iVERTIS c/5 <> HF Cornell university Library HF 5821. CI 5 ' Modern advertising. Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013946466 SLpplttomi' WnsintSS petite MODERN ADVERTISING APPLETONS' BUSINESS SERIES. The Work of Wall Street. By Sereno S. Pratt. Illustrated. lamo. Cloth, $1.25 net ; postai^e, 12 cents additional. Funds and Their Uses. By Frederick A. Cleveland, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net ; postage, 12 cents additional. Trust Finance. By Dr. Edward S. Meade, of the Wharton' School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania. i2mo. Cloth, $1.25 net ; postage, 12 cents additional. Anxerican Railway Transportation. By Emory R. Johnson, Ph.D., of the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania. i2nio. Cloth, $1.50 net; postage, 14 cents additional. The Modern Bank. By Amos K. Fiske. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 net ; postage, 12 cents additional. Modern Industrialism. By Frank L. McVey. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 net ; postage, 12 cents additional. Modern Advertising. By Earnest Elmo Calkins and Ralph Holden. Illustrated. i2ino. Cloth, $1.50 net; postage, 12 cents additional. The Life Insurance Company. By WiLHAM Alexander. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 net ; postage, 13 cents additional. Ocean and Inland Water Transportation. By Emory R. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Transportation and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 net ; postage, 15 cents additional. Credit and Its Uses. By W. A. Prendergast. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50 net ; postiige, 12 cents additional. D. APPLETON and company, new YORK. MODERN ADVERTISING BY EARNEST ELMO CALKINS AND RALPH HOLDEN ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1907 a/? COPYBIGHT, 1905, BT D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Published April, 1905 FOEEWOKD Herewith is printed a paragraph from The Americans, by Hugo Miinsterberg ; which is so in harmony with our own idea as set forth in the first chapter (which chapter was written and in type long before Prof. Miinsterberg's book appeared) that it is set here as a sort of keynote of Modern Advertising: The American merchant works for money in ex- actly the sense that a great painter works for money ; the high price which is paid for his picture is a very welcome indication of the general appreciation of his art: but he would never get this appreciation if he were working for the money instead of his artistic ideals. Economically to open up this gigantic coun- try, to bring the fields and forests, rivers and moun- tains into the service of economic progress, to incite the millions of inhabitants to have new needs and to satisfy these by their own resourcefulness, to increase the wealth of the nation, and finally economically to rule the world and within the nation itself to raise the economic power of the individual to undreamt-of im- portance, has been the work which has fascinated the American. And every individual has felt his co- operation to be ennobled by his firm belief in the value of such an aim for the culture of the world. The Authors. CONTENTS /. PAGES Foreword ......... v CHAPTER I A Definition of Advertising 1-12 Advertising in its modem sense, 1. Advertising in a dictionary sense, 1. Small percentage of illiteracy and large number of publications, 2. Napoleon the proto- type of the modem advertising man, 3. Advertising as a profession, 4. Patent medicine the first adverti- sing, 5. eDefinition of advertising, 6. Advertising a great educational force, 7. Effect of advertising on the soda biscuit, 9. ^The trade-mark the great asset, 9. ♦ Great possibilities in the future, 11. Interest of the public in advertising, 12. CHAPTER II A Brief History or Advertising . . . 13-32 Advertising a recent development, 13. Proprietary remedies the first large advertisers, 14. The first adver- tising agency, 14. Some early advertising of the New York Ledger, 15. Recollections of John Manning, 15. Pettingill's impressions of Palmer, 16. Pettingill a well- known name in connection with advertising, 19. Pet- tingill and Palmer as competitors, 20. Oak Hall and its advertising, 21. Mr. Bonner and the New York Ledger, 22. Advertising Fanny Fern's story, 23. $27,000 spent on advertising a single writer, 23. P. T. Bamum advertises the Jenny Lind concerts, 25. News- viii CONTENTS PAGES papers used exclusively by early agents, 26. Early successes that are to-day large advertisers, 27. Sapolio and Spotless Town, 28. Force and Sunny Jim, 29. The real beginning of modem advertising, 30. Three dis- tinct professions in advertising, 31. CHAPTER III The Channels of Trade ..... 33-62 Two ways of selling advertised goods, 33. Eleven leading retail lines, 33. Modem advertising breaking down the relations between the manufacturer and the retailer, 36. Chains of retail stores controlled by a single manufacturer, 36. Standardizing a skirt binding, 37. Transformation of the ready-made clothing busi- ness, 38. Introduction of odd sizes in clothing, 39. Large retailers refuse to sell trade-marked clothing, 40. An idea that revolutionized the clothing business, 41. Improvement in the manufacture of clothing due to advertising, 42. Figures of eleven retail industries, 43. Modern advertising eliminating the middleman, 44. The business triangle, 45. Cultivation of retail trade by the manufacturer, 48. An experiment with a mail series, 49. Exploiting a breakfast food, 51. Working with a small appropriation, 52. Playing the customer off against the dealer, 54. The before-taking and after- taking idea, 55. How a corset trade was developed by advertising, 56. I The cost of advertising. 58 . Starting with a small appropriation, b§. The importance of the inquiry, 60. Advertising a combination of hundreds of different elements, 61. CHAPTER IV Magazines and Newspapers . . . 63-87 Definition of an advertising medium, 63. Magazines compared with newspapers, 64. Circulation of various kinds of publications, 66. Amount paid to publica- CONTENTS ix PAGES tions for advertising space, 67. Classification of periodi- cals according to their character, 69. Distribution of circulation, 70. Character of a publication as illustrated by the Ladies' Home Journal, 71. A§ illustrated by Comfort, 73. History of the Delineator, 74. Size of magazine pages, 75. Rate compared with circulation, 76. The creation of the ten-cent magazine, 77. Read- ers of different publications vary in responsiveness, 79. The magazines and circulation statements, 80. Defini- tion of newspapers, 81. Home prints and patent in- sides, 82. Cooperative newspapers, 83. Trade papers, 86. Agricultural and religious papers, 87. CHAPTER V Mural Advertising . . . 88-101 Defi nition of mural or outdoor advertising, 88. Num- ber of street-car cards required for the entire United States, 89. Stoe§t-car advertising not combined in the hands of one agent, 91. Sizes of street-car cards, 92. Circulation of street-car cards, 93. Sizes of posters, 94. Permanent painted signs, 96. High prices paid for painted signs, 98. P,ti,"ted matter as advertising mediums, 98. A house organ, 100. Ad- vertising novelties, 101. CHAPTER VI The General Advertiser ..... 102-134 Definition of a general advertiser, 102. Some large gen- eral advertisers, 103. The beginning of textile adver- tising, 104. The experience of Thomas Balmer, 105. The advertising of H-0, 106. The beginning of flake- food advertising, 107. Advertising pioneers, 108. Un- developed possibilities in advertising, 109. Food prod- ucts that should be advertised. 111. The chances for a canned molasses, 112. Publicity that might be had for salt, 113. Starch an early magazine advertiser, CONTENTS 114. The advertising beginning of the American Woolen Company, 115. v Unthought-of fields to be de- veloped by advertising, 118. Products that have been advertised for forty years, 120. Railroads as general advertisers, 120. Volume of magazine advertising for a given month, 120. Advertised articles must have merit, 122. Quahty more important than price, 124. Direct returns not possible in general publicity, 125. The value of a trade-mark, 126. Some baking powder history, 127. Mellin's Food a typical advertising instance, 129. Stories behind advertising successes, 133. CHAPTER VII The Advertising Manager ..... 135-160 What the advertising manager does, 135. The ability to write not necessary, 136. Seymour Eaton and the Booklovers Library, 138. American advertising in Great Britain, 139. Salaries paid to advertising man- agers, 143. The advertisement writer as such, 143. What the advertising manager should know, 144. Misleading impressions about the advertising manager, 147. Training that makes a successful advertising man, 148. Correspondence schools of advertising, 151. The advertising man's training, 152. Antagoni- zing the retail trade, 1 53. Planning work in cooperation with an agency, 154. Steps in preparing a campaign, 155. Working with traveling men, 156. Origin of Sunny Jim in Force advertising, 158. The advertising manager must produce exact results, 160. CHAPTER VIII The General Advertising Agency . . . 161-219 Inadequacy of the name "agency," 161. Is the agent the agent of the publisher or of the advertiser? 161. The agent not an employee of the publication, 162. The commission basis unsatisfactory and illogical', 163. CONTENTS xi PAGES How good advertisers are discouraged by bad agents, 164. The Quoin Club, 164. Tlie advertising agent and the plan, 165. What the advertising agent should know, 166. George Dyer on advertising agencies, 167. The agent should be unprejudiced, 171. The adver- tising agent has nothing to sell, 172. The old and the modern idea of an advertising agency, 173. Space brokers, 174. Why the commission is illogical, 175. How the price for space is cut, 176. Service as against price-cutting in agency work, 177. Contract publicar tions, 178. Form of contract of the Curtis Publishing Company, 179. A typical estimate, 180. Estimates and rate-cards, 182. Estimating from newspaper rate- cards, 185. Dickering with newspapers, 186. A news- paper rate-card, 186. Need of a flat rate among newspapers, 191. Order for space, 192. Checking up advertising, 193. Old-time agencies are loose organiza- tions, 194. Two classes of general advertisers, 195. How an agent works upon a new proposition, 196. Coining a name, 197. Fixing the price, 198. Appro- priation, 199. The modern agency renders professional service, 200. A representative and comprehensive plan and estimates as presented by a modem agency, 201. CHAPTER IX Retail Advertising 220-244 Definition of retail advertising, 220. Pay and work of the retail advertising manager, 221. Amount spent in advertising by leading retailers, 222. Gillam and the Wanamaker style of advertising, 224. Beginning of the Wanamaker store advertising, 226. Difficulty of getting good illustrations, 228. Wanamaker and the fakir, 229. The Wanamaker style older than the Wanamaker store, 230. Different styles in different cities, 232. Principal shopping days of the week, 232. Daily routine of the advertising manager, 235. Error in price made by the paper, 236. Window-dressing, xii CONTENTS PAGES 238. The retail clothing advertising of Rogers, Peet & Company, 239. Fictitious business firm names, 240. A uniform style of advertising, 241. Retail advertising depends upon direct results, 241. Local retail adver- tising varies in different cities, 242. The work of a retail advertising syndicate, 243. Local monopolies which can and do use retail advertising, 244. CHAPTER X Mail-Order Advertising ..... 245-260 Definition and growth of mail-order advertising, 245. Three-fourths of the United States population live in the country, 246. Great mail-order houses, 247. History of Sears, Roebuck & Company, 247. Stimu- lus of rural free delivery, 248. Statistics of rural free delivery, 249. Mail-order papers, 250. Direct results, 252. Kind of copy required, 253. Catalogue houses, 254. Follow-up matter, 255. Pulling power of various advertisements, 256. Letter brokerage, 257. Fraud orders, 258. Correspondence schools, 259. CHAPTER XI The Mathematics of Advertising . . . 261-305 Exact results required by the modem advertiser, 261. Inducements offered to bring replies, 262. Booklets sent in return for names of dealers, 263. Keying ads, 264. The comer coupon, 266. The cost of replies, 268. Testing general advertising, 270. The before-taking and after-taking idea, 271. Psychology of the Sunny Jim impression, 273. Power of a large appropriation, 275. Establishing a catch-phrase, 27Q^Psycholbgy of advertising by Professor Scott, 278/ Psychology a guide for the advertiser, 280. Advertising that appeals to the sense of taste, 282. Mental habits and adver- tising, 283. Advertising statistics not sufficiently com- pletej285. Reaching the rich, 286. The silent major- CONTENTS xm PAGES ity, 289. General publicity and direct advertising, 290. Classifying the readers of a publication, 291. The Northwestern Agriculturist investigation, 292. Baking- powder investigation, 293. Toilel^soap investigation, 294. Breakfast foods and watches, 295. The investi- gation of the Butterick Trio, 296. Results from the one item of hosiery, 297. The lessons to be learned, 299. The growth of food advertising, 302. Vital statistics and their relation to advertisingy 304. CHAPTER XII Styles of Advertising ..... 306-332 What kind of copy to use, 306. Stupid imitation, 307. Good type styles, 309. Designed type style, 311. The mail-order style, 313. Line drawing and good printing, 315. Using a face for a trade-mark, 317. The jingle in advertising, 320. Spotless Town, 324. Good and bad verse advertising, 326. The Sunny Jim verses, 327. Jingles as collateral advertising, 328. Phoebe Snow and the Road of Anthracite, 330. CHAPTER XIII Some Mechanical Details ..... 333-353 The agate line, 333. Width of newspaper columns, 334. Magazine sizes, 335. Original half-tones and electro- types, 336. Photography and models, 337. The half- tone cut, 338. Making designs for reduction, 340. Wood engraving and lithography, 341. Distributing newspaper advertising plates, 342. A knowledge of type bodies not necessary to an advertiser, 344. Types used in advertising, 345. Sizes of type, 346. Electro- typing, 347. Display, 348. Obsolete terms, 349. Dum- mies for booklets and catalogues, 350. Printed matter 351. Novelties, 352. Rate-cards, 353. Index . 355 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A Clothing Cut Made Oi^ly Twelve Years Ago ... 42 An Example of Early Clothing Designing . ' . . 4A: The Business Triangle . ... 45 Modem Designing as Applied to Clothing Advertising . 46 Mailing Card . .50 Map Showing Relative Density of Circulation Over the Entire United States . . 65 Map Showing the Number of Inhabitants to Each Weekly Publication . . .67 Map Showing that Ten States Possess 81.08 Per Cent of the Combined Circulation of all Publications . 68 Map Showing the Number of Inhabitants to Each Daily Publication . . ...... 70 A Double Street-Car Card 92 A Single Street-.Car Card ...... 93 Diagram Showing Sizes and Arrangement of Posters from a 1-Sheet to a 24-Sheet ... 95 A Painted Wall . . 97 A Painted Sign or Bulletin . . 99 The First Advertisement of the American Woolen Com- pany . . ... 117 A Typical Advertisement of Seymour Eaton . . 141 A "Powers" Magazine Advertisement .... 145 l^e Silhouette Effectively Used in Newspaper Advertising 198 A Modern Clothing Advertisement . . . 205 Photograph froip Still Life Used in a Magazine Adver- tisement ........ 210 Atmosphere in a Magazine Half-page Advertisement . 211 Character as Shown by Photography . . .217 Catchy Style for Trade-Paper Advertising . . .218 XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Philadelphia Style of Department-Store Advertising 223 The Chicago Style of Department-Store Advertising . . 231 The New York Style of Department-Store Advertising . 233 The Boston Style of Department-Store Advertising . . 237 The Rogers, Peet Style . .... 239 A High-Class Mail-Order Advertisement . . . .251 A Typical Mail-Order Advertisement .... 254 An Inducement to Write is Offered ... 262 An Unusual Name is Given to the Booklet. No Key . 263 An Advertisement in Which a Book of Recipes is Offered 264 Forms of Coupons . . . . . 265 Forms of Coupons . ..... 267 A Page Magazine Advertisement Showing Coupon At- tached . . 269 The Original Form of the "Sunny Jim" Advertising 271 Style Adopted the Second Year ..... 272 Style Used the Third Year ... 273 A Magazine Advertisement in which the Booklet is the Sub- ject of the Advertisement . . . 304 An Advertisement in Type Only .... 307 An Example of the Narrative Style of Copy . . 308 An Example of Simple Type Style and Very Convincing Copy . ... 310 A Magazine Advertisement Consisting of Reasons and Type 311 Another Example of the " Powers " Style . . . 312 Type Style Invented by an Advertiser . 313 An Eflfectual Mail-Order Advertisement .... 314 A Magazine Advertisement Used for Years Without Change . . 315 The First Step from a Type Style is the Use of a Border . 316 A Style of Designing Especially Adapted to Newspapers and Poorly Printed Magazines . . 318 Magazine Advertisement Showing Good Printing Qualities 319 A Modem Magazine Advertisement . . 320 Clean, Open Cut Which Cannot Fill Up arid Blot . 321 An Early Example of Corset Advertising . . . 322 Advertisement Identified by the Portrait of the Advertiser 323 A Modem Corset Advertisement . . . 324 Jingles and Silhouettes Used for Distribution in Packages 329 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvil PAGE One of the Lackawanna Street-Car Cards . . 331 Photography from a Model Used as an Effective Booklet Cover . . 335 Diagram Showing the Screen in Half-Tone Work . 337 Diagram Illustrating Reduction in Photographs and Draw- ings ... .... 340 Strong Display for Newspaper Advertisements . . 341 MODERN ADVERTISING CHAPTER I A DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING This book treats of advertising in its modern sense. By advertising is meant that commercial force, which, within a few years and in this country, has become a most powerful factor in the development of many of the largest and most profitable industries. No definition of advertising is here possible ex- cept as this entire book may be accepted as a defini- tion. So rapidly has advertising advanced through its various changes that even the latest dictionaries and encyclopedias are out of date in their attempts to define it. The advertising of yesterday is not the advertising of to-day. Men not very old have wit- nessed the entire development of modern advertising from being an untrustworthy instrument of quacks and charlatans to its place as an engine in the conduct and expansion of business. According to various esti- mates the amount of money spent to-day in America for advertising ranges from six hundred to one thou- sand million dollars a year. Advertising in the dictionary sense of the word has a history as old as that of the human race. Just 2 MODERN ADVERTISING as soon as there were more than two people in the world some sort of formal announcement had to be made by one to the other. The early history of such announcements, — from the first use of the human voice to the beginning of pictorial and lettered in- scriptions, from posters to the discovery of printing, and from the advent of printing to the beginning of real advertising, — is of interest only to the archeolo- gist. It is of no value to the business man. It would be of less assistance to the understanding and appre- ciation of modern advertising than the legal tender used by the ancient Ph^nicians would be to compre- hending the principles of modern finance. Ileal ad- vertising began when methods of printing had been so perfected as to make it possible to multiply almost indefinitely the number of copies of a periodical which might be circulated. This nation has reached a point where only a small fraction of the people are unable to read. The American people are quick to learn and to use what they learn. Their mental activity demands a large supply of periodical literature. That demand has been supplied by over twenty thousand periodicals, some of them with circulations of from five hundred thousand to a million. These are the reasons why advertising has found its greatest and most rapid de- velopment in the United States, and why other coun- tries may be practically ignored in a book of this kind. Napoleon, following Barere, contemptuously called England a nation of shopkeepers. England keeps shop as well as the United States. The reason why she can not keep shop as effectively as we is largely because she can not " talk shop " as well. The same A DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING 3 Napoleon who sneered at England's commercialism said that four hostile newspapers were more to be dreaded than a thousand bayonets. Here is the real reason for our commercial supremacy. Napoleon sneered at shopkeeping but bowed to the power of the press. America has forged from her press a power which has helped to make her shopkeeping the most wonderful in the world. The shop and the newspaper joined forces and the result is modern advertising. Napoleon himself is the fairest prototype of the advertising man. His work and his methods were different, but the elemental qualities are the same. With the passing away of Napoleon, passed from the modern world the opportunities for such work as his. Other fields were left, however, for the man like him with genius for organization, knowledge of human nature, capacity for tireless study of causes and ef- fects, of conditions and remedies. Such men have gone into business, and with their advent business has been elevated to a field of endeavor greater in its rewards than any other offered by the world to-day. Such men found business commonplace and petty, but made it a profession; they introduced into it the ability and methods that- formerly had changed the world's maps, founded dynasties, and created polit- ical parties. The story of a Peter the Hermit, or a Savonarola, fiercely and earnestly impressing a crowd with his convictions, is thrilling. The Peters and Savonaxolas of to-day are teaching the nation to think differently and act differently. Advertising has come to mean not merely the printed announcement of the merits 4 MODERN ADVERTISING of an article or an institution, but that high and un- usual power of impressing a great number of people with a given idea. The technical knowledge possessed by the suc- cessful advertising man is important and is made up of many things. That knowledge in itself is not ad- vertising, but the tools of the trade. It has no more to do with making the successful advertiser than knowledge of tactics, entrenchments and the manual of arms makes the successful general, or than famil- iarity with judicial procedure makes the successful lawyer. Advertising is that subtle, indefinable, but powerful force whereby the advertiser creates a de- mand for a given article in the minds of a great many people or arouses the demand that is already there in latent form. The fact that many successful advertisers do not know, or do not appreciate, these things, means noth- ing. Advertising has been successful far beyond the expectations, certainly beyond the knowledge, of many who produced it. There are many working elec- tricians who, while familiar with all the practical re- quirements of their work, are ignorant of the actual nature of electricity. So with the advertiser. Neither the man who creates advertising space by building up a medium, nor the man who has made a world-wide market for his product by using such mediums, has appreciated the real nature of the force employed. Here enters the advertising expert, the man who studies the causes for these great successes with the idea of applying them to other articles and other mar- kets. It is for him to eliminate as far as possible the uncertainty, the waste, the non-essentials; to change. A DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING 5 advertising from an art to a science^ — -or, at least, to a profession worthy of the ambition and energy of trained minds. There was a time when the profession of an ad- vertising man ranked but little higher than that of a fakir or a charlatan, just as there was a time when nearly all advertising was more or less untrustworthy. Beginning, as it did, with the exploitation of patent remedies, and carried, as it was, by tremendous suc- cess into the exploitation of remedies that were worthless, the possibilities of the use of printers' ink grew faster than the realization of the commercial value of its use. ' The first on the ground were soldiers of fortune, adventurous men who soon overran the country with patent-medicine advertising of every sort, to such an extent, and with such disproportionate results, that, to-day, the advertising of proprietary remedies does not stand on the same high plane as the advertising of commercial articles and, possibly, never will. The advertising of manufactured articles — the real bone and sinew of commerce — is to-day the great field in which the best energy and best ability are being used. Young men of the sort who do things, who, in any other country, would fill places in the church, or state, in diplomacy or the army, and who in any other age would be makers of history, are the ones who to-day are building up the circulation of publications con- verting them into assets of great value, and who are making the names and trade-marks of articles adver- tised vastly valuable. As men vidth better training and higher mental powers became identified with it and as advertising 6 MODERN ADVERTISING itself, under their handling, developed greater possi- bilities, the profession of an advertising man steadily rose until now it aspires to rank with that of the three " black graces " — law, medicine