
disaster. Even those who succeeded
came close to the verge before the time is
turned. They did not know their cost per
customer or their sale per customer. The cost
of selling might take a long to come back.
Often it never came back.
Now we let the thousands decide what the
millions will do. We make a small venture,
and watch cost and result. When we learn
what a thousand customers cost, we know
almost exactly what a million will cost.
When we learn what they buy, we know what
a million will buy.
We establish averages on a small scale,
and those averages always hold. We know
our cost, we know our sale, and we know our
profit and loss. We know how soon our cost
comes back. Before we spread out, we prove
our undertaking absolutely safe. So there are
today no advertising disasters piloted by men
who know.
Perhaps we try out our project in four or
five towns. We may use a sample offer or a
free package to get users started quickly.
Then we wait and see if users buy those samples.
If they do, will they continue? How
much will they buy? How long does it take
for the profit to return our cost of selling?
A test like this may cost $3,000 to $5,000.
It is not all lost, even when the product
proves unpopular. Some sales are made.
Nearly every test will in time bring back the
entire cost.
Sometimes we find that the cost of the advertising
comes back before the bills are due.
That means that the product can be advertised
without investment. Many a great advertiser
has been built up without any cost whatever
beyond immediate receipts. That is an ideal
situation.
On another product it may take three
months to bring back the cost with a profit.
But one is sure of his profit in that time.
When he spreads out he must finance accordingly.
Think what this means. A man has what
he considers an advertising possibility. But
national advertising looks so big and expensive
that he dare not undertake it.
Now he presents it in a few average
towns, at a very moderate cost. With almost
no risk whatever. From the few thousands he
learns what the millions will do. Then he acts
accordingly. If he then branches he knows to
a certainty just what his results will be.
He is playing on the safe side of a hundred
to one shot. If the article is successful, it may
make him millions. If he is mistaken about it,
the loss is a trifle.
These are facts we desire to emphasise
and spread. All our largest accounts are now
built in this way, from very small beginnings.
33
When businessmen realise that this can be
done, hundreds of others will do it. For
countless fortune-earners now lie dormant.
The largest advertiser in the world makes
a business of starting such projects. One by
one he finds out winners. Now he has twentysix,
and together they earn many millions
yearly.
These test campaigns have other purposes.
They answer countless questions, which arise
in business.
A large food advertiser felt that his product
would be more popular in another form.
He and all his advisers were certain about it.
They were willing to act on this supposition
without consulting the consumers, but wiser
advice prevailed.
He inserted an ad in a few towns with a
coupon, good at any store for a package of
the new-style product. Then he wrote to the
users about it. They were almost unanimous
in their disapproval.
Later the same product was suggested in
still another form. The previous verdict made
the change look dubious. The advertiser
hardly thought a test to be worth while. But
he submitted the question to a few thousand
women in a similar way and 91 per cent
voted for it. Now he has a unique product,
which promises to largely increase his sales.
These tests cost about $1,000 each. The
first one saved him a very costly mistake.
The second will probably bring him large
profits.
Then we try test campaigns to try out new
methods on advertising already successful.
Thus we constantly seek for better methods,
without interrupting plans already proved
out.
In five years for one food advertiser we
tried out over fifty separate plans. Every little
while we found an improvement, so the results
of our advertising constantly grew. At
the end of five years we found the best plan
of all. It reduced our cost of selling by 75 per
cent. That is, it was four times more effective
than the best plan used before.
That is what mail order advertisers do - try
out plan after plan to constantly reduce the
cost. Why should any general advertiser be
less business-like and careful?
Another service of the test campaign is
this:
An advertiser is doing mediocre advertising.
A skilled advertising agent feels that he
can greatly increase results. The advertiser is
doubtful. He is doing fairly well. He has alliances,
which he hesitates to break. So he is
inclined to let well enough alone.
Now the question can be submitted to the
verdict of a test. The new agent may take a
few towns, without interfering with the general
campaign. Then compare his results with
the general results and prove his greater skill.
Plausible arguments are easy in this line.
One man after another comes to an advertiser
to claim superior knowledge or ability. It is
hard to decide, and decisions may be wrong.