and divinity. Somo day the advertising man, in all that that term implies, expects to be recognized as a member in one of the professions. Advertising is a force whereby a keen-eyed man, controlling a desirable output from a great factory, secures for it the widest possible market by utilizing every form of publicity, and every method of making an impression upon the public; who watches its sales on the one hand and its publicity on the other; who, like a train-despatcher in his watch-tower, keeps a con- stant and thoughtful hand on the pulse of the market, knows exactly what his advertising is accomplishing and what it is failing to accomplish, knows where to strengthen it and where to weaken it; who, consider- ing the entire country as a whole, adapts his adver- tising to each locality, pushes his products where such products may be sold, and leaves uncultivated the places where no possible market may be made. He knows something of salesmanship, something of the law of supply and demand, a great deal of human na- ture and the best methods of appealing to it; has a vivid, instinctive sense of the power of repeated im- pression; knows something of the force of striking display, whether expressed in color on outdoor post- ers and street-car cards, or in black and white and in type in magazines and newspapers, and uses these as a means to his end. Such a man, realizing that there are in this coun- try so many mouths to be fed, so many hands and A DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING 7 faces to be washed, so many bodies to be clothed, so many feet to be shod, makes a breakfast food, a soap, a brand of clothing or a shoe, and then launches out boldly, remembering that just as long as people con- tinue to be born and grow up there will be more mouths, more hands, more faces, more bodies and more feet; and until the sum of human wants be changed, there will be the same steady demands and needs. He then proceeds to find means for making his article in every home and every mind a synonym for something which will supply one of these wants. He realizes to its fullest extent what a mighty engine is advertising. Advertising modifies the course of a people's daily thoughts, gives them new words and phrases, new ideas, new fashions, new prejudices and new customs. In the same way it obliterates old sets of words and phrases, fashions and customs. Twenty years ago no one ate a breakfast food other than crude oatmeal which the grocer sold from a barrel. To-day, breakfast foods identified by name and package, clean and nourishing, have become as staple as milk or bread. Five years ago no one thought of asking for a cracker or soda-biscuit by name. To-day, one company has made its products household words. It may be doubted if any other one force, the public-school system, the church and the daily press excepted, is acquiring so great an influence as adver- tising. To it we largely owe the prevalence of good roads, rubber tires, open plumbing, sanitary under- wear, water filters, hygienic waters, biscuit wrapped in moisture-proof packages, and breakfast foods at low prices, well prepared. These are only a few of 8 MODERN ADVERTISING the things which the public has been taught to use, to beKeve in and to demand. The people who buy these things do not write to the advertisers, who are practically unknown to them. They are the customers of hundreds of thousands of retail stores all over the country; — ^people who come and ask for the articles they have seen advertised and who continue to buy them. They buy, believe and think the things that the advertiser wants them to buy, believe and think. The man who can so plan his advertising work as to bring about these results exercises professional ability of a high order. By trade-marking a number of necessary articles, such as foods, wearing apparel and soaps, and making them so well known that they become staple, the methods of commerce have been simplified beyond belief. Every man engaged in buying and selling such goods is now able to perform the same transac- tion in less time than formerly. Take, for instance, the soda-biscuit. Formerly it was supplied loose, in bulk from a barrel, from which the grocer weighed out the necessary quantity. The method was un- cleanly and unsanitary, and crispness was lost. It re- quired an unnecessary number of handlings which took time and were distasteful. The name, soda-bis- cuit, meant several kinds of biscuit in bulk; the cus- tomer seldom knew them apart; the most intelligent thing she could do was to point them out. To-day, the same housewife is familiar with the name of a biscuit in a package, wrapped first in a sani- tary, waxed, air- and moisture-proof wrapper, then in a compact, handy carton, and finally in a decorative wrapper. This package would now be recognized by A DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING 9 a large percentage of the population of the United States at a glance. The housewife simply gives to the grocer the name of that particular biscuit; and the grocer takes down the package. The price is no higJier than was paid formerly for hiscuit in bulk. The package will keep indefinitely and a small part of the grocer's time only has been occupied in wait- ing upon his customer. The grocer, when sending his order to the jobber or giving it to the " drummer," asks for so many cases of this cracker and nothing more need be said. Thus the work of selling is sim- plified. Here we see only one of the commercial changes wrought by advertising. The same house which manufactures soda-biscuit has been able, -^by advertising, tremendously to in- crease its output. This increase of output has cut down the cost of manufacture. The maker is able to supply more and bettf^r goods for the same money, the goods have a wider circ-jlation, are better known and a higher standard is kept. The maker can not afford to allow his product to deteriorate in any way; it has become known for its excellence through the advertising, and it must live up to that excellence. Advertising implies a contract between the maker and the public always to deliver the same goods under that same name. The name has become the greatest asset. It may represent millions in publicity — pub- licity that has been obtained through advertising alone. Only the initiated can realize the amount of work that such a plan, successfully carried out, en- tails. The means through which such knowledge reaches the public represents nearly every form of advertis- 10 MODERN ADVERTISING I ing. It represents advertising in newspapers and magazines; announcements in the trade papers which are read by the grocer and other dealers ; posters upon housetops, near the sites of great railroads, upon hoardings around buildings in the process of const^^uc- tion, upon the stands of elevated and other rail-jvay- stations; electric signs on the tops of tall buildings; names on sails of coasting and fishing vessels ; printed matter of every kind sent to the jobber, to his sales- man, to the grocer and to the consumer; costly litho- graphs inserted between the pages of maga^zines, the circulation of each of which may be a half million; designing a package so individual and ^aracteristic that it will be recognized at a glance and will form an advertisement as it stands; the coining' of a name that is unique without being grotesque, and so euphonious that it may be learned easily and will become a part of the familiar vocabulary of the people. In addition to these things, advertising requires an army of men to carry out the plans. Every part of the work must be mapped out. The salesmen who sell the product are only one contingent. The chain of jobbers who supply retail grocers everywhere are part of the plan. The grocer must be supplied, not only with goods to put upon his shelf, but with attrac- tive counter slips, " hangers," window-cards, " cut- outs," posters and other forms of lithographed matter, which will appeal to the eye and make aij impression upon the minds of buyers. All this matter must be prepared, packed and sent out so as to reach the grocer at the appointed time. Then there is the work of preparing designs for magazines and newspapers, lithographs for posters and street-car cards, and get- A DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING H ting them to their proper destination and displayed in the proper way. The entire machinery must be kept in motion year after year. This is the nearest one can come to a definition of modern advertising. It is as hard to obtain an idea of what advertising really is from a description of the machinery by which it is accomplished, as it is to ob- tain one of the nature of electricity by a visit to a power-house. Thinking men have begun to recog- nize it as a great force, which depends much on con- stant repetition and on habits of thought. Constant repetition of one idea before a certain number of peo- ple will at last impress that idea upon those people's minds. People who get into the habit of buying a certain thing are apt to continue the habit. If a cer- tain set of people may be persuaded to buy a given article at a given price, another set of people may be induced to do the same thing. If people have been persuaded to buy such an article and find their expec- tations fulfilled, and it is an article which they are in the habit of needing constantly, they are apt to go on purchasing the article indefinitely. It is upon this habit that the ultimate profits of publicity mainly depend. No estimate of the future of advertising perhaps would be excessive. No modern field of industry shows larger possibilities of development. The work of the present day, skilful and intelligent as it is, is a beginning. Despite the number of experts at work, advertising to-day is by no means as thorough and effective as it should be. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually. Many of these millions are spent wastefuUy. 12 MODERN ADVERTISING Advertising is at present an art; it has not yet reached its place as an exact science. There are many men who know how to play skilfully upon the preju- dices, tastes, likes and habits of a nation; but there is not yet a man who can tell definitely how much publicity any given dollar will buy. Possibly there never will be such a man. Still, advertising is daily approaching a state of greater exactness. The best advertisers have their advertising campaigns so well in hand that they are almost sure to produce certain results. To obtain this experience and knowledge they have spent fortunes in money and years in ex- perience. An indirect effect of modern advertising is the increasing interest taken in it by the public. Adver- tising becomes more and more effective just as more and more people become interested in it, — ^in the ad- vertising itself, that is, as well as in the articles ad- vertised. This awakened state of mind, which is making it both harder and easier to succeed to-day, is shown in the increasing circulation of trade papers devoted to advertising, in the eagerness with which articles on advertising in popular publications are read, in the appearance of a greater number of books about advertising, and in the rapid multiplication of correspondence schools devoted wholly or in part to advertising. CHAPTEK II A BEIEF JIISTOKY OF ADVEETISISTG It would be njore interesting than profitable to the purpose of this book to give a history of adver- tising. The entire narrative from the first spoken announcement down to within the last fifty years, or even later, would be of no value to the advertising man of to-day. Advertising, as we understand it, is a development of the past half century, and advertis- ing in that sense is the subject for discussion in this book. Somewhere about the middle of the century, as newspapers began to multiply, several far-sighted men began to appreciate the immense selling power that lay in printed advertising in the newspapers. These men were in most cases makers of patent med- icines. The beginning of modern advertising is in fact synonymous with the beginning of patent-medi- cine advertising. The reason for this was that pro- prietary remedies and articles of that kind required advertising, or were supposed to require it, more fully than other articles of trade. With a proprietary remedy advertising was everything, while other goods, such as foods and clothing, could be sold with- out it. Great success in advertising was achieved by the manufacturers of these proprietary remedies. After 14 MODERN ADVERTISING the close of the civil war, -when such articles began to be pushed, a number of them became household words. Every one will recall Hostetter's Bitters, Jayne's Expectorant, Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup and St. Jacob's Oil. Some of these articles are still sold, but they are not to-day prominent in adver- tising. The advertising was not done as intelligently then as it is now. It was easier to make a success by means of ordinarily good advertising. Many of these early advertisers were, however, thorough, brave and pa- tient, and got results which are envied to-day. It is said that up to the time of the civil war the largest single advertisement ever given to a newspaper by any one house came from E. & T. Fairbank Com- pany, and advertised platform scales. It appeared in the New York Tribune and cost $3,000. That was a tremendous amount of money for advertising in those days. Eastman's Business College was another early advertiser. It was the first business college to use the newspapers. It is said of a then famous tea and coffee importer that he built up in 1870 by ad- vertising a coffee business which amounted to 200,- 000 pounds a day. The pioneer advertiser had to do his work largely without the help that is furnished to-day. There were a few agencies, of which the oldest and best known was that of George P. Rowell & Co. It was the first to secure rate cards from newspapers, and complete lists of papers for covering a given terri- tory, the first to estimate the cost of space, and to render the service which is given to-day by the most ordinary agencies. All the modem equipment for A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 15 conducting a large advertising campaign was then wanting. Advertising was much of a mystery. The commissions of the agent were large, perhaps as much as 50 per cent, of the cost of space. Many interesting stories are told of those early days. One of the best known relates to Robert Bon- ner, publisher of the New York Ledger, which, after many vicissitudes, has now passed out of the control of the Bonner family. When James Gordon Ben- nett, the elder, was editor of the Herald, Mr. Bonner was struggling to build up his Ledger, and decided to try a little advertising. He wrote an announcement consisting of eight words, " Read Mrs. South worth's New Story in the Ledger," and sent it to the Herald marked for " one line." Mr. Bonner's handwriting was so bad that the words were read in the Herald office as " one page." Accordingly the line was set up and repeated so as to occupy an entire page. Mr. Bonner was thunderstruck the next morning. He had not to his name money enough in the bank to pay the bill. He rushed excitedly over to the -herald office, but was too late to do any good. ^ ' ^ In a short time the results of the page announce- ment began to be felt. Orders for the Ledger poured in until the entire edition was exhausted and another one was printed. The success of the Ledger was then established. Ever after that time Mr. Bonner was an ardent believer in advertising and a liberal purchaser of space. There was published within a few years, in Fame, a small advertising paper edited by Artemas Ward, advertising manager of Sapolio, a contribution by John Manning, giving his reminiscences of the ad- 3 16 MODERN ADVERTISING vertising world of his day, beginning a little before the war. Here are some passages from it: " I remember Mr. V. B. Palmer only as calling at the Tribune office and getting the Tribune. In Mr. Palmer's time the business was, of course, very simple. In the New York Business Directory of 1850 I find a card from Mr. V. B. Palmer, ' author- ized agent for receiving advertisements for all the leading newspapers of the country.' I find another card of George W. Pratt, advertising agent, who also solicits business, promising a faithful performance of all contracts made by him. In looking up the facts of Mr. Palmer's agency, I note that he seemed con- scious of the logical weakness of the agency element in the business, and aimed at the very first to secure and perfect a system that would monopolize the en- tire trade, if he could get the cooperation of pub- lishers. He opened offices in Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. He saw that a multiplicity of agents in the same trade, and, moreover, in a calling which required but little capital with which to start, would soon involve very great competition, with the natural result of very small profits. This is all the legacy Mr. Palmer left of the business. Mr. Pettingill, who was a clerk and solicitor for Mr. Palmer, describes him as follows: " ' He was a short, thick-set gentleman of good address, genial and pleasant in manner, and had a great command of language, full of wise saws and modem instances. He was a capital story-teller, wore gold spectacles and carried a gold-headed cane, and was a first-class canvasser. He had more self-posses- sion and assurance than any man I ever knew. He A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 17 would come to the ofSce at 9 o'clock a. m.^ look over the daily papers for new advertisements, which I would cut out and make a list of for calling on. At 10 o'clock he would sally out, calling on the most important advertisers first. He would walk into the counting-room of merchants, calling for the principal and announce himself and hand his card with a pleas- ing address, and with as much assurance as if he were a customer who was about to purchase a large bill of goods. If he found the merchant busy, he would politely excuse himself and inquire when he could have the pleasure of seeing him again, and, if possible, would make an appointment for that or the succeed- ing day. Shaking hands and tipping his hat grace- fully, he would leave, but he was always sure of meet- ing his appointments. " ' If he found the party he was calling on willing to listen, he would introduce me, and make a well- considered statement of the benefits of advertising in general, and to the party he was addressing in par- ticular. He would mention parties who had made fortunes by the use of judicious advertising. He would show how he (the merchant) could easily double his business and profits by a like course. He would point out the places where he should advertise, and how he should do it; he would generally enforce his words by some well-told stories, and get all parties into good humor and laughing heartily. He would end up by asking if he might be permitted to make out an estimate for the merchant's advertisement. He would say he would charge nothing for his esti- mate or setting up of his advertisement. The adver- tiser would be under no obligation to give him an 18 MODERN ADVERTISING order if he did not like it, etc. I carried a list of the towns where newspapers were printed, and I checked off such towns as he wanted, and we recommended, and I would then go to the office and prepare the estimate. The next day, at the furthest, I would bring it to the advertiser, and we generally concluded a contract when we made out an estimate. This is a specimen of our daily efforts while Mr. Palmer re- mained in Boston. " ' Mr. Palmer claimed to be the sole and exclu- sive agent of the papers he acted for, and he insisted that they should so state at the head of their editorial columns, which many of them did. As their agent he charged them for the postage-stamps used and the losses made by advertisers' failures and the non-col- lection of bills. This was deducted from the bills rendered by the papers. It sometimes caused hard feeling among the publishers, but he usually had his way. He would rarely pay any bill until he had col- lected from the advertiser.' " I have given this sketch because it describes at length the desired attainments of the successful ad- vertising agent; and, as we are told that old wolves train their young to accompany them in searching for prey, so we see at once under what an admirable tutor Mr. Pettingill received his first lessons. The date of Mr. Palmer's death I don't find, but he became vio- lently insane, and Mr. Greeley hired a man to take care of him. Mr. W. W. Sharpe, whom I remember as an errand-boy for Mr. Palmer, and who afterward acquired a small interest in the business, can not re- call the date of Mr. Palmer's death or the last events in his life; but Mr. Pettingill's statement leaves no A BRIEF HISTORY OP ADVERTISING 19 doubt but he was one of the ablest men that ever em- barked in the business. " "Without question the name of Mr. S. M. Pet- tingill is the most conspicuous, and by far the best and most favorably known, name that has been con- nected with the advertising agency business in the United States. Mr. Pettingill cultivated the virtues that lead to success. He neither drank alcoholic stimulants nor smoked cigars. In Reminiscences of the Advertising Business, he writes: ' Seeing Mr. (V. B.) Palmer's advertisement in the Boston Atlas for a clerk and general canvasser, I applied and se- cured the situation.' The duties are described in de- tail and are printed in the preceding notice of Mr. Palmer. ' I worked for Mr. Palmer from January, 1848, to January, 1849. Near the end of the year I wrote him (Mr. Palmer) that I had received an offer of partnership from my brother in the Bridgeport (Conn.) Standard and job office, and that I believed it to be my interest to accept it. He (Mr. Palmer) wrote me two letters in reply, urging me to remain with him and agreeing to increase my salary from year to year, as I should make myself useful and valuable to him. After considering carefully the whole situation, I decided to leave, and did so at the end of my engagement.' Instead of going into part- nership at Bridgeport with his brother, we find him renting an office in Boston on the 8th day of Febru- ary, 1849. He seems to have liberally followed Mr. Palmer's methods and adopted even his forms and style in every instance. "After starting in business, he says: 'I sent a circular to the publishers of newspapers throughout 20 MODERN ADVERTISING the country, stating what I proposed to do, asking for the agency of their papers in Boston and their rates for advertising, telling them that I should hold my- self responsible for all the orders I should send them, and that their bills would be paid promptly, whether I collected or not. I gave several good recommenda- tions and references. I received a large number of letters from publishers appointing me as their Boston agent, and in many instances printing a notice of my agency at the top of their editorial columns and send- ing their newspapers regularly to me. I then adver- tised in the principal newspapers that I had been ap- pointed the agent of the principal newspapers throughout the country, and was prepared to attend to those advertising in the best manner at the lowest rates, and solicited their business. When Mr. Palm- er found I had started a rival agency in Boston, he was very wroth and charged me with deceiving him about going into partnership with my brother, of availing myself of his forms and manner of doing business and using his list of newspapers.' " Mr. Palmer, it seems, sent out a circular to the newspapers reminding them of his exclusive author- ity as their authorized agent, that Mr. Pettingill was trespassing on his rights. For such in truth and law he was, certainly to all who formerly recognized Mr. Palmer as their authorized agent. Mr. Pettingill writes of Mr. Palmer's circular: ' This circular letter proved to be a good advertisement for me. The pub- lishers wrote me by the hundreds, giving me encour- agement, and appointing me their agent in Boston, and gave me many good notices in their editorial col- umns. Several published Mr. Palmer's circular and A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 21 commented on it unfavorably, as an unwarranted at- tempt to prevent legitimate competition.' " At the time here referred to, publishers had very crude notions of an advertising agency, and the publishers were then and are now very varying in their advertising rates. Extensive advertisers are favored and are frequently furnished with lower prices than the most favored advertising agency. ' Soon after I began,' writes Mr. Pettingill, ' Mr. George W. Sim- mons, the celebrated clothing dealer of Oak Hall, Boston, put his advertising into my hands. I agreed to prepare and insert daily a reading notice in each of the ten or twelve daily papers in Boston, and no two should be alike. This was an easy task at first, but after several months it became a grind; for va- riety I fell into rhyme, and in some instances where the verses were more pretentious they were signed as coming from " Prof. Littlefellow," or " Prof. Shortfellow." The Boston Post published one of these screeds by mistake, or otherwise, as by Prof. Longfellow. This excited the ire of the famous poet of that name, and he had his attorney send Mr. Sim- mons a letter complaining of the use of his name, and he requested that Mr. Simmons should discontinue even the use of the name of Littlefellow or Short- fellow, it being distasteful to him, which Mr. Sim- mons agreed to do.' " In 1852 Mr. Pettingill came to New York and founded the honored firm of S. M. Pettingill & Co. He says, ' I was exceedingly pleased and gratified on receiving, soon after I began in New York, a written testimonial and indorsement, handsomely engrossed, signed by about thirty of the most prominent business 22 MODERN ADVERTISING firms in Boston, for whom I had done advertising, ex- pressing their confidence in me as a man and their satisfaction as to the manner and results of the adver- tising that they had done through my agency, and recommending me and my agency to the confidence and support of the merchants of New York.' " The New York Business Directory of 1850 prints the name of a Mr. Pratt as an advertising agent. I find no trace of him as an advertising agent, but I find the name of a Mr. Pratt referred to as the publisher of the Merchant's Ledger, an advertising enterprise, which was spoken of as started by an ex- merchant, who conceived the idea of making a paper that would interest country merchants, and derives all its interest from the fact that it was bought by Mr. Robert Bonner in 1851. Mr. Bonner owned a small printing-office, in which he set up the type of the Ledger and of one or two other small papers. Mr. Pettingill states that he started a monthly publication in 1851, called Pettingill's Reporter, containing a list of the newspapers published in the United States and Canada, and that one number of it was published in Mr. Bonner's office. Mr. Pettingill states that Mr. Bonner was a printer on the New York Herald orig- inally, while a better authority states that he worked on the Hartford Courant, and as proof-reader on the Evening Mirror. It appears, too, that Mr. Bonner was ambitious as an inventor, and invented a printing- press which he thought would supersede Hoe's. " ' In the fall of 1854,' writes Mr. Pettingill, ' Mr. Bonner came into the office with advertisements in type. It was an announcement that the Merchant's Ledger would hereafter be changed to the New York A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 23 Ledger, and be hereafter a literary family journal of high character, that Fanny Fern's new story would be contributed to the first number.' A good deal better informed writer states the facts as follows: ' Mr. Bon- ner, after an effort at inventing, did not like to lose the weekly job of setting the type of the Ledger, and bought it. Having secured the paper he scarcely knew what to do with it. He gradually dropped the mercantile features and substituted family reading. In 1853 he engaged Mrs. Sigoumey to write for his paper, and she continued to be a contributor till the day of her death. Two years later, in 1855, he made arrangements with Fanny Fern to write for it, and advertised it at $100 a column.' Mr. Pettingill may be correct as to the amount paid, but as to dates and style of advertising he is in error, and it may be here well to state that Mr. Bonner did a good deal of his advertising direct, and in no instance has he ever been known to consult any advertising agency as to copy or style of display. Mr. Bonner was the founder of the sensational style of advertising in New York, although it was very old in England, and is ridiculed by Sheridan in The Critic. Mr. Bonner spent as high as $27,000 in one week advertising, I think, Edward Everett writing for the Ledger. Mr. Pettingill says: ' I declined to attend to the advertising of any other party who imitated his style.' Throughout this crit- icism it is plain that Mr. Pettingill had some kind of a philosophy of life, for he concludes his reference to Mr. Bonner by saying that he is a remarkable in- stance of what a poor boy, in this country, by unaided efforts and with indomitable will, can accomplish, if he is guided by strict moral principles. 24 MODERN ADVERTISING • " The next new venture we find Mr. Pettingill engaged in was in imitating another scheme of Mr. Palmer's in the form of a New York City Business Directory of small cards with name and address. ' After opening my advertising agency,' he says, ' I roomed for a time at the Collamore House, Tammany Hotel, the present Sun Building, and Clinton Hotel, and spent my evenings writing at my office. Soon I became weary of having no home and became at- tracted by the preaching of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in Brooklyn. I often went to hear him, and at the renting of pews in January, 1853, 1 introduced myself to him as the son of Rev. Amos Pettingill, who was settled in the ministry at Litchfield, Conn., at the time his father was in another part of the same town. He received me very cordially, making many inquiries about my brother and sisters, saying he re- membered Parson Pettingill very well, that his father had often exchanged pulpits, that they were old friends and loved each other as David and Jona- than did of old. He inquired what I was doing here and I told him, and said I would like to find a good boarding-place near his church.' Mr. Pettingill found what he wanted, and his next plan was for establish- ing an American agency in London which should rep- resent the American press, file newspapers from every State in the Union and Canada, furnish adver- tising and correspondence, attend to the wants and promote the interests of publishers, and make it the home of all Americans visiting abroad. ' I corre- sponded in regard to establishing such an institu- tion with, among others, Mr. P. T. Bamum, who was then in London, who approved of the plan and agreed A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 25 to take the management of it if I would guarantee him a salary of $1,000 a year. I reluctantly aban- doned the enterprise.' We come again to a few of his observations — these happenings date to 1856. " ' Mr. P. T. Barnum understands the true philos- ophy and art of advertising as well as any living man. His arrangements for the Jenny Lind concerts in this country were masterpieces of good management, tact and good sense, and showed his thorough knowl- edge of human nature. He is a very magnetic man, and you feel that you must grant everything he asks because of his fair and liberal dealing.' " Previous to the war I find Mr. Pettingill writ- ing as though he alone conducted the business and constituted the firm. ' During the war,' he says, * our agency had contracts for advertising from the Central Pacific Kailroad Company.' In 1866, he writes again, ' I contracted for advertising in the lead- ing newspapers, etc' "When he made a partnership with Mr. James H. Bates does not appear from his Reminiscences. In 1870 I find the firm name, in connection with Messrs. George P. Rowell & Co., endeavoring to secure the consent of publishers to recognize these two firms as their exclusive and sole agents in New York, and also asking that such evi- dence of a^ithority be published at the head of edito- rial columns or other equally prominent space, as fol- lows: ' George P. Eowell & Co., 40 Park Eow, N". Y., S. M. Pettingill & Co., 37 Park Row, IST. Y., are the sole agents for (mention name of paper) in that city, and are authorized to contract for inserting advertise- ments for us at our lowest cash rates. Advertisers in that city are requested to leave their favors with 26 MODERN ADVERTISING either of the above houses.' Any one who reads this request will notice its resemblance to Mr. Palmer's original idea. In adopting Mr. Palmer's printed forms without consent, and in the controversy grow- ing out of it, Mr. Pettingill's plea was that Mr. Palm- er's act was an ' unwarranted attempt to prevent legitimate competition. They (the publishers) as- serted that I had as good a right to conduct an adver- tising agency as he had.' Mr. Pettingill must have been twenty-five years old when he left the employ- ment of Mr. Palmer. " All the latter events of Mr. Pettingill's business life are familiar to the advertising public. Some of the large enterprises undertaken by the firm were well done, Mr. Bates being a gentleman of education, of wide reading, and a man fully capable of taking a large view of matters and methodizing and perfect- ing a business system for any line of commercial work. In criticizing Mr. Pettingill all of my facts and dates are from first sources, and I, moreover, feel sat- isfied that the Reminiscences were written when Mr. Pettingill wore rose-colored spectacles. Mr. Pettin- gill was as vain as a peacock, and easily flattered, en- tirely destitute of imagination, and had no real per- ception of the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, and the writings and teachings of St. Paul were as much out of his reach as if they had never been trans- lated." From these reminiscences it will be seen that in the early days of advertising agencies the magazine was of little consequence. To-day the magazine is the strongest medium we have, or at least is as strong and important as the newspapers. "We read in the A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 27 early days about advertising done in behalf of tbe Ledger, but nothing at all about the advertising done in it. Some of the magazines that were important in 1850 are still alive and important to-day and are now valuable advertising mediums. Again, there is the Saturday Evening Post, which has been published continuously for one hundred and seventy-six years, but in all its history it never became a serious adver- tising medium until bought by Mr. Curtis. The growth and development of the magazine are coinci- dent with a large part of the history of advertising during the last ten years. Some of the early successes made by advertisers are interesting as the foundations of businesses that are to-day flourishing. Before the days of the tobacco and cigar trusts, the name of Pierre Lorillard was one of the best known in the tobacco field. The elder Lorillard was a snuff manufacturer, and his old mill is still an object of interest on the banks of the Bronx, in Bronx Park. He was a warm believer in advertis- ing, and advertising was kept up by his house until the various companies were absorbed by combina- tions. It is said that he built up a fortune of $20,- 000,000, a great estate for those days, by making and advertising tobacco and snuff. In 1868 this house had gross yearly sales of from four to five million dollars. Some of the older commercial houses have been constant advertisers from the earliest day. Among these is Enoch Morgan's Sons, who manufacture Sapolio. This business was started thirty years ago, and for thirty years has been advertising continuously. At the start an appropriation of $30,000 per year 28 MODERN ADVERTISING seemed large. To-day the same firm is spending $1,000 a day. It is interesting that the same adver- tising manager has been employed by this house con- tinuously throughout the entire thirty years, and that he is to-day one of the well-known advertising men. He is a director in the firm of Enoch Morgan's Sons, is the owner of Fame, an advertising newspaper, and is quite deeply interested in a number of other proj- ects, all of which are liberally advertised. The Sapolio advertising has been responsible for a large number of innovations. The proverbs about it which used to appear in country newspapers and street-car cards were interesting novelties. This was probably the beginning of the introduction into ad- vertising matter of something more than a bare state- ment of facts about the goods. Later Sapolio was re- sponsible for the now famous Spotless Town series of verses which were probably the first successful ad- vertising jingles. These jingles had great popularity, which was partly because they had great publicity. They were quoted everywhere. They have been used as the basis for political cartoons in newspapers. They were kept running persistently in street-car cards for years until all people able to read were familiar with them. The success of the Spotless Town verses led to the inauguration of ideas of this kind which would take advantage of a national trait and peculiarity — the taking up of an idea and passing it on. Such col- lateral advertising is what most large advertisers now aim to secure. It is very valuable, but hard to ob- tain. It has been secured in many ways, and has resulted not only in jingles, but in catch phrases which A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 29 have almost become parts of the language. For in- stance, a certain hook and eye was advertised by means of clever jingles and the phrase, " See that Hump? " until " See that Hump? " came to have al- most the significance of some colloquial or slang phrase. A large manufacturer of amateur cameras used in all his advertising the catch phrase, " You press the button, and we do the rest," which became famous everywhere. Improvements in camera con- struction since then have limited the descriptive pow- ers of this phrase and curtailed its circulation. Following these and other successes, for such they were, came the introduction of a single character figure or character figures in advertising, who ap- peared regularly and spoke about the advertised article. For instance, the manufacturers of a ginger- snap made it known by means of one or two clowns, figures of whom appeared in all the advertising. The same idea better carried out appeared in Sunny Jim. The manufacturer of a breakfast food purchased some doggerel from a young girl which described the transformation of a certain mythical Jim Dumps into Sunny Jim by eating the food in question. A girl chum of the writer drew a very grotesque cartoon showing Jim Dumps before and after taking the food. The advertising manager of the food company per- ceived in this the possibility of a series of such jingles, had the series written and widely circulated. The original set comprised thirteen jingles which ap- peared in 45,000 street-cars in America. The same illustrated jingles were used in newspapers until they had attained publicity in 12,500 papers. Posters and painted signs based upon the same idea were used 30 MODERN ADVERTISING freely. The advertising was then carried into Eng- land and other countries. Undoubtedly no char- acter created by advertising is so widely known as Sunny Jim. He has become a large part of the lan- guage reminding us of noted characters in fiction and history. He is perhaps better known in many homes than Wilkins Micawber, Sancho Panza or Henry VIII. The tremendous power of persistent advertising to carry an idea of any kind into the minds of the people and stamp it there is amazing. Sunny Jim" in many homes is the pet name for one of the children. It has been used as the basis of thousands of news- paper cartoons; very many plays have allusions to him and his transformation; a noted chief justice of England pointed his charge from the bench by allu- sion to this same character, and a certain noted Lon- don divine preached a sermon from this text. To ac- complish this required in the space of about two years nearly a million dollars. These facts would not mean success, except that the food in question has outsold all its competitors. The real history of modern advertising began with an appreciation on the part of great manufac- turers of advertising as the most important selling force they could employ. This has been shown no- tably by the fact that the manufacturers of staples are rapidly taking to it. Most of the goods bought in this country are sold through retail stores. The theory of the manu- facturer is to make his goods known to the public who purchase at these stores by means of a trade-mark or name, or both. The particular merits of his goods A BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING 31 are fully described in the advertisements in maga- zines, newspapers and elsewhere, and in this way his goods will be selected as against others unidentified on the shelves of the dealer. Here lies the greatest field for advertising. It is so great that its possibili- ties have hardly yet been touched. It has been sug- gested that great combinations of capital should do away with advertising as they are doing away with competition. Some of the largest users of advertis- ing space, however, are the combinations known as trusts. Advertising has developed three distinct profes- sions. They are the advertising expert, the adver- tising manager and the advertising solicitor. The expert is the professional man in his own office, who acts as adviser and generally as agent for clients. His relations to the man who has a product to sell by advertising are similar to those of a lawyer, doctor or architect to clients. He is an adviser and his experience in managing advertising campaigns is purchased by the would-be advertiser. The advertising manager is an advertising expert employed exclusively by one house. Nearly all con- cerns whose annual expenditure amounts to $50,000 or over, are inclined to employ men to manage the advertising. In this case the advertising man acts in the capacity of advertising adviser. The only sense in which he can not act as the outside advertising man is in placing advertising, although in placing news- paper advertising, making contracts for billboards and street-car cards, he is able to act as well, or nearly as well, as the outside man. Magazines and the better sort of newspapers re- 4 32 MODERN ADVERTISING quire that an advertising agent shall be recognized, and as a rule decline to recognize a regular employee of the house. This makes it necessary for the busi- ness of a house which employs an advertising man to be placed through an agency. Many attempts are made by houses who give out a large amount of adver- tising to form agencies of their own and get all the commissions. The third profession is that of the solicitor. He is the man who secures advertising for a publication. In a large sense he is a creator of business. He makes a study of commercial conditions. He discovers new business that can be advertised and outlines plans. He, of course, represents his publication, but at the same time he creates business for other publications. This work is also performed by the better class of ad- vertising agents, and in ideal conditions the solicitors of the leading publications and the managers of agen- cies of the class which develop advertising work in entire harmony. CHAPTEK III THE CHANNELS OF TEADE Geneeal advertising and the methods by which goods are distributed to the consumer are so closely interwoven that some description of the channels of trade seems necessary here. There are only two ways by which goods can be sold to the consumer, one through the retail stores, the other directly by the manufacturer, or some one representing him through correspondence, the goods being delivered by mail, express or freight. The latter method, as far as it relates to advertising, is known as mail-order business, and will be treated separately. For goods whose ultimate destination is the retail store there is, between the manufacturer and the re- tailer, a chain of commission, wholesale and jobbing houses and a long line of traveling salesmen. In some lines the output of an entire factory is taken by one commission house, or perhaps by a group of them, these commission houses in turn dealing with the buyers for the jobbing and wholesale houses. The goods, thus assembled in the jobbing houses by buyers in various lines, are then carried in sample by travel- ing salesmen to the retail stores. There are about eleven different lines of business of sufficient impor- tance to be considered each as a branch of trade by itself. They are classified according as the goods are 34 MODERN ADVERTISING distributed among retail stores in the average town and are as follows: Dry-goods, Hardware, Groceries, MUlinery, Clothing, Men's furnishings, Boots and shoes, Stationery and books. Drugs, Harness and carriages, Jewelry. Su'h a classification is, however, purely arbitrary, being neither scientific nor official. Articles of trade are thus divided as a matter of convenience. The public expects to buy certain things at dry-goods stores and certain others at drug-stores, although fre- quently there is no reason why they should be sold at the one store any more than at the other. The products of many widely different factories and mills are assembled in wholesale dry-goods houses because all these things are sold in a retail dry-goods store. Often a manufacturer may make articles adapted both to grocery and drug stores, and in this case his goods will be carried by grocery jobbers and by drug jobbers. There is no fixed custom as to the way in which goods are distributed among retail stores. It is purely a matter of custom and varies in different localities. In the great department stores these lines are being more and more broken up, and the eleven different lines may all be found assembled there under a single roof. For several reasons the dry-goods store may be taken as an example of modem merchandising. To begin with, it is the largest of the eleven lines just mentioned — the line in and for which the best adver- tising has been done, both wholesale and retail. The THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 35 various things sold in dry-goods stores have been ad- vertised by the manufacturer to the consumer, by the manufacturer to the retailer, and by the retailer to the consvimer. The retailer buys his goods of drum- mers, representing wholesale houses. This wholesale stock is made up of foreign goods bought from im- porters, and domestic goods bought either direct from the manufacturer or from commission merchants. Some wholesale hoiises buy directly from thejrmanu- facturer and take his entire output. Some also send buyers abroad to buy imported goods directly of the manufacturer or of foreign commission merchants. The growth of department stores has made them a power in the buying field. Many now buy direct \ from both foreign and domestic sources, ignoring the iKiporter, commission man and wholesaler. The fa- cilities offered for buying cheaply on a large scale for c^sh have raised up wholesale houses from many re- tail stores in the larger cities. The retail dry-goods store buys goods in two ways — through its own department buyers, who go to the markets in this country and abroad, and from travel- ing salesmen representing importers, manufacturers, wholesalers or jobbers. Stores which are able regu- larly to send buyers even to the local metropolitan market are few. The greater number are limited to one visit to ISTew York or Chicago a season by the proprietor, the remainder of the stock being bought from traveling men. The traveling man is to the dealer almost his only source of supply. The travel- ing man thus comes to own and control the trade of many retailers, and this trade he can transfer to an- other house should he enter into a new connection. 