Now actual figures gained at a small cost
can settle the question definitely. The advertiser
makes no commitment. It is like saying
to a salesman, "Go out for a week and
prove." A large percentage of all the advertising
done would change hands if this
method were applied.
Again we come back to scientific advertising.
Suppose a chemist would say in an
arbitrary way that this compound was best, or
that better. You would little respect his
opinion. He makes tests - sometimes hundreds
of tests - to actually know which is
best. He will never state a supposition before
he has proved it. How long before advertisers
in general will apply that exactness to advertising?
34
Chapter 16
Leaning on dealers
We cannot depend much in most lines on the
active help of jobbers or of dealers. They are
busy. They have many lines to consider. The
profit on advertised lines is not generally
large. And an advertised article is apt to be
sold at cut prices.
The average dealer does what you would
do. He exerts himself on brands of his own, if
at all. Not on another man's brand.
The dealer will often try to make you
think otherwise. He will ask some aid or concession
on the ground of extra effort. Advertisers
often give extra discounts. Or they
make loading offers - perhaps one case free
in ten - in the belief that loaded dealers will
make extra efforts.
This may be so on rare lines, but not generally.
And the efforts if made do not usually
increase the total sales. They merely swing
trade from one store to another.
On most lines, making a sale without
making a convert does not count for much.
Sales made by conviction - by advertising -
are likely to bring permanent customers.
People who buy through casual recommendations
do not often stick. Next time someone
else gives other advice.
Revenue, which belongs to the advertiser,
is often given away without adequate return.
These discounts and gifts could be far better
spent in securing new customers.
Free goods must be sold, and by your own
efforts usually. One extra case with ten
means that advertising must sell ten per cent
more to bring you the same return. The dealer
would probably buy just as much if you let
him buy as convenient.
Much money is often frittered away on
other forms of dealer help. Perhaps on window
or store displays. A window display,
acting as a reminder, may bring to one dealer
a lion's share of the trade. Yet it may not increase
your total sales at all.
Those are facts to find out. Try one town
in one way, one in another. Compare total
sales in those towns. In many lines such tests
will show that costly displays are worthless.
A growing number of experienced advertisers
spend no money on displays.
This is all in line of general publicity, so
popular long ago. Casting bread upon the
waters and hoping for its return. Most advertising
was of that sort twenty years ago.
Now we put things to the test. We compare
cost and result on every form of expenditure.
It is very easily done. Very many
costly wastes are eliminated by this modern
process.
Scientific advertising has altered many old
plans and conceptions. It has proved many
long-established methods to be folly. And
why should we not apply to these things the
same criterion we apply to other forms of
selling? Or to manufacturing costs?
Your object in all advertising is to buy
new customers at a price, which pays a profit.
You have no interest in garnering trade at any
particular store. Learn what your consumers
cost and what they buy. If they cost you one
dollar each, figure that every wasted dollar
costs you a possible customer.
Your business will be built in that way,
not by dealer help. You must do your own
selling, make your own success. Be content if
dealers fill the orders that you bring. Eliminate
your wastes. Spend all your ammunition
where it counts for most.
35
Chapter 17
Individuality
A person who desires to make an impression
must stand out in some way. Being eccentric,
being abnormal is not a distinction to covet.
But doing admirable things in a different way
gives one a great advantage.
So with salesman, in person or in print.
There is uniqueness, which belittles and
arouses resentment. There is refreshing
uniqueness, which enhances, which we welcome
and remember. Fortunate is the salesman
who has it.
We try to give each advertiser a becoming
style. We make him distinctive, perhaps not
in appearance, but in manner and in tone. He
is given an individuality best suited to the
people he addresses.
One man appears rugged and honest in a
line where rugged honesty counts. One may
be a good fellow where choice is a matter of
favour. In other lines the man stands out by
impressing himself as an authority.
We have already cited a case where a
woman made a great success in selling
clothing to girls, solely through a created personality,
which won.
That's why we have signed ads sometimes
- to give them a personal authority. A man is
talking - a man who takes pride in his accomplishments
- not a "soulless corporation."