36 MODERN ADVERTISING Modern advertising, however, is breaking down this relation. It is bringing the manufacturer closer to the dealer, thus making each independent of the traveling man. While this is decreasing the travel- ing man's ability to transfer a great volume of busi- ness from one house to another, it really adds a great deal to his selling power, for he is backed up by the additional selling power that advertising gives. Another element which has grown up in the modern business world is the ownership of local stores by large manufacturing houses. A large manufac- turer, confining his ability to a single line of low- priced shoes, for instance, has established his own stores all over the United States, in which he sells nothing but his own men's shoes at $3.50. As these stores were multiplied the manufacturer extended his advertising to mediums circulating all over the coun- try, and giving not only the name of his shoe but his local stores. The plan was so successful when begun that competitors adopted it until now there are in every large city several shoe-stores, each owned by the manufacturer of the shoes sold in them, and which sell only those shoes. Sometimes manufac- turers practically furnish the capital for a retailer to start or remain in business. This secures the retail- er's trade, and amounts to ownership by the manufac- turer. In each of the retail industries there has been an interesting development in the past ten years, point- ing to the gradual transformation of that particular line of business under the influence of advertising. In every case advertising has had an inspiring and probably beneficial effect. Better goods are made THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 37 to-day than were made ten years ago, partly as a re- sult of the increasing prosperity of the country and, therefore, the increasing ability of the public to pay for better goods, but more especially as a result of advertising. Competition has been more open. The advertiser has realized that in order to have some- thing to say, he must make goods Vfiih qualities that can be talked about. Competition shows itself in the statement made in print, but the stories are worthless as advertising unless backed up by superior work in the factory. As an instance of the way in which a new article may become an important part of the stock of a store, take so simple a thing as skirt binding. An intelli- gent clerk in a small Western store was impressed by the fact that he had just sold a strip of bias velveteen from the bolt to a customer who wished to trim the edge of her dress. He recalled that he had made a number of sales for this same purpose. It struck him that if there was that much demand for a skirt bind- ing in one small town, there must be a considerable demand for it all over the country. Acting upon this idea he started a business of manufacturing skirt binding of bias velveteen and other materials suitable for the purpose. As the business grew, advertising became necessary. The advertising first took the form of direct statements to the trade through trade papers and of matter aiming to induce merchants to place the new skirt binding in stock. Later adverti- sing in women's publications and other magazines called the attention of dressmakers and of women who did their own dressmaking to a ready-made skirt bind- ing. In this way women were induced to ask for the 38 MODERN ADVERTISING skirt binding by name until that particular article became a staple in every dry-goods store in the Uni- ted States. The annual expenditure for advertising purposes has been considerably over $100,000. The same method has been repeated with differ- ent braids for trimming, with corsets, with boning for stiffening waists, with different grades of muslin and other fabrics, with goods made up into suits and skirts, until perhaps one-half the stock of the average retail dry-goods store is known by name to the women who shop there, because each article has been adver- tised by the maker. Some of these articles have be- come standard. The name of the maker in connec- tion with the article gives it a value of its own. Other manufacturers may make an article equally good, but the acquaintance of the purchaser with its name and quality is lacking. The retail de- partment store is the most enterprising of modern ad- vertisers. Hence these well-known articles may ap- pear again by name in the retail advertising, thus strengthening the impression already created by the manufacturer through his general advertising. Similar changes have been going on in other lines. Probably the second most interesting development is the transformation of the ready-made clothing busi- ness. The way in which a definite idea in clothing manufacture, aided by advertising, has finally domi- nated the entire industry makes an interesting story. Twelve years ago a leading wholesaler in the West was operating a chain of stores. He worked inde- pendently; that is, he was not controlled by any manufacturer and bought in the open market from nearly all the leading manufacturers, and in the THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 39 course of his business became acquainted with their methods. At that time clothing was made to fit men of average shape. When a customer whose figure was not normal came into the store the salesmen had to resort to many little tricks of the trade in order to induce the man to believe that he was being fitted. Realizing this situation, and finding it impossible to secure odd sizes from any manufacturer, the West- ern man came to the belief that there must be in the whole United States a large market for goods that would fit men who were short and fat, or tall and thin, or in any way different from the normal shape. He sold out his chain of retail stores and started a manufacturing plant in Chicago, designating his clothing, by a trade-mark and name. He did not manufacture " regulars " at all, but tried to make a business of odd sizes. The idea took root at once, so that the man who made the first trip as a salesman in person to open the business, was able to start twenty-eight accounts in thirty-two days. Ifaturally his orders were smaller than they would have been if he had carried a full line, in the proportion of about one in ten, so that a retailer, whose stock or- dinarily amounted to about $10,000 a year, would give him an order for $1,000 worth of the odd sizes. The man started out vsdth the idea that the propor- tion of irregular-sized men was comparatively small. In time, however, he discovered, much to his sur- prise, that about 50 per cent of the men who regu- larly buy ready-made clothing depart radically from the standard scale of sizes. A number of causes prevented a large growth of his business at that time. The panic years followed 40 MODERN ADVERTISING his first success. Tlie bottom dropped out of the mar- ket and there was a demand for cheap goods only. Another thing worked against his plan. The retailer usually would not dispose of the odd-sized goods when the season was in full swing, but would hold them over indefinitely and would never lower the price. A higher price in proportion to the cost of the goods was charged than for regular goods, on the theory that if a man was hard to fit he ought to pay a better price for clothes that would fit. He ought also not to be particular as to whether his clothes were this year's cut or last year's. No matter how old the clothing got, it was never marked down in price. Then again, as the larger proportion of the stock was " regulars," the dealer naturally bent every energy to selling the " regulars " in preference to showing the special goods, because he regarded the latter as practically staple articles. Large clothing men in department stores in the cities positively refuse to sell trade-marked- clothing no matter from whom it comes, and no amount of pressure can be brought to bear on them to induce them to sell and to advertise any line of goods so marked, a possible exception being the Stetson hat. This feeling is spreading to the smaller towns, so that it is now effective even in towns of 100,000 inhab- itants. The large manufacturing clothiers who ad- vertise must therefore do 75 per cent of their busi- ness in towns of under 100,000 population. In doing business in the small towns, competition is so keen that brewery methods have been adopted. Three or four leading manufacturers combine with large capital. Where they can not sell their goods THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 41 by ordinary methods, they buy up the retailer, put capital into his business and control his store. When they do not do this, they make the retailer feel under an obligation to them by giving long credits. If the retailer has a bad year, or if he has his money tied up in some other venture, and finds it hard to meet his bill on the date specified, they carry him over one or even two seasons. The retailer therefore feels that the manufacturer is his friend, and buys all his goods of the combination. The odd-size clothing idea did not attract the very •seriovis attention of these big manufacturers during the first year, but its success at the end of that year was so pronounced that it practically forced the big men to make odd sizes also. They held off a long ■while because it was a radical step to take, and they felt that their business was on a smooth, easy basis, which they did not like to disturb. The salesmen of the big houses, in calling on cus- tomers for the year's orders, would find that about one-tenth of the stock was the special manufacturer's odd sizes. Then they would bend all their energies to convincing the retailer that their own house made similar clothes. What, then, was the use of dividing the bill ? Why not let one house supply it all ? For various reasons this course was pretty generally fol- lowed. As a consequence the original manufacturer's business fell off, but this does not mean that it was not successful, for he continued to sell a large amount of goods. His business, of course, did not grow to the proportions anticipated, but his idea has practically transformed the wholesale clothing business. Ready- made clothing has been steadily approaching the 42 MODERN ADVERTISING standard of the best tailors, and long ago distanced the work of many small tailors. Advertising has made this possible. The wholesale clothing business has outgrown one of the most terrible aspects of modem manufacturing — the sweatshop system. All ready-made clothing was once made under conditions which were both unsanitary and inhu- mane. The enlightened clothing- manufacturers who were the first to realize the importance of popu- lar approval for their business, began both to advertise and to im- prove manufacturing conditions at the same time. To-day the clothing of a dozen leading manu- facturers, advertised in magazines that go into the best homes, is made under sanitary conditions, in factories that are models of convenience and cleanliness. As the conditions under which the clothing was made were bet- tered, the clothing itself was improved. As ready-made clothing became better, the ad- vertising of it was increased. There is as much dif- ference in the clothing advertisement of to-day and what did duty for an advertisement a decade ago as there is between the clothing itself now and then. The illustrations in those days were crude, stiff and wooden. The clothes had no style ; the figure no life. A CLOTHING CUT MADE ONLY TWELVE YEARS AGO. THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 43 To-day artists have been paid as much as $250 for a single drawing to illustrate a clothing announcement, and the best writers of advertisements have been en- gaged. To this combination has been added every- thing that the engraver and printer can give. This is not only done for the magazine advertisements, but drawings are made and supplied to the retailer for the newspapers. Clothing trade papers contain fine and costly " inserts," and the style-books of many manufacturers of clothing have become examples of the best commercial designing and printing. If we compare an old clothing cut with the Leyendecker design (page 46), we may see one of the greatest strides that skill in advertising has made. The direct object to be considered by the general advertiser is influence on the retailer. It depends upon the retailer's good-will whether the advertising done by the manufacturer shall bring the desired re- sults. In general figures the number of retail stores confined to each of the eleven industries in the United States is as follows: Dry -goods 25,000 Groceries 85,000 Clothing 16,000 Boots and shoes 20,000 Drugs 40,000 Jewelry 15,000 Hardware 32,000 Millinery 10,000 Men's furnishings 20,000 Stationery and books. . . 10,000 Harness and carriages. . . 32,000 In connection with these figures, it should be borne in mind that there are about 170,000 general stores which sell some things in all lines. Many lines are combined in the department stores. Every line of goods here mentioned under the heading of a sep- arate retail business may be sold in one store. Again 44 MODERN ADVERTISING many othenvise separate lines of goods are combined. Men's furnishing goods for example are sold at retail clothing stores. Silverware is sold in jewelry stores. These figures are merely suggestive as giving some idea of the immense dis- tributing machinery at the disposal of the adver- tiser intelligent enough to use it rightly. The work of modern adver- tising has developed these stores. An intelli- gent manufacturer sup- plies them with adver- tising matter which they can use in their own re- tail announcements in the local papers, or can send out in the form of printed matter to cus- tomers. This means an increase of good adver- tising in a small retail business and in small towns. Modern advertising is eliminating the middle- man. It is bringing the manufacturer in closer contact with his real customer. It has formed a trian- gle — the manufacturer, the dealer and the consumer — the three sides being mutually interdependent. Along the manufacturer-dealer side there used to be a string AN EXAMPLE OF EARLY CLOTH- ING DESIGNING. THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 45 of commission men, jobbers and drummers. Along the dealer-customer side "were mutual acquaintance and mutual interest. Along the manufacturer-con- sumer side there was formerly little or no connection. Before advertising had become the power it now is, the retailer owned the consumer, the drummer owned THE BUSINESS TRIANGLE. the retailer, the jobber owned the drummer, the com- mission man owned the jobber, and the manufacturer took what he could get. The only thing the manu- facturer could do was to sell to the commission man or jobber at the prices dictated. He had to manu- MODERN DESIGNING AS APPLIED TO CLOTHING ADVERTISING. THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 47 f acture to order what was wanted. He had to com- pete in price and in other conditions with other manufacturers. He had no hold upon trade anywhere except through the commission men, who were inde- pendent and bought where they pleased. In those illogical days, dealer and customer were acquainted. The customer came to him and took his word. He knew nothing about the goods but what the dealer told him. The drummer traveled over a territory until he acquired a constituency of his own. To dealers the drummer was the house. They bought goods of him- — ^not of the house he represented. Whenever a drummer felt that he was not getting enough pay, or quarreled mth his house, or wanted a change, he transferred a large percentage of his trade to the house -vyith which he made a new con- nection. The manufacturer sold his goods to a job- ber, or consigned them to a commission man. This was his market. He had no machinery for reaching the trade. He knew no retail dealers and no retail dealers knew him- His only way of selling goods was to use the machinery operated by the jobber. By the time his goods had gone through all these different changes they had lost their identity. Now came a manufacturer realizing that these conditions were unfair and unsafe. He knew that the breaking of any link in the chain between his factory and the final market of his goods cut off his trade. He began to advertise to reach the consumer. He gave his goods a name which could be remem- bered, and a trade-mark which could be identified. His advertising bore fruit. The people came to know his goods and asked for them by name. The result 5 48 MODERN ADVERTISING was that the retail dealer when he next gave his order to the drummer specified the advertised goods. Thus the manufacturer established a direct line to the pub- lic. He brought to bear upon the actual consumer a pressure which reacted upon the dealer through the traveling man and the jobber, and finally reached the manufacturer's plant. Just as soon as the manufacturer accomplished this, the commission man, the jobber and the travel- ing man became less and less necessary to him, until in some lines of business they have dropped out alto- gether. The manufacturer cultivates the retail trade himself. He realizes that one, and sometimes two profits have come out of his goods before they get to the retailer. He realizes that he can spend his money in advertising, create a market for the goods, save one or two extra profits, and make more money. In addi- tion to this he is creating an important asset in the name and trade-mark of his goods — an asset vested in publicity which no competition, no trade combina- tion and no influence of drummer or retailer can take away from him. No matter how clever or insinuating a salesman may be, how wide his acquaintance, or how persistent his efforts, he can not accomplish as much as adver- tising. A piece of printed matter — short, direct and to the point, worded in the right way, illustrated, printed and dressed up to catch the eye and hold the mind — can make a thousand calls while the drummer is making one. It can not do all the work of the drummer, but it can keep working away every week, week after week, for six months or a year, and pro- duce a greater impression than calls from the drum- mer. THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 49 After the manufacturer has told his story in small items forced upon the attention of the trade until each retailer has been, against his will and without his knowledge, convinced of the merit of the goods and of the fact that the public wants them, three-fourths of the drummer's work is done. Here is a pertinent instance: A house which made Babbitt metal, hith- erto always sold by traveling men, was induced to try a " mail series." To make the test thorough, a State in which the house had had no previous trade was selected. To a list of prospective customers they sent printed matter, one circular a week for thirteen weeks. Then they sent a bright young man to travel over this territory. The results were phenomenal. Order after order was sent in, and finally a request was made for a year's contract at an advanced salary. The salesman got it. When he arrived at the home office he was the hero of the hour. He sat by the side of " the old man's " desk and explained how he did it. When the man who had put up the money for the " mail series " ventured to suggest that the circulars might have had something to do with the results, the drummer airily " turned down " the suggestion. He had sold the goods himself. The " mail series " had not been heard from. The company, realizing that they had a treasure, gave the young man virgin territory in another State. Never a drummer and never a single piece of printed matter had previously gone to that State. The young man started out with flying colors. He " fell down " at the first stop. After trying six or seven towns, without getting even an audience with his customers, to say nothing of an order, he was called home. The A New Note in Piano Players THAT'S what the Harmonist is. It is a new player, or rather, a set of pl.ay«rs. It presents fresh ideas. It gives you new talking arguments. No mStter how much your customers know about piano players, they will find the Har- monist has many distinct points of advantage which will appeal to them. The Harmonist sells easier and stays sold better than other players. The man who gets the agency won't want to give it up. The man who gets the agency will be a formidable competitor of yours. If you get the agency, you will be a for- midable competitor of other dealers. Something had better be done about these things right away. ROTH &' ENGELHARDT Proprielora Prerleie Piano Player Compinj WINDSOR ARCADE FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK rhe HiiTinO^ MAILING CARD (ONE OF A SERIES). THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 51 entire success of the drummer in the first instance had been based on a careful cultivation of the terri- tory by the right sort of printed matter. Advertising sells goods, not on the engaging quali- ties of the traveling man, but on the merits of the goods and the knowledge of those merits which have been lodged in the mind of the retailer. It is not the direct advertising of manufacturer to dealer alone that accomplishes this — it is still more the advertising of the manufacturer to the public, which backs up direct work upon the dealer. Printed matter in the form of circulars is one link in the chain of publicity, which unites the goods, the general advertising, the dealer and his customers. Of the two classes of general advertiser, let us consider first the man whose product is in such uni- versal use that advertising everywhere helps him. Take, for instance, a breakfast food, which can scarcely be exploited anywhere and not find mouths to consume it. Of course, an advertiser can pay too much per mouth even for a breakfast food, but Avithin almost any limit wherever his advertising goes there must be a demand. But few manufacturers have such business. Many have an article which can be used only by a small percentage of people. What can such men do with general advertising? They can not use large space, and can not use many mediums. Every dollar they spend must buy a dollar's worth of pub- licity in some form. A typical case is a man doing a good business, and whose goods are found in a number of stores, fairly well placed, but by no means universally in use. Such a man might be a maniifacturer of wri- 52 MODERN ADVERTISING ting-paper. Of course, everybody uses writing-paper in some form. The census shows that only 5 per cent of the population are unable to write, but only a comparatively small part of the 95 per cent care what sort of paper they write on. The people to whom fine writing-papers appeal are few. The problem is so to select the medium that you shall reach a large number of people who are in the habit of using the finest papers, or who can be taught to do so. Il^aturally the mediums having the highest class of readers and the largest circulation would be se- lected. Such advertising would accomplish only cer- tain results, and even then a good deal would be wasted. In order to make it effective the most care- ful work must be done with the retail dealer. Inquiries resulting from such advertising cost more per inquiry than in a larger expenditure. Therefore, each inquiry represents greater value to the advertiser, the expenditure must be made with greater care, and it must be more vigorously con- ducted to make it productive. Probably not more than 1 per cent of the population are interested in high-priced, exclusive styles of writing-paper — that is, about 750,000 people. How is one to reach these 750,000 people with the least expense and how secure the greatest proportion of orders ? The appropriation must be small, because the busi- ness will never justify a large one. By a large ap- propriation we mean such an amount of money as could be spent by the manufacturer of a food prod- uct — for instance, a packing-house. Next, the ad- vertisements must be small in size, or the number of mediums will become excessively limited. Third, THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 53 every advertisement must have in it a " hook " of some kind which will draw an inquiry. This inquiry must be cleverly angled for, as it is the basis of the whole method of work. Such advertising is clearly to be the work of fine strategy if it be successful. The large advertiser overcomes the public by the force of numbers. His advertisements are so many and so big that they sweep everything before them. The small advertiser must be a skilful tac- tician. He must get results by the cleverness of his work. The writing-paper man, whose carefully scattered advertisements bring in a certain number of inqui- ries, promptly proceeds to turn these inquiries into the greatest number of profitable accounts. He is not actually reaching the consumer. He does not expect to get direct orders from women who buy writing-paper. "What he tries to get is an actual reply from some prospective user of writing-paper in a town where he knows there is a dealer who ought to sell his paper. Such a dealer will belong to one of three classes : He may be one who already carries the advertiser's paper in stock, in which case the next step would be easy. Mrs. Inquirer would be referred to Mr. Dealer. Mr. Dealer would be notified about Mrs. Inquirer, and everybody would be happy. But the dealer may be one who does not carry the paper. He, however, has been reached week by week by the printed circu- lars, but has not yet been brought to the point of placing an order and becoming a regular dealer in the advertiser's paper. An inquiry from some woman in his town, presumably known to him, is ex- 54 MODERN ADVERTISING pected to be the one last argument necessary to wring from him his first order. The third class of dealer is the man who neither carries the papers in stock nor has had them called to his attention. This dealer will be found only in small towns because at least one dealer in every good-sized town, of about 10,000 population, will have received full and ample information. This third dealer will now receive word that a woman in his town wants to buy the advertiser's paper, and that he had better carry it in stock. 'His name will be added to the mailing list, and hereafter he will get circulars. Thus the campaign goes on, coaxing replies from women, whose names are used to influence dealers. The advertising is direct only to the extent of getting these inquiries. Its real purpose is to influence the reluctant dealer. If the matter is placed before the dealer skilfully, his attention being called repeatedly to the advertisements in the magazines, and if these advertisements are shown to him in proof-sheet form, with a little estimate of the actual circulation they are getting, he will believe that the advertiser is doing a great deal more advertising than he really is. The dealer will then begin to help out the ad- vertising — first, by buying the paper, and next, by promoting its sale. This advertiser then devises plans for making the dealer a larger dealer, thus increasing the output of his paper. He offers attractive advertisements all ready to place in the dealer's local papers, the dealer paying for the space. He sends printed matter to a selected list of customers whom the dealer knows, and who will be especially influenced by the weight THE CHANNELS OP TRADE 55 of a local dealer's name. He sends window displays by which the papers can be shown in the most attrac- tive way, and if the town is large enough, he sends street-car cards for the local trolley line. The general advertiser may not need to follow these plans. Any campaign, however, whether large or small, is better when aided by skilful, intelligent " follow-up matter " and definite, systematic work generally. The larger the campaign, the more profit- able it will be, but such plans are absolutely vital to a comparatively small advertiser. What is said in the circulars, what is said in the " form " letters to inquirers and dealers, and for that matter, what is said in the advertisements, will have everything to do with making the plan effective. It must be borne in mind that such things are not altogether new even to the most unprogressive dealer ; everything must be brought to his attention in a new way. There must be a certain freshness of effect, a new point of view. It is often easy to present an old and well-worn plan in so new a guise that it will have the effect of a brand-new idea. Take Jim Dumps and Sunny Jim for an example. The psychological secret of the success of this particu- lar form of advertising harks back to the old " before and after " idea, which was an essential part of every patent-medicine advertisement fifteen or twenty years ago. The old, well-worn and hackneyed idea, dressed up in its new form, the transformation of Jim Dumps into Sunny Jim, struck the public with new force, and few of them reflected that the idea was one with which they had been familiar from childhood. 56 MODERN ADVERTISING It should not be forgotten that the initial pur- pose of nearly all general advertising is to establish desirable accounts. After dealers once carry the goods, general advertising aims to keep up the sale, but that is a later purpose. Most general advertising is directed to getting the goods into the stock of all desirable dealers. After you have sold a man a bill of goods and made him a regular customer, he will himself do a large part of the selling afterward. Of course, the advertising helps. If the goods are on a dealer's shelves they are apt to be shown to the cus- tomer, but it will simplify matters if the customer asks for them. That is why general advertising works both ways. It induces the dealer to sell the goods and it induces the customer to ask for them. It simplifies and shortens the whole buying and sell- ing process. There was once a corset company of considerable reputation that had been advertising for many years in the usual way. It bought space in all the accept- able publications and put therein the familiar corset girl. It did nothing else, and its business had the natural growth of any business in ordinarily good times. Its advertising may have added new accounts, but the probability is that it left things about as they were, the new accounts being brought in by the more enterprising traveling men. A plan was presented to that company whereby its magazine advertising should be used to influence new accounts. The corset company insisted that there were no new accounts, that its corsets were al- ready handled by all of the dealers in the country. They said this without reservation. The total num- THE CHANNELS OF TRADE , 57 ber of actual accounts which the company then had was found to be about 7,500. A carefully made list showed that there were something like 17,000 retail stores in this country which sold corsets. These stores were dry-goods, department, notions and fancy-goods stores. Many of these, of course, were undesirable, the business being too small and the credit too insecure. From that total a fairly good list of about 14,000 names was selected. These were checked off with the regular list of the corset company, leaving a very good mailing list of 6,000 odd names — dealers to whom the corset company did not sell, and to whom it would like to sell. The magazine advertising was freshened up. The conventional corset girl was abandoned and a new style of girl was introduced in the advertisements with remarks which would draw out an inquiry for a certain desirable booklet which was named and described in the advertisement. Meanwhile, two quick-acting " mail series " were started addressed to two separate lists, one the list of regular custom- ers, the other the list of non-customers which the company desired to secure. The first circular congratulated the dealers on selling the corset, pointed out its new features, al- luded to the advertising, gave samples of the adver- tisements that would appear, harped quite diligently upon the circulation the advertising was getting, and suggested the propriety of immediate and frequent orders. The other " mail series " was of the proselyting character. It aimed to lead the 6,000 dealers into a 58 . MODERN ADVERTISING corner, there to be taught the corset lesson. It sup- plied them with corset facts and advertising facts. It made it clear to them that women were marching by the doors of their stores, seeking other stores for the purchase of that particular corset. It produced statistics to show that there were very few women in this country who had not seen the advertisement of this particular corset. Meanwhile inquiries were com- ing in with requests for the booklet. These replies were sifted and sorted and sent off to the nearest dealer with a " there-now,-what-did-I-tell-you ? " com- munication. Such advertising is not to be measured by the agate line. There is only one sure standard, and that is results. Space is measured by the agate line, but advertising is measured by the amount of actual busi- ness brought in by it. The results in this case were that the number of active accounts was raised from 7,500 to 11,000; the factory was more than doubled in capacity, and the corset itself was more firmly en- trenched than ever in the favor of women, this not- withstanding that there were other corsets doing very good advertising at the same time. This advertising was not a large campaign as com- pared with some others. Nor was it as small as the paper dealer's. It was simply the average, but may serve to prove that the magazine advertisements are only one of the forces which bring results. !No question is so frequently asked the advertising man as this: " About how much money will it take to see this thing through, and find out whether there is anything in it or not? " This reminds one of the question which was asked of Abraham Lincoln: THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 59 "How long should a man's legs be?" Mr. Lincoln replied, " They ought to be long enough to reach from his hips to the ground." An advertising ap- propriation should be large enough to accomplish the results sought. A common type of advertiser is the one who has only a little ready money. He wishes to start his advertising work in a very small way, making good as he goes along. He has no capital, but he is will- ing to put into the advertising all the money he makes. The man who aims to lift himself over the fence by his boot-straps is in the same class with this advertiser. It is true that there are two or three advertisers of national fame and large fortunes who began in practically this way. But they began at a time when advertising conditions were simple, and when an advertising success was more easily obtained. They belong to that brilliant class known as ex- ceptions. An advertising appropriation should be not merely large enough to provide for success, but large enough to provide for a failure at the begin- ning. The thing to be done in the case of a compara- tively small appropriation is to apply it so cleverly and so judiciously to handle the " follow-up " matter, the circulars to dealers, that a certain territory or a certain circulation will be cultivated thoroughly. The man whose goods are pretty well stocked in stores about the country has a distinct advantage. Still a good deal of energy must be directed to getting the goods into other towns. No national campaign will ever realize its fullest possibilities until there is at least one store in every small town and several stores 60 MODERN ADVERTISING in the large towns which carry the goods in stock. You can not reckon without your dealer. This is where advertising plans come into play to the best advantage. A tobacco trust with three-quarters of a million dollars to spend can adopt the overwhelming style, using large space in all kinds of publications, giving little thought to the selection of mediums, less to the preparation of copy, and hurl the whole on- slaught at the country in such a mass that it can not be overlooked. Undoubtedly advertising of that kind, no matter how well handled, is overdone. There is too much of it. When we come down the scale to the man who starts at $5,000 a year, and whose ar- ticle appeals to 5 or 10 per cent of the population, the real advertising problem is found. How can so little money be made to present the article to so many people? It is in such instances that the advertise- ment, however small, is only a cleverly worded " hook " fishing for a reply, and that upon the reply, the way it is handled, and the way the prospective customer is forced upon the prospective dealer, the whole structure depends. The letter of inquiry is the corner-stone of the small advertiser's plan. More advertisers have failed through not appre- ciating the importance of the inquiry, and through not using it in the right way, than through any other one defect in their plans. They reason that an in- quiry is simply one sale, and, therefore, do not treat it with sufficient importance. The first inquiry from any given town is considerably more than a sale. It may be the beginning of business in that town. It THE CHANNELS OF TRADE 61 may mean an account witli a good dealer that will last as long as you and the dealer remain in business. Inquiries would be too expensive otherwise to be ad- vertised for in this way — that is, merely to make one sale of one article. It is a difficult thing to theorize about advertising. No advertising is successful which does not sell the goods, and no advertising is unsuccessful which does. Each advertising plan proves what its merits are as it goes along, but the most that the wisest advertising man can do is to make a plan which covers all the incidents of his experience, and then watch the plan. There never was a right advertising plan that was not altered and changed each month. Every inquiry should be scrutinized for sugges- tions as to future wordings of advertisements and reading matter. The entire inspiration comes from people who respond to advertising or who fail to re- spond. The way in which they respond, or fail to respond, is a measure of the success or failure of your advertising. ISTothing will show you the weak spots in a plan so quickly as the absence of replies. Advertising is a great, though almost unknown force, a force made up of a hundred different ele- ments, each one too intangible to be defined. It is something which, properly directed, becomes a power- ful agency in influencing human customs and man- ners. All the great forces that have moved the race, the eloquence of the orator, the fervor of the religious enthusiast, superstition, terror, panic, hyp- notism — all these things are utilized in advertising. All the emotions of the race are played upon, ap- 62 MODERN ADVERTISING pealed to, coaxed, cultivated and utilized. The man who can tell most nearly what one thousand people will think upon any given topic will come nearest to producing successful advertising, but no human being can really foretell the actual results of any adver- tising that was ever planned. CHAPTER IV MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS Anything through which an advertiser calls at- tention to his wares is a medium, but magazines and newspapers are usually referred to when the term is used. Trade papers are also mediums, but many of them reach dealers only: an advertising medium is supposed to reach consumers, and dealers are hardly to be considered as consumers. By stretching the word's limits a little an advertiser sometimes speaks' of street-ears, circulars and billboards as mediums. The largest and most important medium consists of periodicals, classified as magazines, newspapers and trade papers. In the language of advertising, a mag- azine is a monthly publication, while a popular peri- odical published once a week is a " weekly." The monthly magazines are described as general maga- zines, such as the Century or Scribner's, and as woman's publications, such as the Ladies' Home Journal or the Delineator. Weeklies are of a popular and, generally, of a semi-news character, such as Collier's or the Satur- day Evening Post. Agricultural publications, such as the Farm Journal or Farm and Fireside, and re- ligious papers of the class of the Christian Herald or the Epworth Herald, are also published weekly, as a rule. According to some classifications, the last two 6 64 MODERN ADVERTISING would be called " class " papers, although class papers are really those otherwise known as " trade " papers. It is an open question with many large adver- tisers which are the better mediums, magazines or newspapers. For some articles and for some adver- tisers there is a decided choice, while other adver- tisers can and do use both. A magazine lasts thirty days, while the newspaper dies every day. A maga- zine has some permanence. It is a bound book, and read slowly by people with some leisure. Its adver- tising pages present a permanent record for a month, while the newspaper is read at a glance and then thrown aside. The circulation of a magazine is gen- eral and well distributed. It can not be confined to any city. State or group of States. The newspapers of a given town, or series of towns, or of a given State, may be used to advertise an article in a given territory, either because the article is appropriate to that locality, or because the advertiser wishes to limit his expenditure to that ter- ritory, in order to do special work there, for work may sometimes be better carried on State by State than all at once over the entire country. Newspapers appeal to advertisers because they act quickly. An advertisement may be inserted in any newspaper within twenty-four hours of the date of publication, while an advertisement in a magazine must be ready from three to eight weeks in advance of the date of publication, according to the size of the edition which the magazine prints. Meanwhile trade conditions may change radically and in the case of many articles trade emergencies must be kept in mind. On the other hand, newspapers, as a rule, will 66 MODERN ADVERTISING admit of only one style of design, that is, designs of a character which will print easily with rapid web perfecting presses, using cheap paper with an inferior quality of ink. The magazine is printed more slowly, and with better ink. It can use what are known as " half- tone " cuts as well as line drawings, and in some of the magazines where the paper of the advertising pages is the same as in the body of the magazine, a great degree of artistic printing can be secured. As a rule, however, it is only publications with limited cir- culations that are able to give advertising designs the careful printing they require. Magazines and news- papers appeal directly to the public, while the class papers appeal to limited constituencies, made up of those interested in the one subject represented by the paper. Any scheme of general advertising must con- sider either the newspapers or the magazines. They are absolutely essential. ISTevertheless, there are ad- vertisers who have built up large businesses without using either, through methods which utilized posters, street-car cards and circulars. Statistics, as to the character, circulation and number of publications are difficult to obtain. The best possible authority ^ shows that in March, 1903, there were issued in the United States 20,485 dif- ferent publications, of which 2,215 were published daily, 54 triweekly, 499 semiweekly, 14,455 weekly, 2 trimonthly, 55 biweekly, 263 semimonthly, 2,710 monthly, 2 semiquarterly, 68 bimonthly and 162 quarterly. The post-office recognizes as a periodical anything issued four times a year, but no publication '■ American Newspaper Directory, March, 1903. MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 67 issued less frequently than once a montli is of interest or value to an advertiser. The census reports for 1900 show only 18,226 publications of all kinds, issued from 15,305 separate establishments, having an aggregate circulation per issue of 114,299,334 copies, and an aggregate yearly circulation of 8,168,148,749 copies, enough, by the rctr-^ -f / ^ 1 r^ ^ ^•^ ( I -i-- --i;--B ifc^ ^1 ff W"'^'^M I. \ w iiiir mM: }mffMmm^M 1 1 2^000 to s.aoo ^^■jll ■^ f/ZZ/l 3.500 10 6,01)0 \ lilllllllll 6,000 to 9,500 1 ■■ 9,600 and over •A tOHHAY * CO., N.V. MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF INHABITANTS TO EACH WEEKLY PUBLICATION. Showing that there are more readers to a publication in the southeastern states than in any other part of the United States. way, to give every man, woman and child in the country 107 copies of something every year. They show further that these publications received in 1900 an aggregate revenue ojf $175,789,610, of which $79,928,483, or 45.5 per cent, was paid for subscrip- tions, and $95,861,127, or 54.5 per cent, for adver- tising space. These statistics prove conclusively that our present periodical press is possible only through 68 MODERN ADVERTISING the advertising patronage, which bears the chief bur- den of the expense. The amount of money represented by the total revenue from the sale of space in a year by all peri- odicals, $95,861,127, seems small in comparison with the total probable expenditure for advertising in this country of $600,000,000. . It should be remembered, however, that this represents only the net cost of MAP SHOWING THAT TEN STATES POSSESS 81.08 PEE CENT OF THE COMBINED CIRCULATION OP ALL PUBLICATIONS. space; that from 10 to 15 per cent is to be added to this in the way of commissions; that there was a fur- ther cost in the preparation of designs and copy, in the making of plates and expressage upon them, and in various other legitimate expenses in connection with advertising; and also that the various other me- diums employed, such as billboards, street-cars and circulars, while relatively less important than peri- odicals, are comparatively more expensive. MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 69 According to the same census there are 4,170 in- habitants in the country to each publication. This, taken in connection with the fact given above that there are 107 copies of some publication issued during the year for every inhabitant of the country, shows how possible it is to reach every buying person with properly directed advertising. A division of all pub- lications into classes, according to the periods of issue, is given in the census report as follows: Daily, 2,326; triweekly, 62; semiweekly, 637; weekly, 12,979; monthly, 1,817; quarterly, 237; all other classes, 268. If these periodicals are classified according to the character of their reading matter, the statistics stand as follows: News, politics and family reading 14,867 Religion 952 Agriculture, horticulture, dairying and stock raising 307 Commerce, finance, insurance, real-estate, and trade journals 710 General literature, including magazines 239 Medicine and surgery Ill Law 62 Science and mechanics 66 Fraternal organizations 200 Education and history, college and school peri- odicals 259 Society, art, music and fashion 88 Miscellaneous, including Sunday newspapers 365 Of the daily newspapers there are 199 copies for every 1,000 inhabitants, of the weeklies there are 524 for every 1,000 inhabitants, and of the monthlies 520 for every 1,000 inhabitants. It may be added that there are 1,052 periodicals published in various 70 MODERN ADVERTISING languages, of whicli 613 are in German, 115 in Scan- dinavian, 39 in Spanish, 35 in Italian, 28 in Bohe- mian, 27 in Trench, 33 in Polish. Some of these, and notably the German and French publications, are important advertising mediums. The distribution of the circulation of all publi- cations, bearing, as it does, a close relation to the dis- UWx If -^ /»~"^ ■iiiiK ^"^ . iir r----™^' T ■ , H m^^ -^ Rs / I^M Mmr/ ^^^^^p ^KYiiiC ;^^^PP' \\i rf -,4jw^ Oil |H III 1 ■r 1 ] 4,000 to 27,00D IB t;-';l27,000 to36,000 ^ 1 ppi!^ K illlillllll 35,000 to 60,000 \ pn' ■^iiii 1 l»ii| 60.000 and over n lIOBMAV 4 CO., N.r, MAP SHOWING THE NUMBER OF INHABITANTS TO EACH DAILY PUBLICATION. Showing also that the greatest number of readers to a daily newspaper is in the southeastern states. tribution of the population, is important to the ad- vertiser. Statistics show that four-fifths of the aggre- gate circulation of all periodicals is confined to ten States and that these ten States are located in the northeast part of the country. These States are Maine, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 71 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. The publications about which it is difficult to ob- tain exact facts are the small weekly newspapers and a large number of unimportant and trivial trade papers. The fact that statistics can not be obtained about these has little bearing upon advertising, as neither class is important to the advertiser. Such papers start with very little capital, and some of them last only a short time, when the name and good-will are sold, or the paper is absorbed by a rival. All the important publications, whether maga- zines, newspapers or class papers, have established offices and their rates of advertising are on file in every important agency. Most publications, espe- cially newspapers and magazines, maintain offices in all large cities, with representatives who are able to give any information about the paper, the con- stituency it represents and its rates, and who make contracts for advertising with agencies or advertisers direct. Such representatives are called " special agents." While circulation is the chief thing the period- ical has to sell to the advertiser, it is not the only thing. There is a great difference in the character of circulation as well as in the quantity. All strong pub- lications have a distinct personality which attracts a certain kind of readers. The readers of one publica- tion are more valuable to one advertiser than to another. The Ladies' Home Journal is an example of a high-class woman's publication. Not only is a very strict censorship exercised over the advertisements 72 MODERN ADVERTISING which are allowed to be inserted/ but the people who read it are of the better and more discriminating class. The Ladies' Home Journal has a circulation of 1,000,000 copies a month. It is a large, four- column sheet, the pages being eleven by sixteen inches in size. The number of pages varies but it averages about fifty-two. The price of space is $6 an agate line. An agate line is one-fourteenth of an inch, and the space is measured by the width of the column, not by the width of the page. A single page used one time would cost $4,000. In other words, the estimate of the publishers of the Ladies' Home ' The "money-back"' policy is now maintained by a dozen or more widely circulated publications, and the number is growing. If a reader suffers loss through an advertisement in one of them the publisher makes it good, and so announces in his editorial heading. Some publishers impose conditions, such as that of requiring that the complaint shall be made within a month after the appearance of the advertisement, that the reader shall have mentioned the publication in writing to the advertiser, and so forth. Probably these conditions are not interpreted in strict accord with the letter in actual complaints, however, for the number of claims received by such publications is smaller than one would think. At the office of the Ladies' Home Journal and Saturday Evening Post, with their combined circulation per month of fully 3,500,000 copies, the claims paid do not average more than two per month. The following letter shows that a liberal interpretation of the "money back" policy is made when the claim is valid. The complainant was a man who had ordered goods to the value of $25 from an advertisement in a copy of the Saturday Evening Post eight months after publication. The advertisement had ceased to appear in the paper, and some two or three days after the complainant's check was received by the advertiser he made an assignment. The check had been cashed, and the money was hopelessly entangled in the bankrupt busi- ness. Complaint was made to E. W. Spaulding, advertising manager of the two publications, and after investigation he sent a check for the full amount. — Printers' Ink. MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 73 Journal of the value of communicating with its 1,000,000 readers is $6 for what may be contained in a single line, or $4,000 for what may be put on a single page. In Augusta, Me., there is a monthly publication called Comfort. It is printed on cheap paper, similar to that of newspapers, illustrated with newspaper illus- trations, and is cleverly adapted to the intelligence and taste of the poorer sort of people in small towns and villages. It is not at all attractive in appearance, printing, illustrations or make-up. Nevertheless, it charges $5 for an agate line of space. It is said to have a circulation of 1,200,000. Very few people who read this book will be familiar with the name Comfort. Its enormous circulation, if genuine, is dis- tributed through the poorer parts of the country, es- pecially in the West and South. It does not circulate in cities. The space is supposed to be worth this price to the people who have anything to sell to such pur- chasers. The columns are filled with advertisements of mail-order houses, cheap goods, jewelry, agents' supplies and various schemes. Its readers buy only the most inexpensive things, but large numbers of them do buy, so that the space is worth what it costs the advertisers. These two papers represent two extreme types and their respective constituencies; the one, the high- est type of an advertising medium, well edited, well printed, with great influence, a circulation reaching well-educated, well-to-do, intelligent American wom- en; the other, poorly printed, placing no strictures upon the character of its advertising and reaching an uneducated and credulous class. 