Whenever possible we introduce a personality
into our ads. By making a man famous we
make his product famous. When we claim an
improvement, naming the man who made it
adds effect.
Then we take care not to change an individuality
which has proved appealing. Before
a man writes a new ad on that line, he gets
into the spirit adopted by the advertiser. He
plays a part as an actor plays it.
In successful advertising great pains are
taken to never change our tone. That which
won so many is probably the best way to win
others. Then people come to know us. We
build on that acquaintance rather than introduce
a stranger. People do not know us by
name alone, but by looks and mannerisms.
Appearing different every time we meet
never builds up confidence.
Then we don't want people to think that
salesmanship is made to order. That our appeals
are created, studied, artificial. They
must seem to come from the heart, and the
same heart always, save where a wrong tack
forces a complete change.
There are winning personalities in ads as
well as people. To some we are glad to listen,
others bore us. Some are refreshing, some
commonplace. Some inspire confidence,
some caution.
To create the right individuality is a supreme
accomplishment. Then an advertiser's
growing reputation on that line brings him
ever-increasing prestige. Never weary of that
part. Remember that a change in our characteristics
would compel our best friends to get
acquainted all over.
36
Chapter 18
Negative advertising
To attack a rival is never good advertising.
Don't point out others' faults. It is not permitted
in the best mediums. It is never good
policy. The selfish purpose is apparent. It
looks unfair, not sporty. If you abhor knockers,
always appear a good fellow.
Show a bright side, the happy and attractive
side, and not the dark and uninviting side
of things. Show beauty, not homeliness;
health, not sickness. Don't show the wrinkles
you propose to remove, but the face as it will
appear. Your customers know all about the
wrinkles.
In advertising a dentifrice, show pretty
teeth, not bad teeth. Talk of coming good
conditions, not conditions that exist. In advertising
clothes, picture well-dressed people,
not the shabby. Picture successful men, not
failures, when you advertise a business
course. Picture what others wish to be not
what they may be now.
We are attracted by sunshine, beauty,
happiness, health, and success. Then point
the way to them, not the way out of the opposite.
Picture envied people, not the envious.
Tell people what to do not what to avoid.
Make your every ad breath good cheer.
We always dodge a Lugubrious Blue.
Assume that people will do what you ask.
Say, "Send now for this sample. "Don't say,
"Why do you neglect this offer?" That suggests
that people are neglecting. Invite them
to follow the crowd.
Compare the results of two ads, one negative,
and one positive. One presenting the
dark side, one the bright side. One warning,
the other inviting. You will be surprised. You
will find that the positive ad out pulls the
other four to one, if you have our experience.
The "Before and after taking" ads are follies
of the past. They never had a place save
with the afflicted. Never let their memory
lead you to picture the gloomy side of things.
37
Chapter 19
Letter writing
This is another phase of advertising which all
of us have to consider. It enters, or should
enter, into all campaigns. Every businessman
receives a large number of circular letters.
Most of them go direct to the wastebasket.
But he acts on others, and others are filed for
reference.
Analyse those letters. The ones you act on
or the ones you keep have a headline, which
attracted your interest. At a glance they offer
something that you want, something you may
wish to know.
Remember that point in all advertising.
A certain buyer spends $50,000,000 per
year. Every letter, every circular, which
comes to his desk, gets its deserved attention.
He wants information on the lines he buys.
But we have often watched him. In one
minute a score of letters may drop into the
wastebasket. Then one is laid aside. That is
something to consider at once. Another is
filed under the heading "Varnish." And later
when he buys varnish that letter will turn up.
That buyer won several prizes by articles
on good buying. His articles were based on
information. Yet the great masses of matter
which came to him never got more than a
glance.
The same principles apply to all advertising.
Letter writers overlook them just as advertisers
do. They fail to get the right attention.
They fail to tell what buyers wish to
know.
One magazine sends out millions of letters
annually. Some to get subscriptions, some to
sell books. Before the publisher sends out
five million letters he puts a few thousands to
test. He may try twenty-five letters, each with
a thousand prospects. He learns what results
will cost. Perhaps the plan is abandoned because
it appears unprofitable. If not, the letter,
which pays best, is the letter that he uses.