74 MODERN ADVERTISING The woman's publications include the Delineator, an especially interesting periodical, and others, such as the Woman's Home Companion and the Ladies' World, which are more or less modeled upon the lines of The Ladies' Home Journal. The Delineator, how- ever, is in a class by itself and is just as unique as the Journal. These two papers are pioneers of two dif- ferent types and each is probably the best advertising medium of its kind. The Journal has been built up by Cyrus P. Cur- tis, of the Curtis Publishing Company, a man who struggled for years to obtain success in the publishing line. He began in a Tery small way by the founding of the Journal, the price of which was then twenty- five cents. It was a cheap publication in every way, badly edited and illustrated, with a small circulation and little influence. It has always been sold for the full subscription price without the aid of premiums or any method of creating circulation except adver- tising. Its circulation is about evenly divided be- tween the news-stands and regular subscribers. The Delineator is a very old magazine, and has been built up from what was practically an adver- tisement of paper patterns. The Butterick Publish- ing Company, the inventors and creators of the mod- ern paper-pattern business, started the Delineator as a sort of fashion sheet to aid the sale of patterns. Re- tail stores, which also carried the Butterick patterns, distributed the Delineator free at first. In this way it soon obtained a large but very cheap sort of circu- lation. Recently, by the adoption of modern publish- ing methods and a very thorough campaign of adver- tising, the circulation of the Delineator has been al- MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 75 most doubled. It lias been put into a very high class, ranking, in the character of its readers, with the Ladies' Home Journal, but with probably greater results from the advertising put into its columns. The Delineator is now published in connection with the Designer and The New Idea, the three pub- lications being known as The Butterick Trio, and all being controlled by the same company, and this com- pany controls the entire pattern business of the United States. Each of these papers was the organ of a pattern company, the Designer representing the Standard Patterns, and The New Idea the New Idea Patterns, the Delineator, of course, standing for the Butterick Patterns. These three publications have a united circulation of 1,250,000, and the aggregate cost per agate line in the three is $7. A large portion of the circulation of these papers is still through the retail stores which are the agents of the patterns. As no store has an agency for more than one line of patterns, a list of 14,000 different stores is represented. This has advertising value. Nearly all the goods advertised in these three maga- zines are sold in the stores which distribute them. The importance of this will be explained more fully in another chapter. The size of page used by The Ladies' Home Jour- nal, 9J X 14:1, is a size that has become standard for women's publications. Several weeklies, such as the Youth's Companion, have the same size page. The Delineator has a page size of its own, three columns to the page, and smaller than that of The Ladies' Home Journal, being only 6^ X 9J inches. The magazines, in distinction from the woman's 76 MODERN ADVERTISING papers, have the regular magazine-sized page, the type page of which is 5^ X 8 inches. A very large number of the monthly publications are made of this size, which accordingly is called the " magazine size." Space in such publications is occasionally sold by the agate line, but usually by pages or fractions of a page. The Ladies' Home Journal, the Delineator and other publications of the same class have a rate for a page and a rate for a quarter of a page, but smaller space is sold by the agate line. The price of space in all publications is deter- mined by the quantity of the circulation modified somewhat by its character. A high-grade magazine, for instance, will ask a little more for its circulation than a cheaper one, as a rule. To give some idea of the relation between the character of a magazine, its circulation and the price of a page, the following table is given: Ladies' Home Journal . Delineator Century Harper's Scribner's McClure's Munsey RATE PER PAGE CIRCULATION $4,000 1,000,000 1,700 960,000 250 250,0001 250 200,000' 250 200,000' 384 364,629 500 603,350 ' These circulations are the ones usually credited to these publications by advertisers. The American Newspaper Direc- tory, however, for several years has given them the rating "A," which is the highest given by the Directory when the circulation has not been actually supported by a statement. "A" stands for "exceedmg 75,000." MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 77 The above table gives the exact average circula- tion of the publications named for the year 1902, except in the case of the Century, Harper's and Scrib- ner's, which have always been reticent on the subject, believing that the value of their circulation to an advertiser is not to be measured altogether by vol- ume but by quality also. For this reason and be- cause they are high-priced magazines these publica- tions have always been classed by themselves in con- trast with what are known as the " 10-centers," such as McClure's, Frank Leslie's, the Cosmopolitan, Mun- sey's and a number of smaller magazines. The important part played by the so-called " 10- cent " magazines in the development of advertising, renders a comment upon their advent and growth interesting. The following is from the Twelfth Census : " In the field of monthly magazines the most notable change which occurred during the decade was the creation of the 10-cent magazine. The leading publications in this class were Munsey's Magazine, established as a 25-cent publication in October, 1891, and reduced to 10 cents in October, 1893; and Mc- Clure's Magazine, established as a 15-cent magazine in June, 1893, and reduced to 10 cents in July, 1895. The Cosmopolitan, which had long existed as a 25- cent publication, varied its price to 12^ cents and 15 cents, reducing to 10 cents in 1895. " The immediate effect of the reduction in price of Munsey's Magazine to 10 cents was to increase the circulation to such an extent that it was difficult to supply the orders, and the production of the first edi- tion at the reduced rate was stopped in order to begin 78 MODERN ADVERTISING work upon the next issue. In the case of McClure's Magazine, reduction to 10 cents caused the circula- tion to double, and before the end of the first year it had reached about 150,000. " "When the reduction of price to 10 cents was made, it was generally regarded as a foolhardy pro- ceeding. The opposition of the news companies made it necessary to handle independently the distribution of Munsey's Magazine. It was not realized by many well-informed publishers that the time was ripe for such a change. Improvements in mechanical produc- tion had progressed so far that it was at length pos- sible for a daring manager to produce an excellent magazine at a trifling cost per copy. Moreover, the public, accustomed to cuts in prices in other direc- tions, were in a frame of mind to welcome such a change. It should be remarked that advances in machine composition and in making illustrations, while of much importance, represented but a part of the initial cost, and were, moreover, a fixed figure, regardless of the size of the edition. These items, therefore, were not of much consequence in produ- cing a great number of copies. The principal factors were the improvements in presses and in machines for stitching and covering, which greatly reduced the cost per copy. " Publications of this class may be regarded as a variation of the old-established and more expensive magazine. They at once supplied an evident want and have attained to an enormous aggregate circula- tion. Possessing different characteristics, they reached a different class of readers, circulating not only in the United States, but in Canada as well. MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 79 " Munsey's Magazine is noted for the large num- ber of illustrations employed, and for the use of ma- terial that deals with people and timely topics, avoid- ing descriptions. This magazine averages 160 pages of reading matter and 80 pages of advertising, or a total of about 240 pages and cover. " The leading characteristic of McClure's Maga- zine, in addition to articles by well-known writers, is the presentation of subjects of current interest, com- pletely worked out in all their details as soon as the topic has actually been completed. In character of material used, the Cosmopolitan follows a little more closely the policy of the older magazines. In all magazines of this class, except the Argosy, illustra- tions are freely used. There is unquestionably an evolution of daily newspapers, through their Sunday publications, toward the field occupied by the inex- pensive magazine, which, before the completion of another decade, may have some decisive result. Meantime the importance of the inexpensive maga- zine, and its educating force in the community, must be given due weight. The combined circulation of the monthlies published by F. A. Munsey, the Ladies' Home Journal, McClure's Magazine and the Cosmopolitan, in 1900, was 2,483,000 copies per issue." Not only do readers differ as to standards in social and financial matters, and in tastes and education, but in responsiveness to advertising. The Youth's Companion is a paper whose circulation has been built up largely for nearly three-quarters of a century by offers of premiums for new subscribers. Subscribers have been attracted to it by the premiums offered as 7 80 MODERN ADVERTISING much, perhaps, as by the publication itself. There- fore, they are susceptible to the offers of advertisers. The large circulation of the Youth's Companion brings very good returns, especially for articles adver- tised as sent by mail. Some publications, and notably The Ladies' Home Journal and the Delineator, follow the policy of an absolutely accurate statement of their circulations from month to month. Magazines may be divided into two large classes — those that do and those that do not make known their actual circulations. The advertiser feels that he is entitled to know the exact circulation of a publication in which he buys space. Cu'culation is what the publisher sells and what the advertiser buys, either directly or through his agent. It is, therefore, the most important fact from an ad- vertising point of view. Circulation has been va- riously defined as the number of copies printed, the number distributed, or the number read. Each magazine sends out a number of free copies to agencies for their files, to news-stands with the return privilege, and to advertisers.-' The net circula- tion is, therefore, generally conceded to be the circu- lation after all " returns," free copies, sample copies and file copies have been deducted. It is generally true that more than one person sees each copy of a magazine. In the case of a publication entering a home, it is estimated that five persons read each copy. ' Several magazines, for instance Munsey's, Harper's, and Ladies' Home Journal, send advertisers advance copies contain- ing advertising only. In the case of the Ladies' Home Journal this advance copy, issued twenty days in advance of publication has a circulation of 20,000 copies. MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 81 The number of readers is therefore the net circulation multiplied by five. No agreement however upon these matters has ever been reached. The value of space in connection veith circulation can be pretty definitely fixed. Taking the leading magazines of the country, it will be found that this value runs closely to the same ratio. For instance, at $6 a line for the Ladies' Home Journal, on a basis of 1,000,000 of circulation, the value of the circula- tion is about five-eighths of a cent a line per 1,000 of circulation. This fraction will be found to hold good when applied to most standard publications. By some such method as this an advertiser determines the value of a given publication to him, provided the class to which it appeals is desirable for his business. When a publication appeals only to a certain class not reached by any other publication, it demands and deserves a higher rate for its space. For instance, if one wishes to sell a breakfast food, any publication that appeals to people who wish to live well should be good provided the rate is right. If, however, one wished to sell a scientific instrument, as, for example, a stethoscope, he should use medical publications, which go directly to doctors; but he would pay more per 1,000 for his circulation than he would in one reaching the general public, because the circulation is select. The theory of the value of advertising space is based upon these considerations. The second division into which periodicals are arbitrarily divided by advertising men embraces the newspapers. Newspapers are generally spoken of as dailies, either metropolitan or country, and as week- lies. The division between the metropolitan daily 82 MODERN ADVERTISING and the country daily is purely an arbitrary one. Metropolitan dailies are practically the papers pub- lished in about twenty cities of the first rank in the United States. All other dailies are country dailies. Most weekly newspapers are individually very unimportant publications, but in numbers they ex- ceed all other publications put together. There are between twelve and thirteen thousand. These are the newspapers of towns too small to support a daily, or newspapers representing a minority political party in a town where the larger political parties have daily newspapers. The existence of so great a number of weekly newspapers is largely due to the fact that they have received more assistance from the Post-OfSce Depart- ment than any other form of periodical, and to the advantages furnished them by the " ready-print " companies, the paper being bought half printed very cheaply. Weekly newspapers are usually the home papers of a country or farming district, and are good advertising mediums for that reason. A home paper gives local influence to the advertisements which it carries. Weekly papers may be considered as " home prints " or " patent insides." In the very smallest towns, the expense of printing even a four-page paper once a week is so great that the country editor buys his paper with one side printed. This side contains a synopsis of the news of the world, with, perhaps, illustrated, fashion and literary matter. The other side printed on the home press, is made up of local news. This is the cheapest form of newspaper pub- lished. The circulation very seldom reaches more MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 83 than a thousand and usually hovers around half that number. The business of supplying " ready-prints " to country newspapers has developed into several large businesses. These organizations are known by the name of " lists," as, for instance, Kellogg's Lists, or the Atlantic Coast Lists. The general expression is " cooperative newspapers." There are six concerns in this country supplying such " ready-prints " and three in Canada. Those in the United States are Kellogg's Lists, the Chicago Newspaper Union, the Atlantic Coast Lists, the Western Newspaper Union, the Omaha Newspaper Union and the Pacific News- paper Union. The last two are comparatively small. These concerns supply on an average about 8,000 newspapers with " ready-prints," which contain a lim- ited amount of advertising of a general nature, and including proprietary remedies or other articles that appeal to an agricultural population. This adverti- sing is not expensive; and it calls for no outlay for plates. Only one plate or electrotype need be made and sent to the home office of the list, although it may appear in 2,000 papers, the insides of which are all printed at the same time. This business is entirely distinct from the " plate " business, by which col- umns of matter in stereotyped form, consisting of news features and miscellaneous matter, are sent to the larger papers. The last Census has the following statistics of the cooperative plan of printing papers: " There has been little development, for several decades, of the ' patent insides ' system described in the special report of the Tenth Census on the News- paper and Periodical Press. The general advance in 84 MODERN ADVERTISING printing has led to some progress in methods, and the number of papers served has increased with the growth of the newspaper industry in general, but growth in this line has been relatively slow. The following table shows, by States and Territories ar- ranged geographically, the number of newspapers printed on the cooperative plan: NEWSPAPERS PRINTED ON THE COOPERATIVE PLAN, BY STATES AND TERRITORIES, 1900 STATES OR NO. OF TERRITORY. NEWSPAPERS. United States 7,749 North Atlantic Division 728 New England 177 Maine 13 New Hampshire ... 30 Vermont 10 Massachusetts 90 Rhode Island 16 Connecticut 18 Southern North At- lantic 551 New York 196 New Jersey 79 Pennsylvania 376 South Atlantic Divi- sion 511 Northern South At- lantic 185 Delaware 4 Maryland 49 District of Colum- bia 6 Virginia 62 West Virginia 64 STATES OR NO. OF TERRITORY. NEWSPAPERS. Southern South At- lantic 326 North Carolina .... 81 South Carolina .... 51 Georgia 135 Florida 59 North Central Division . 4,725 Eastern North Cen- tral 2,110 Ohio 337 Indiana 358 Illinois 703 Michigan 365 Wisconsin 347 Western North Cen- tral . 2,615 Minnesota 409 Iowa 619 Missouri 376 North Dakota 122 South Dakota 224 Nebraska 462 Kansas 403 MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 85 STATES OR ^fO. OF TERRITORY. NEWSPAPERS. South Central Division . 1,179 Eastern South Cen- tral 476 Kentucky 59 Tennessee 114 Alabama 134 Mississippi 169 Western South Cen- tral 703 Louisiana 94 Arkansas 143 Indian Territory ... 62 Oklahoma 153 Texas 251 STATES OR NO. OF TERRITORY. NEWSPAPERS. Western Division 606 Rocky Mountain 285 Montana 32 Idaho 40 Wyoming 20 Colorado 177 New Mexico 16 Basin and Plateau ... 43 Arizona 4 Utah 35 Nevada 4 Pacific 278 Washington 95 Oregon 65 California 118 " It will be seen from this statement that over 60 per cent of the papers printed on the cooperative plan are found in the North Central Division. The number in Illinois alone (the highest number for any single State) nearly equals the number shown for the entire North Atlantic Division, and Iowa (next in rank) surpasses both the Western and South Atlantic Divisions. " Many of the newspapers of this class are the only ones in their respective towns — this being the case with 60 per cent of those sent out by one con- cern. At the present time most of the newspapers printed in this way are weeklies, and these form about half of the total number of weeklies in the United States. Many semiweeklies and triweeklies, also, are issued in this way, and some dailies adopt the method. These dailies are printed at a distributing center, sent out by express in the morning, and fin- 86 MODERN ADVERTISING ished at the local office in the afternoon." — Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900, Volume IX, pages 1104-1105. Trade papers are publications issued in the inter- ests of some trade, profession or industry. They are almost altogether of a technical character, though many of them devote considerable space to the news of the trade they represent. The more important trade papers are authoritative in their respective lines. The editors are men of practical training and experi- ence in the industry represented, and their writings represent the best thought and experience. In this class are such standard papers as the Dry- Goods Economist, Iron Age, Engineering Magazine, Street-Railway Journal and many others. Such pub- lications have a large circulation as compared with the relatively limited number of people to whom they appeal. They represent in many cases valuable properties built up by careful and intelligent editorial work. The Dry-Goods Economist, for instance, has experts on its staff representing all the main divisions of the dry-goods trade. It has representatives in the leading fashion and manufacturing centers of the world. It has an intelligent correspondent in Paris, where fashions are created, and a technical writer in St. Gall, Switzerland, where many foreign laces and embroideries are made or sold. A trade paper is frequently, but not always, pub- lished in the center of the districts of the trade it rep- resents. For instance, a glove trade paper is pub- lished at Gloversville, N. Y. Textile trade papers are found among the looms and mills of New Eng- land. Shoe trade papers flourish in and around Boa- MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS 87 ton, the center of the shoe trade. Carpet trade papers are published in Philadelphia. The Dry-Goods Econ- omist has its offices located in the center of the whole- sale dry-goods district of New York. In this way, trade papers of the better sort reflect varying trade conditions, constantly and accurately. They are in close touch with the men who are most important in their businesses. Trade papers or class papers may be divided roughly into papers devoted to trades, such, for in- stance, as the Baker's Helper, a journal of the baking trade, or the Metal Worker, a journal for tin-roofers; papers devoted to professions, as The Green Bag for lawyers. The Dental Cosmos for dentists, or Archi- tecture and Building for architects; papers devoted to industries, as the Northwestern Miller, a leading organ of the flour-milling industry, or Power, a jour- . nal of applied steam and other power; papers for va- rious retail trades, as the American Stationer, or the Clothier and Furnisher, whose names are self-explan- atory; papers devoted to societies, secret and other- wise, such as the Masonic Home Journal; and edu- cational papers, such as the Normal Instructor. To these class papers might also be added the agricultural and religious papers, each of which forms a long list by itself. Every religious sect has publications devoted to its interests, some of which are important and have large circulations. The agri- cultural papers also have large circulations and reach constituencies important to the advertiser. CHAPTEE V MUEAL ADVERTISING Advertising, in the modem sense, relates almost altogether to magazines and newspapers. Street-cars and posters are or should be subsidiary. Most large advertisers, however, use all the mediums in the pro- portion which their judgment or experience decides is the best. But there are noteworthy instances in which advertisers have built up a large business by using street-cars and posters alone, utterly ignoring the magazines and newspapers. The H. J. Heinz Company, whose phrase, " One of the 5Y," is well known, have used street-car cards and posters only, supplemented by immense illuminated signs. The Heinz Pier at Atlantic City is one of the features of that resort and for the last few years has been famous for its flashing electric signs and its permanent display of goods. Magazines and newspapers can never cease to be the most important advertising mediums, but a sec- ond large division is formed by what may be called, for want of a better name, " mural " or " outdoor " advertising. Mural advertising is roughly subdivided into the two general divisions of street-car adverti- sing and poster work. The latter is understood to cover not only posters proper but permanent painted signs having the appearance and effect of posters. Of MURAL ADVERTISING 89 these two general divisions, the street-car advertising is the better systematized and classified, although each department of mural advertising has been worked up, organized and centralized more or less. The large cities are in a better condition than the small towns, and the East is better managed than the West. Both street-car work and bill-posting are in the hands of a few companies which have franchises and options, as well as leased sites, which make them brokers in a large way in space either in the street- ears or upon hoardings. Statistics for street-car work are more definite and more available than those for poster work. Thoroughly to cover the entire United States with street-car advertising would require, according to the estimate of one house, 45,000 cards, with 750 additional for Canada. This is supposed to represent one card in every full-time car. It of course does not represent one card in every car of all kinds. All sur- face lines have both summer and winter cars. They also have many shuttle cars, or cars that make short runs, so that this number does not represent, proba- bly, one-half of the street-cars in use in the country. According to the statistics of the Street-Railway Journal, the exact number of cars is 71,312. The figures represent, of course, all cars which carry ad- vertising, such as elevated and subway roads in the various cities and steam-lines which reach seaside and other resorts. For very thorough advertising, two cards or one double-sized card may be put in a single car. It- is generally understood that 30,000 cards represent a very complete street-car campaign. The 90 MODERN ADVERTISING service changes cards as often as desired, changes usually being made once a week or once a month. Extra cards are always sent to each distributing cen- ter, so that if any card should become damaged it could be promptly replaced. It takes about 45,000 single cards, 11 X 21 inches, to cover the country thoroughly. The cost of this ser\dce is from twelve to fifteen thousand dol- lars per month. Probably the lowest price on national service ever given' to any one was about twenty-five cents per card per car per month on an average. The regular price, however, in a rough estimate, is from forty to fifty cents, according to whether the contract is for three months or a year. Here is a list showing the number of cards required in each State based upon the above allowance of 30,000 cards for the United States: Alabama. Arkansas . 