Just as men are doing now in all scientific
advertising.
Mail order advertisers do likewise. They
test their letters as they test their ads. A general
letter is never used until it proves itself
best among many actual returns.
Letter writing has much to do with advertising.
Letters to inquirers, follow-up letters.
Wherever possible they should be tested.
Where that is not possible, they should be
based on knowledge gained by tests.
We find the same difference in letters as
in ads. Some get action, some do not. Some
complete a sale; some forfeit the impression
gained. These are letters, going usually to
half-made converts, are tremendously important.
Experience generally shows that a twocent
letter gets no more attention than a onecent
letter. Fine stationary no more than poor
stationery. The whole appeal lies in the matter.
A letter, which goes to an inquirer, is like
a salesman going to an interested prospect.
You know what created that interest. Then
follow it up along that line, not on some different
argument. Complete the impression
already created. Don't undertake another
guess.
Do something if possible to get immediate
action. Offer some inducement for it. Or tell
what delay may cost. Note how many successful
selling letters place a limit on an offer.
It expires on a certain date. That is all
done to get prompt decision, to overcome the
tendency to delay.
A mail order advertiser offered a catalogue.
The inquirer might send for three or
four similar catalogues. He had that competition
in making a sale.
So he wrote a letter when he sent his
catalogue, and enclosed a personal card. He
said, "You are a new customer, and we want
to make you welcome. So when you send
your order please enclose this card. The
38
writer wants to see that you get a gift with the
order - something you can keep."
With an old customer he gave some other
reason for the gift. The offer aroused curiosity.
It gave preference to his catalogue. Without
some compelling reason for ordering
elsewhere, the woman sent the order to him.
The gift paid for itself several times over by
bringing larger sales per catalogue.
The ways for getting action are many.
Rarely can one way be applied to two lines.
But the principles are universal. Strike while
the iron is hot. Get a decision then. Have it
followed by prompt action when you can.
You can afford to pay for prompt action
rather than lose by delay. One advertiser induced
hundreds of thousands of women to
buy six packages of his product and send him
the trademarks, to secure a premium offer
good only for one week.
39
Chapter 20
A name that helps
There is great advantage in a name that tells
a story. The name is usually prominently displayed.
To justify the space it occupies, it
should aid the advertising. Some such names
are almost complete advertisements in themselves.
May Breath is such a name. Cream of
Wheat is another. That name alone has been
worth a fortune. Other examples are Dutch
Cleanser, Cuticura, Dynashine, Minute
Tapioca, 3-in-One Oil, Holeproof, Alcorub,
Etc.
Such names may be protected, yet the
name itself describes the product, so it makes
a valuable display.
Other coined names are meaningless.
Some examples are Kodak, Karo, Sapolio,
Vaseline, Kotex, Lux, Postum, etc. They can
be protected, and long-continued advertising
may give them a meaning. When this is accomplished
they become very valuable. But
the great majority of them never attain status.
Such names do not aid the advertising. It
is very doubtful that they justify display. The
service of the product, not the name, is the
important thing in advertising. A vast amount
of space is wasted in displaying names and
pictures, which tell no selling story. The tendency
of modern advertising is to eliminate
waste.
Other coined names signify ingredients,
which anyone may use. Examples are Syrup
of Figs, Coconut Oil Shampoo, Tar Soap,
Palmolive Soap, etc.
Such products may dominate a market if
the price is reasonable, but they must to a degree
meet competition. They invite substitution.
They are naturally classified with other
products, which have like ingredients, so the
price must remain in that class.
Toasted Corn Flakes and Malted Milk are
examples of unfortunate names. In each of
those cases one advertiser created a new demand.
When the demand was created, others
shared it because they could use the name.
The originators depended only on a brand. It
is interesting to speculate on how much more
profitable a coined name might have been.
On a patented product it must be remembered
that the right to a name expires with
that patent. Names like Castoria, Aspirin,
Shredded Wheat Biscuit, etc., have become
common property.
This is a very serious point to consider. It
often makes a patent an undesirable protection.