124 46 California 1,106 Colorado 280 Connecticut 534 Delaware 37 District of Columbia 486 Florida 52 Georgia 226 Idaho 2 Illinois 3,256 Indiana 338 Iowa 259 Kansas 70 Kentucky 463 Louisiana 364 Maine 187 Maryland 641 Massachusetts 3,087 Michigan 518 Minnesota 411 Mississippi 6 Missoun 1,401 Montana 21 Nebraska 150 New Hampshire 135 New Jersey 827 New Mexico 3 New York 6,698 North Carolina 65 Ohio 1,859 Oregon 72 Pennsylvania 2,626 Rhode Island 408 South Carolina 165 Tennessee 241 Texas 279 Utah 55 Vermont 45 Virginia 167 Washington 101 West Virginia 47 Wisconsin 312 Total 28,170 MURAL ADVERTISING 91 Street-car business has never been consolidated in the hands of any one general agent and probably never will be. Nor are there any number of general agents who can place street-car advertising over the entire co■untr)^ The whole of New England is under contract to one concern. All the surface cars in New York are controlled by one house, except 200 cars on the East Side (which are owned by the company which controls all the approaches to the ferry lines), and the Fifth Avenue Stage line. The elevated roads in New York and Brooklyn are con- trolled by one firm, which has not only the car service, but the station posters, while the entire surface system in Brooklyn is managed by another firm. The Mid- dle States, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, are controlled by a Detroit house. One man owns all the South, east of the Mississippi. The far West is distributed, while the Pacific slope is man- aged by a firm in San Francisco. The best terms can be made directly with these firms instead of trying to cover the country through any one house. Chicago is divided among a number of concerns, each of which should be dealt with separately. Some idea of the number of cards required in proportion to the number of cars the road actually operates may be determined from the following: Seven hundred and fifty cards are usually called for to be used upon the Broadway cars in New York city, alone, although this one road operates 1,800 cars. Seven hundred and fifty cards will put one in every full-time car the year around. A standard street-car card is 21 X 11 inches in size. But many advertisers use cards of twice this 92 MODERN ADVERTISING length. Some roads, nota- bly on the elevated trains now running in New York, call for a differ- ently proportioned card, which is 15 inches deep instead of 11 inches, and affords better display. There is a line of sub- urban cars running from Oakland and Berkeley Ferries in California, opposite San Francisco, which carries street-car cards four by three feet in size. Street-car advertising can never have either the definite or the expansive qualities of advertising in periodicals. It is confined to a display of the name of the article advertised and a few short statements about it. That is why it can serve best as supple- mental advertising. It deepens an impression made elsewhere. In the large cities street-car ad- vertising carries a state- ment before the eyes of a greater number of people, or those of the same people MURAL ADVERTISING •93 a greater number of times, than is possible to any other form of advertising. New York city, for instance, by which is m^eant the entire metropolitan district on both sides of the Hudson and East Rivers, has a population of 4,500,000. The surface and elevated roads in this district carry every year 1,350,000,000 people. Only a small percentage of these people, who average at least two trips a day, entirely escape the advertising NEW LIVE RUBBER IS THE REASON A SINGLE STREET-CAR CARD; SIZE, 21X11 INCHES. which appears in the ears. The population of the metropolitan district of Boston and suburbs is 1,162,000. The average travel in Boston is 700,000 people daily, or 259,000,000 each year.^ ' Since the above was in type the New York Subway has been completed and thrown open to the public. Fourteen competitors bid for the advertising privileges in the cars and stations of the New York Subway. The contract was finally awarded to Ward & Gow, New York, who control the advertising privilege on Man- hattan elevated lines, as well as the elevated station news stands. The price for the Subway advertising privilege is understood to be in the neighborhood of $200,000 a year. Only part of the road is thrown open this year, and the annual rental increases each year as other branches are opened. A five-year contract has been made, with privilege of renewal, and the average annual rate according 94 MODERN ADVERTISING Street-car advertising acts on passengers in a more or less compulsory way. It can not be escaped, es- pecially where one is a constant daily rider. There- fore, it is a powerful auxiliary to any other form of advertising. No story which requires details in tell- ing it can, however, be siiccessfully exploited in street-cars. Descriptive space can be obtained only in magazines and newspapers. Poster work and permanent painted signs are each managed largely by the same firms who act as bro- kers or by their representatives ia various towns and cities. To cover the whole country with bill-boards is largely a matter of approximation; that is, no one can hope to cover even a majority of the existing stands. Probably the largest showing ever made was that by the Porce Food Company, which used 30,- 000 eight-sheet stands and 20,000 twenty-four-sheet stands, at a cost of about- $25,000 per month. Bill- posting is in the hands of twelve agents who are recog- nized by the American Bill-Posters' Association, which includes all the bill-posters in the United States. to its terms is about $300,000. This is probably the largest con- tract of its nature in the world, and is highly interesting when it is remembered that approximately |1,000,000 will be given for the bare advertising option, the Subway company being put to no ex- pense for installing or maintaining the advertising plant. The rental ultimately agreed upon is said to be $200,000 in excess of Ward & Gow's original bid. Mr. Belmont's estimators were ex- perienced advertising men, and had calculated that the Subway could clear $800,000 by operating its own advertising service, allowing for soliciting, empty spaces, and all expenses. The Sub- way, as completed, will have in excess of 3,000 cars. Each car carries forty-two cards on the sides, with end spaces in addition. The Subway's figures were based on a charge to advertisers of about sixty cents per card per car per month. Different rates are charged for different positions. j CM i i O i : w Id ! -^ i t- 1 i j '"" 2 i ' ' 1 i o ! 1 i ^- ■■ 1 i i ^ i >J O s O > Americans who have enjoyed the teas of England say "we never get anything tike this in America." You can have it now quite as good as the best in England. The Kaicht'i Blend sells for (i.so B pound ; the Pn*rm' Blind (or (1.00; and the Clirk »f Otftrtt BlmJ for 60c., named after three of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Packed in half-pound tins and sold by all grocers carrying high- grade goods. Each package contaitis a little booklet giving directions for making. For tired people, people who over-strain in one way and another, there is probably nothing so healthful or so restful aa a cup of good tea, made right -and served right. It is the best "between' meal" beverage that the' world has yet discovered. Telephone reur grocer for a lample pound of Tabard Isn CoUm and a laniple bal^pouod of Tabard lim Tea. A TYPICAL ADVERTISEMENT OF SEYMOUR EATON FROM THE TAB- ARD INN NEWS. NOTE HOW THE SIGNATURE IS USED TO GIVE PERSONALITY. THIS APPEARS IN ALL HIS ADVERTISING. 141 142 MODERN ADVERTISING to make these businesses what they are, are deficient in imagination. They have to he thus deficient in order to accomplish what they have done. But they need an outside force to convince them that there are fields of commercial supremacy undreamed of by them. They have attained great success by following a worn channel, the beaten track. They have done so better than others, but still have made the conven- tional business progress. Advertising wears new channelsj treads new paths and brings unconventional success. It is the advertising manager who opens to the manufacturer these possibilities. According to statistics recently collected, the aver- age lawyer earns two thousand dollars a year ; the top- notch lawyer gets two hundred and fifty thousand. The average architect earns twelve hundred dollars a year ; the top-notch man two hundred thousand dol- lars. ■ The average physician earns fifteen hundred dollars a year; the top-notch man one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Manifestly the men who earn the highest salaries can be counted on the fingers of the hand. The others are of the rank and file. There are thousands of young men and women in this country earning salaries as small as they could earn in almost any class of commercial work, but who are classed as advertising men and women. They bear the same relation to the men who are making advertising history that the draughtsman in the office of a noted architect bears to the senior member of the firm. A great many of them will never get any fur- ther. Some of them will, however, but they are the men who appreciate the fact that the ability to write THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 143 is only a small part of the equipment of the competent advertising man. A great many exaggerated rumors about the sala- ries of advertising men have been in circulation. Like all new pursuits, advertising has suffered from the en- thusiasm of its friends. The large salaries one hears about are earned by men of unusual ability who would earn just as much money in any profession or busi- ness. Many of the leading advertising managers are directors in the companies whose products they adver- tise and share in the earnings. Some years ago the advertising press became quite excited over the fact that the advertising manager of a certain house making a well-known standard pro- prietary remedy received $10,000 for a series of fifty- two, four-inch newspaper advertisements. Finally the writer in question made public the statement that even if he did receive that amount, he gave half of it to the physician who gave him all the technical information upon which these advertisements were based. It is said that this man finally secured a sal- ary of $20,000 a year for his services from another large medicine house. It is significant that to-day this same man has become a failure; he owes thou- sands of dollars, and has never succeeded in getting on his feet again. One well-known writer of business literature, the creator of the Wanamaker style of department-store advertising, is now a free-lance writer of business announcements. He has no establishment or agency, uses only one style of copy, for which style he is famous, and it is said that he receives very large fees for his work. After the Wanamaker work, his great- 11 144 MODERN ADVERTISING est success has been perhaps a series of magazine advertisements for the Murphy Varnish Company, several of which are reproduced in this book. Not only the style of the advertisement, but the broad principles upon which the advertising itself was con- structed, makes this campaign a noteworthy one. The public does not buy varnish. It buys articles that have been varnished — carriages, pianos and fur- niture. This company's advertising was an attempt to teach people to discriminate in the matter of var- nish. It became so successful that few advertising men now realize that it is eight years since they have seen a Murphy varnish advertisement. Besides the Murphy series, this same writer has been known for the Macbeth lamp-chimney series. Another writer of advertisements is paid $15,000 a year by a doctor who advertises; but the average advertising manager earns from $3,500 to $7,500, and $10,000 is exceptional. The chances are as good as, but no better than, in other professions. To be a successful advertising manager, a man should possess certain natural qualities and have had a certain train- ing. First of all, he should have an innate, instinc- tive and intuitive knowledge of human nature; he should know how people think and feel and what will reach them. Whether he knows anything about psy- chology or not, he should imderstand the psychologi- cal processes — the habits of thought of the people. Then he should know all about the magazines and newspapers, what kind of people they reach, how much they cost, and whether the price is a fair one. He must know all about street-car advertising and those who handle it; about the price for bill-posting THE BEST GOODS means simply the goods most perfectly adapted to their use. If you wrote your tailor to make up a suit of clothes, on your measure, of his best cloth, he would not know what to do. He has a dozen cloths that are best for a dozen uses, but you must explain — street suit? dress suit? hunting suit? bathing suit? It makes a difference. Not more differ- ence than the use to which you will put varnish. If you wrote us for a can or a car-load of our best varnish, we should be as helpless as the tailor. What is it for? That is the first question to settle. A varnish that is perfectly adapted to one use, may be utterly worthless for some other use. Each varnish is made for some particular use, as each cloth is. Murphy Varnish Co. Head Omeei. Newark, N. J. Other Offices: Boston, Cleveland, St Louis, and Chicago. Factories: Newaric and Chicago. A "powers" magazine ADVEKTISEMBNT. 145 146 MODERN ADVERTISING and painted signs ; how to distribute plates for print- ing advertising in thousands of newspapers at once, so as to have them all appear on a given day ; be able to interview the manufacturers and others who man- age big businesses and find out their strong talking points, and be able to suggest a plan for advertising any kind of goods that can be advertised. An advertising manager must be a man who can combine business and advertising instincts. Such a man, if he is the ideal man, should be taken into the inmost counsels of his company. He should be closely associated with the sales manager, or he should be the sales manager. He should outline the policy that he proposes to follow, and he should lay that plan before the president or the board of directors or whomever has the veto power. After the general policy is ac- cepted, it is the advertising manager's business to carry it out without delay or hindrance. He contracts with a reputable advertising agency for the placing of his advertising. He arranges with the bill-posting and street-car advertising companies for mural adver- tising. He or his assistants buy printing, engraving, electrotyping, lithographing and other mechanical supplies. He employs designers to draw pictures, and writers to prepare " copy." He deals with concerns which prepare advertising plates, and which distrib- ute, handle, display or carry advertising. It will be his business to pass on the plan, decide if it is good, get in touch with the people who can carry it out, and determine whether the price to be paid is a fair one. He will know about his product, how it is made, and he will know especially how it is sold. He will be familiar with the machinery by which that THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 147 product is handled from the time when it leaves the plant all the way forward through the commission man, wholesaler, jobber, drummer and retailer, to the consumer. For some reason the mere ability to express one- self in words has come to be believed to be the leading qualification of an advertising man. This is un- doubtedly due to the fact that lately the ranks of ad- vertising men have been recruited from the ranks of newspaper and other writers. Of course, the reaction was bound to come, and it has come. The advertis- ing man of the future will not necessarily be a writing man at all, but will be a man who will know where to buy his writing, just as he now buys his designs. The advertising man of the immediate future and even of the present is a salesman. Only the other day a large concern was looking for several advertis- ing men. What it wanted was not a man who could write and design so much as a man who could sell goods — a man who could cooperate with the sales manager of the business, who could dictate a good selling plan and put it into operation. Such a man was at liberty to buy copy and designs wherever he could buy them best. Even if the advertising man has the ability to write exceptionally well, it doesn't mean that he should do the writing — ^merely that he should be able to judge its value. Mere writing is a small part of the work of the successful advertising man, because it is so much more important for him to have something to write. A glance at the advertising in any leading magazine will show that it is deficient in the use of words. We see many striking and unusual designs but we see very 148 MODERN ADVERTISING few well-written advertisements. Usually when we do see a well-written advertisement, it is in type with- out any design. In fact, one falls naturally into the habit of reading the advertisements which are without designs under the impression that the " copy " was unusually good, and it generally proves to be so. Take, for instance, the Macbeth lamp-chimney adver- tisements: these have had a persistent individuality. A young man who feels prepared to take up advertising work should stop and ask himself if he has any other qualification for becoming an adver- tising man than the desire to be one ; if he is depend- ing merely upon an ability to write, either actual or alleged; if he believes he can begin the work of an advertising man with any less rigorous preparation for it than he should need to begin the profession of a doctor, lawyer or architect ; if he knows that it takes four years at a professional school for a lawyer, doc- tor or architect to become competent, to make merely a beginning, and that even then the real training of such a professional man comes within the first two or three years of his professional life ? It takes seven years to give a professional man sufficient training to command a salary large enough to live upon. Has the young man in question had seven years of train- ing ? Has he sold goods by means of advertising for a period covering seven years ? Has he actually spent the money and seen the results ? No man is an advertising man who has merely sat in an office, prepared " copy " and sent it out. When he has been there long enough to see the results of that " copy " coming back, when he has been around the circle a good many times, and has made a good many THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 149 expensive mistakes, learned something from them and profited by them, then he begins to be qualified to spend other people's money with the idea of getting results. Even then the most he can do is simply to watch each campaign for its own symptoms and its own development. JSTo matter how many cases a lawyer has won, he has no guarantee that he can win any given case in the future. No matter how many times a doctor has performed an operation for appendicitis, he can not say with certainty any time that any given operation will prove successful. JS'o matter how much experi- ence the advertising man has had, every new adver- tising campaign he begins is to some extent, experi- mental. Of course, it gets less and less experimental as he adds to the list of things that he knows. The successful lawyer and the successful doctor have a certain experience upon which they can always count. They at least can eliminate a larger number of un- certainties than the beginner. That is all that the best advertising man can do. The reason why there have been so many incom- petent advertising men is because the business man who pays for the advertising is no better judge of the work from the start than the advertising man him- self. The business man makes two mistakes, or rather, he makes one of two mistakes. He either se- lects a man who is able to do his advertising success- fully, and then refuses to let him do it, or he selects a man who is incompetent and gives him the entire responsibility. Even now to a great many men who are advertis- ing, or who should advertise, advertising is more or 150 MODERN ADVERTISING less of a mystery, as much of a mystery as some of the methods of doctors, but this mystery is being dis- sipated just as it is being dissipated in other profes- sions. The time will come when no doctor will write a prescription in Latin ; when a lawyer's brief or other legal paper will be written in the language of the people. It is no longer necessary for the professions to surround themselves with this haze of mystery as if some incantation were being performed. The com- mon citizen is learning something about the laws of health and the laws of his country every day. As he learns more, the profession of a lawyer or doctor will become more practically useful, but at the same time less mysterious. In the same way the principles of advertising are going to be better known and, there- fore, the advertising that is done hereafter is going to be more effective. The work of an advertising man will be no more mysterious to those who have businesses to advertise than the work of a bookkeeper, cashier or sales man- ager. Then the man who really can do the work will do it, but it will be easier to eliminate the class of writer who is merely a man who has failed at some other work, who is discontented with the work he is doing, or who thinks that advertising work is a short, easy path to making money. As a matter of fact, the successful advertising man works as hard as, if not harder than, men in any other professions. It is probably no more true of an advertising man than it is of any successful professional man, that he is born rather than made. Inherent and innate abil- ity counts in any profession, and, of course, it counts equally as much in advertising. On the other hand, THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 151 it seems impossible that correspondence schools of ad- vertising could ever turn out any great number of successful advertising men. It is not expected of cor- respondence schools, nor for that matter of schools of mining engineering, civil engineering or design, to turn out any great number of successful mining en- gineers, civil engineers or designers. The most that the great majority of such students can hope to do is to secure positions at the foot of the ladder in these professions. Those who have ability will climb to the higher places. The most that can be expected of a correspondence school of advertising is that it will give to the most receptive of its students an inkling of this work, so that they can secure positions at the foot of the ad- vertising ladder and then work up in the same way. It is true, as the advertising school prospectus claims, that there are a great many positions open for adver- tising men to-day. Every agency is looking for a man who can get the business of advertisers, and to get such business in this day and age presupposes knowledge of advertising as it is done. The same agencies want men to prepare advertising matter be- ginning with the product itself and its method of sell- ing, and working through from this foundation, to the advertising of it in the magazines and newspapers which are the selling force. The magazines and newspapers are looking for solicitors who combine the business-getting instinct with a knowledge of the construction of advertise- ments. The solicitor who can talk to the customer about his advertising problem intelligently, and who can make a pertinent suggestion about the way in 152 MODERN ADVERTISING which the advertising should be written, has a better chance of getting the business ultimately, than the man who is a solicitor pure and simple. By far the most attractive position of all is that of the advertising manager of a manufacturing plant. Only a few such companies are advertisers and hence only a few such positions are now being filled. It is undoubtedly true that not only will a great many more plants in lines already being advertised avail themselves of this method of getting business, but whole new departments of manufacture never before considered to be advertisers are going to be added to this list, and each one of these will require the ser- vices of a man capable of engineering the possibili- ties of that company from an advertising point of view, and of constructing the advertising matter in preparation for such a possibility. The best way to present a true picture of the ad- vertising manager's work is to suppose or describe this method in connection with some mythical com- pany manufacturing a product which can be sold over the entire country, and which can utilize all methods of publicity. It would be necessary for the successful adver- tising manager to know, first, the exact possibilities of the product, to know just how much was being sold and how distributed; the price to the jobber and to the consumer ; the number of traveling men and the territory each covered; the number of companies manufacturing a similar or competing article, and the exact output of their factories. He would study every bit of advertising used by competitors ; he would be personally acquainted with every traveling man and THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 153 would know the exact resources of his trade, as well as the standing of the house itself in the trade. Some large advertisers ride roughshod over the feelings of the trade which handles their goods. They go on the theory that if their advertising is good enough, they can compel the dealer to sell their goods. This is true, but a certain amount of friction must be overcome if the trade is unfriendly, and friction is always lost power. As an instance of this, a happening in the break- fast-food trade a short time ago is pertinent. Two of the largest grocery houses in JSTew York City de- cided not to carry a certain food. The manufacturer of this food was notoriously inconsiderate in his treat- ment of the trade, and the trade was notoriously un- friendly toward him. These two grocery concerns had a number of branch stores and controlled between them the largest part of the high-grade trade in ISTew York City. So they decided to combine in refusing to handle this breakfast food and instead would force a product of their own. For three months all inquiries for the rejected food were " turned down " by the clerks, but at the end of that time public opinion became so strong that the two houses took the food back as one of their staple products. In a way this seemed a triumph for the ad- vertiser, and