Another serious fault in coined names is
frivolity. In seeking uniqueness one gets
something trivial. And that is a fatal handicap
in a serious product. It almost prohibits respect.
When a product must be called by a common
name, the best auxiliary name is a man's
name. It is much better than a coined name,
for it shows that some man is proud of his
creation.
Thus the question of a name is of serious
importance in laying the foundations of a
new undertaking. Some names have become
the chief factors in success. Some have lost
for their originators four-fifths of the trade
they developed.
40
Chapter 21
Good business
A rapid stream ran by the writer's boyhood
home. The stream turned a wooden wheel
and the wheel ran a mill. Under that primitive
method, all but a fraction of the stream's potentiality
went to waste.
Then someone applied scientific methods
to that stream - put in a turbine and dynamos.
Now, with no more water, no more power, it
runs a large manufacturing plant.
We think of that stream when we see
wasted advertising power. And we see it everywhere
- hundreds of examples. Enormous
potentialities - millions of circulation - used
to turn a mill wheel. While other use that
same power with manifold effect.
We see countless ads running year after
year which we know to be unprofitable. Men
spending five dollars to do what one-dollar
might do. Men getting back 30 per cent of
their cost when they might get 150 per cent.
And the facts could be easily proved.
We see wasted space, frivolity, clever
concepts, and entertainment. Costly pages
filled with palaver which, if employed by
salesman, would reflect on his sanity. But
those ads are always UN-keyed. The money
is spent blindly, merely to satisfy some advertising
whim.
Not new advertisers only. Many an old
advertiser has little or no idea of his advertising
results. The business is growing
through many efforts combined, and advertising
is given its share of the credit.
An advertiser of many years standing,
spending as high as $700,000 per year, told
the writer he did not know whether his advertising
was worth anything or not. Sometimes
he thought that his business would be
just as large without it.
The writer replied, "I do know. Your advertising
is utterly unprofitable, and I could
prove it to you next week. End an ad with an
offer to pay five dollars to anyone who writes
you that he read the ad through. The scarcity
of replies will amaze you."
Think what a confession - that millions of
dollars are being spent without knowledge of
results. Such a policy applied to all factors in
a business would bring ruin short order.
You see other ads, which you may not like
as well. They may seem crowded or verbose.
They are not attractive to you, for you are
seeking something to admire something to
entertain. But you will note that those ads are
keyed. The probability is that out of scores of
traced ads the type, which you see, has paid
the best.
Many other ads, which are not keyed now,
were keyed at the beginning. They are based
on known statistics. They won on a small
scale before they ever ran on large scale.
Those advertisers are utilising their enormous
powers in full.
Advertising is prima facie evidence that
the man who pays believes that advertising is
good. It has brought great results to others; it
must be good for him. So he takes it like
some secret tonic which others have endorsed.
If the business thrives, the tonic gets
credit. Otherwise, the failure is due to fate.
That seems almost unbelievable. Even a
storekeeper who inserts a twenty-dollar ad
knows whether it pays or not. Every line of a
big store's ad is charged to the proper department.
And every inch used must the next
day justify its cost.
Yet most national advertising is done
without justification. It is merely presumed to
pay. A little test might show a way to multiply
returns.
Such methods, still so prevalent, are not
very far from their end. The advertising men
who practice them see the writing on the
wall. The time is fast coming when men who
spend money are going to know what they
get. Good business and efficiency will be applied
to advertising. Men and methods will
41
be measured by the known returns, and only
competent men can survive.
Only one hour ago an old advertising man
said to the writer, "The day for our type is
done. Bunk has lost its power. Sophistry is
being displaced by actuality. And I tremble at
the trend."
So do hundreds tremble. Enormous advertising
is being done along scientific lines.
Its success is common knowledge. Advertisers
along other lines will not much longer be
content.
We who can meet the test welcome these
changed conditions. Advertisers will multiply
when they see that advertising can be safe
and sure. Small expenditures made on a
guess will grow to big ones on a certainty.
Our line of business will be finer, cleaner,
when the gamble is removed. And we shall
be prouder of it when we are judged on merit.