it was, since it proved that a large con- cern can not stand in the way of public opinion cre- ated by successful advertising. On the other hand, the advertiser lost the trade of two large chains of stores for three months, and this must have amounted to a considerable sum. As soon as the advertising manager has completed 154 MODERN ADVERTISING his study of business conditions, he prepares a plan which includes a certain amount of magazine and newspaper advertising, street-car cards and bill-boards. In addition to this certain sums of money will be devoted to schemes for house-to-house distribution, either of printed matter or of the goods ; for a public demonstration in the department stores or other places where purchasers assemble ; for prize offers of various kinds, beginning with the well-worn and effective plan of offering presents for a certain number of cou- pons concealed in the package or cut from box fronts and labels, and working up to the modern idea of concealing separate letters spelling the name of the article in the different cartons and offering prizes for complete words spelled by these letters. These things belong to the advertising manager's field and the num- ber of such plans is infinite. Having decided upon the avenues through which the advertising appropriation shall be expended, the advertising manager apportions the money among the different mediums, and finally makes a complete list of all the publications and other mediums that will be used, and the cost of each. In making out such a list, he is helped by the various agencies which handle the advertising. For instance, his regular advertis- ing agency will prepare an estimate for the placing of the magazine and newspaper advertising. In the case of a company employing its own advertising man- ager, the latter usually prepares his own copy and designs, often cooperating with the agent to get the best results. Some agencies handle bill-board advertising also, but usually the advertising manager deals directly THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 155 with the bill-poster's organization through some one of its twelve created agencies. A list of the stands, of their size, number of sheets, and cost is made. Street-car advertising is handled in the same way, through concerns which represent the different parts of the country. Usually contracts are made with con- cerns which paint permanent signs. The whole thing, when added together, representing the covering of the whole country thoroughly, means an appropriation of anywhere from $150,000 to $750,000. After the plan has been completed and the appro- priation made, the matter is generally submitted to the company's president or whoever has the veto power, and being approved, the advertising manager or the agency directs writers and artists to prepare matter in keeping with the settled policy. The methods are as different as the articles ad' vertised. A great number of sessions are required on the part of all interested in order to pass on the vari- ous phases of the advertising, its policy, and its style — whether or not it will be illustrated, and if illus- trated, whether or not certain characters should be created that can be used for all the advertising; whether a vaudeville idea should be used, or straight, sound reasoning; whether preferred and special posi- tions shall be paid for in the magazines and news- papers, and other questions of a most subtle and in- definable character, but still questions which must be decided one way or the other, and upon which decision really rests the success of the advertising. AH of these matters being settled, the " copy " is prepared and it is generally the work of the agency to put it into form to be sent to the magazines. The 156 MODERN ADVERTISING designs at least must be engraved. The best agencies and advertising managers prefer to set up their own type, sending afterward to the publications the ad- vertisement all ready to print. For newspaper work there exist complete organi- zations to attend to the entire work of duplicat- ing the different advertisements and distributing the plates to the twenty-three thousand newspapers of the country. It is optional whether the checking of ad- vertisements shall be done by the agency which placed the advertising, or whether it shall be checked in the office of the advertiser. Many advertising concerns have a complete force of their own and keep the same publications on file to check up the bills of the agency. Some national advertisers place their magazine ad- vertising through an agency, and their newspaper advertising direct. In many cases the advertiser can get better prices in the newspapers than the agency can get for him. The advertising manager must see to it that the traveling men of his company are kept carefully posted on the progress of the advertising. They are supplied with copies of all the magazines and news- paper advertisements and they are informed in what cities he will find street-car and bill-board advertising. On the other hand, the traveling man is the best source of information for the advertising manager, as to whether bill-board and street-car contracts appear to have been well carried out, of the state of the trade in regard to the article which he sells, of the progress of competitors' articles in the same town, and of the advertising they are doing. The modem advertising manager has in his office, THE ADVERTISING JIANAGER 157 a complete system for keeping his hand upon the pulse of the commercial world as it affects his product. He will have a complete set of maps mounted in a cabinet — a map of each state or part of a state, according to the minuteness of the country covered. He will have a set of colored tacks which can be inserted in different towns, villages or cities on these maps. For instance, a blue-headed tack will stand for newspaper advertising in a certain town, a red-headed tack for street cars, and a black-headed tack for bill-boards. He will then have tacks of different shape and color to represent his traveling men, which will be changed daily by his assistant, so that he can see at a glance just where all the travelers are on a given morning. Suppose he finds at his office on that given morn- ing, a telegram from a traveling man announcing that a leading competitor has increased his advertising in a certain town, and in consequence the competing ar- ticle is gaining ground. The advertising manager, like a general commanding a campaign, as soon as possible increases the size of space he is using in the local newspapers where the competing article is being pushed. He will contract for more space in the street cars, and in other ways strengthen their showing in that town, or he may send to the traveling man or to the trade in that town, a special offer or induce- ment to strengthen the pushing of the article. Often this must be done simultaneously in several parts of the country. The advertising man must be a man of resources in order to prepare plans and carry them out, and he must be ready to act in all sorts of emergencies 158 MODERN ADVERTISING which arise in conducting any national campaign, especially where competition is strong. Neither the advertising manager nor the travel- ing man of the company can really check up all the street-car cards or bill-boards. Perfect verification of these is hard. Photographic vouchers are used for bill-boards and painted signs. As a rule, all such con- tracts are honestly carried out, but the faithfulness of the different bill-posters and the men handling the chain of street-car cards must be relied upon. The good advertising manager travels over the country himself as frequently as possible and notes not only the effect of his own advertising, but also that of competitors and of other advertisers as well. Advertisers have attained success in so many ways that no outline, even a typical one, will fairly repre- sent this subject. The character of Sunny Jim was established as an advertising character through the advertising of Force. It has never been settled satisfactorily in any- body's mind whether the creation of Sunny Jim was or was not a good advertising feat; whether Sunny Jim advertised Force or whether Force advertised Sunny Jim. Still, the inception of this character is of considerable interest to advertising men, and it has undoubtedly obtained wider publicity than any other one character in advertising. The original Sunny Jim jingle was written by a young woman in New York City who had done some rambling newspaper work. Another young girl, a friend of hers, drew the first two pictures of Jim Dumps and Sunny Jim. This first verse, while by no means faultless metrically, and while not so good THE ADVERTISING MANAGER 159 as subsequent ones, really established the form and style of the succeeding verses. The writer and artist sold their inception to Will- iam B. Hunter, who was then advertising manager of the Force Food Company. Mr. Hunter bought the idea without any definite intention as to its use. Af- terward, it occurred to him that a series might be made of these jingles for street-car use. He called upon the original writer to furnish twelve more verses which she did. The artist, however, did not care to illustrate any more Sunny Jim jingles, so the work of illustrating was turned over to a commercial artist, who retained the spirit of the original drawing and produced the various ones for this set. These jingles were not as smooth metrically as Mr. Hunter wished, and the work of revising them was offered to an advertising agency who not only did this work, but supplied, in one way or another, all of the succeeding versions of the Sunny Jim series, both as to designs and matter. The jingles were writ- ten by many writers ; in some eases, by writers of na- tional reputation. A large number of artists contrib- uted to the designs. It was the aim to secure a great deal of humor in each picture. The artist most ca- pable of. giving this touch to the drawing lacked the particular style which was essential to the Sunny Jim drawings, therefore, he was paid for a rough, penciled sketch incorporating the spirit of the design which was furnished by an artist who could draw the sort of line which had been used for Sunny Jim. The point to be noticed is that the idea of making a series of Sunny Jim was the thought of Mr. Hunt- er, the advertising manager, and that the particular 13 160 MODERN ADVERTISING merit of creating the character of Sunny Jim is in- cidental. Any one of a dozen inceptions would have done equally well; the value of this particular one has heen entirely due to its reputation and wide publicity. An advertising manager's success depends upon his knowledge of such matters in what to do, and what not to do. His freedom to carry out his plans also depends upon his relation to his company. Many a well-planned campaign is spoiled by the efforts of various members of a company who insist upon the exploitation of their own ideas. On the other hand, many companies have been wrecked by allowing an incompetent advertising manager full scope. Prob- ably no other business depends so fully upon the tem- perament and disposition of the man doing the work. On the other hand, the most successful advertising managers of to-day are the men who are delivering the most exact results from a given appropriation. CHAPTEK VIII THE GENERAL ADVEETISINa AGENCY This term " agency " or " general agency " is not adequate in describing properly the functions of the general advertising agency. It has survived' from the earlier days of advertising, when the term ex- pressed a meaning as complete as could be desired. In a former chapter it was shown how the agency idea was started by men who made contracts with one or more newspapers to be their sole representative in a given city or a given territory. Such an agency is to-day known as a special agency. With the growth of advertising, however, conditions have so changed that the general advertising agent is now practically the agent of every publication in the country, in that he is paid a commission on all the business he sends them. It is even now a much-discussed question whether the advertising agent is the agent of the publisher or the agent of the advertiser. Although this has been debated for several years, it is still brought up from time to time. The publisher of a magazine whose circulation is one of the largest in the country, asserts that the agent is an employee of the publisher. He claims this because the agent receives a commission on all the business he sends to that publication, and that, furthermore, it is his duty as an employee to work for that publication, to fight its battles, 161 162 MODERN ADVERTISING to break down any prejudice that might be found against it and to place it on every list where he con- scientiously can. He goes even farther than this and says that the time will come when the publisher will insist upon directing the advertising campaign which the advertising agent is supposed to manage for his client. The fallacy of this argument can be best illus- trated by the statement that there are something like twenty-three thousand publications in this country. The advertising agent under this interpretation would have twenty-three thousand employers, and when he secures a new advertising account the proper thing for him to do would be to rent a convention hall, call in his twenty-three thousand employers, and let them direct him in the planning and execution of the campaign. If this be not correct, the rule must then be applied only to those publications to whose offices the agent, when he gets a new account, will go and allow himself to be directed as to how the account shall be handled. Of course, in doing this, he will obviously become disloyal to his twenty- two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine other employers and will bring down upon his head their wrath. One must bear in mind also that the adver- tising agent, on this theory, would be the employee of the street-car advertising and bill-board companies, the painted-sign people, the trade papers and various other advertising mediums of more or less value. The only logical answer to claims of this kind is that the agent is not an employee of the publications at all. He is a sort of wholesaler or middleman, as far as the purchase of space is concerned. As a whole- THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 163 saler he gets the jobber's price, which is ten or fifteen per cent, below the retail price. The manufacturer or advertiser engages the agent on account of the special training he has had, or is supposed to have had, in successfully increasing the business of the manufacturer by selling his goods through the mediums of type, ink and paper. He be- comes an additional selling force and a part of the sales department. ISTo one will question that the commission basis for handling an advertising account is illogical and unsatisfactory. It is a condition of the business which grew out of conditions that existed when advertising agent really meant what is known as a special agent — a man who represented exclusively one or more publications in a given city or territory. The publishers of the country pay a commis- sion to advertising agents because the agents are, and always have been, the greatest creative force of new advertising, and because the publisher wants this creative force to continue in operation, knowing full well that as the volume of general advertising increases, he will secure his share of patronage in pro- portion as his publication is valuable. The real point of the controversy, however, is often lost sight of, and that is owing to the fact that publishers have not been sufficiently discriminating in their recognition of agents ; they are doing business with many who are really a menace to the advertising business. Every publisher feels reasonably sure, though he may not be in position to put the matter to proof, that he has on his list of recognized agents, men who employ doubtful methods, who have neither the intelligence, 164 MODERN ADVERTISING ability nor •willingness to handle an advertising ac- count to the best advantage, and men who consider only the profit they can make out of a manufacturer during the life of their first contract. Thousands of manufacturers have become dis- couraged and have dropped out of the field altogether, simply because they had the misfortune to fall into the hands of an incompetent or a dishonest agent. The publishers lose more heavily than any one else from such a condition, because they get but one year's business from an advertiser who, if his account had been properly handled, would have been a permanent customer. Almost any one seems able to become an adver- tising agent and to be recognized as such, and once an advertising agent, always an advertising agent, whether the methods employed are helpful or detri- mental. Some little quibble is occasionally raised as to a new advertising agent needing to have at hand three accounts before he will be recognized, but the restriction is not enforced in spirit or letter. If the publishers of this country, and especially the magazine publishers, would revise their lists and confine them to agents who actually create business, their troubles would be lessened and their business would be placed upon a firmer basis. If such action were taken, it would mean a better protection to manufacturers whose business the magazines are con- stantly soliciting. The Quoin Club, which is composed of the adver- tising managers of the leading magazines, has done much to settle many of these problems. Their sessions are not public, and therefore, no accurate knowledge THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 165 of their deliberations is available, but the general impression among advertising men seems to be that there is a lack of uniformity as to policy, due possibly to the fact that the members of the club represent conflicting business interests. It is to be hoped, how- ever, that as the organization grows in strength, its work will result in greater and more permanent im- provement. It is quite certain that its efforts meet with the approval and support of the better class of advertising agents. The modern advertising agent, therefore, if he is an employee at all, is the employee of the advertiser, but his relation to the advertiser is more like that of a lawyer to his client. In order to be in position to produce the best results, his relation to his client should be a confidential one. The client should be willing to tell him his business secrets. He should know the volume of business, the margin of profit, the territory now being operated, and the reasons why that territory can or can not be extended. He should be familiar with the arguments made by the salesmen. He should know what competition must be met and what methods are employed in that competition. He should have a clear view of the market In short, the advertiser should be prepared to place before his advertising agent a digest of his entire business. The advertising agent, after considering all these things, constructs an advertising plan based upon the kind of salesmanship best calculated to produce re- sults, which plan will, in his judgment, increase the volume of sales and extend the territory of those sales. He should be independent of publications, although indirectly representing them. He should select pub- 166 MODERN ADVERTISING lications solely upon their merits for the exploitation of the goods he has under consideration and in accord- ance with the appropriation which he deems necessary, and which the manufacturer has decided to place at his disposal. This appropriation should always be considered as an advertising investment and should not under any consideration be classed as a business expense. It is just as fully a legitimate investment as an investment in real estate. Having decided upon the framework of his plan, the advertising agent then proceeds to carry out the plan. In doing this, he must have talent or some natural aptitude for making the same kind of an im- pression upon the reader as the personal talk of a sales- man would make. This does not mean the ability to write smart catchphrases or to play upon words, although it frequently happens that a catchphrase will lead the reader into the body of the text by exciting the interest of one who is casually turning over the pages. At other times this is done by means of a pertinent or attractive illustration. The advertising agent, therefore, must know something of type, something of art, something of the various kinds of engraving and printing. He must know much of business and a great deal of sales- manship. Probably the best training a young man could have who is about to embark on this business, would be first to have sold goods on the road or across a cotmter. George Dyer, a well-known writer of advertising matter, has discussed the advertising agency and its functions luminously in the columns of Mahin's Magazine.^ He says : < This magazine has ceased to be published THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 167 "The institution known as an advertising agency is often a puzzle to the new advertiser. His interest in publicity may be entirely due to some agent who has labored long and zealously to awaken him to new business possibilities. Yet when it comes to buying space he is troubled by the thought of the agent's commission. " He learns that there are scores of agents of little finan- cial responsibility. He is perhaps sohcited by some who are pretty light-weight specimens, judged by his every-day knowledge of men and affairs. He is astounded to learn that desk-room and a few new accounts are the only quali- fications necessary for an agent, and that recognition means that this individual, who perhaps has not the money to pay for the space, can buy it ten per cent, cheaper than the man who uses it. " Now the advertiser very Hkely prides himself upon his capital and his credit and their power to command the best price in every market. He is accustomed to buying at first hand and not from jobbers and commission men. He re- sents the superior buying advantage enjoyed by the agent and is sure there must be some way to ehminate him from the transaction. " Note the steps by which this new advertiser reaches the customary wrong estimate of the province of the advertising agency. He is told that the publications will not take his business direct, cash in advance, and let him have the agent's commission — but he is incredulous. "He thinks perhaps a rebate scheme can be worked. However he tries, he finds the magazines firm in their policy. There is no question that they protect the agent. "'Now,' he argues, 'there must be a weak spot some- where; let us see if the agents will be equally stanch in protecting the pubhcations.' He opens his business to competition and sure enough he finds the desired elasticity. One agent will rebate three per cent., another will split his commission even, and so on down the line — until he finds some one who will consent to merely bill the space each month for one or two per cent. 168 MODERN ADVERTISING "But still the advertiser is not satisfied. He gets nothing in return for this one or two per cent. Viewed in the light of other commercial transactions, it is an unjust tax which he is forced to pay to an interloper, a man who stands between him and the publisher and exacts a penalty on every dollar he spends in the pubUcations — and by what token, pray? Merely the fact that the publisher is pleased to extend to this irresponsible third party a recognition denied the advertiser? " In the eyes of the business man the condition is a totally unnatural one. He has little respect for a business subject to such abuses, and his suspicions are usually confirmed by the poor results of his advertising. " He is under no sort of obligation to the agent who is placing his business at two per cent. He receives little serv- ice from him, and that little were better not done. He is not the agent who did the missionary work in the first place and interested him in advertising. The two-per-cent. agent creates neither new customers for the publisher nor new trade for the advertiser. "The agent, though voluntarily agreeing to cut his com- mission, is usually dissatisfied. He resents the low price though he does nothing to earn it. He will try to recoup himself at the expense of the advertiser whenever opportun- ity offers. " An agency with an organization can not be maintained on less than ten per cent. If it has no organization, its serv- ices are dear though furnished free. " Nothing for nothing has been the rule in the business world since the beginning; but the advertiser who pays next to nothing will get worse than nothing in return. One of the greatest wrongs done by the cut-rate agent is that he diverts the buyer's mind from the main issue — ^the success of the advertising. " The beginner is likely to have very vague ideas of ex- ploiting his proposition. All he can see is that two per cent, is less than ten per cent. — that is a tangible thing. The conditions necessary to successful pubMcity are vague and intangible. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 169 "While venturing on such uncertain ground he grasps eagerly at whatever he can understand of actuality. He can see no harm in saving ever3rthing possible at the start. It does not occur to him that considering the number of advertising failiu-es, fifty per cent, would be a small price for a guarantee of the success of his proposition. " Of course he can not obtain such a guarantee, but ten per cent, is little to pay for the best advertising insurance available, and mind you, this ten per cent, is paid by the publisher. " In other instances the new advertiser, not knowing how or where to begin, realizing his own weakness and utter de- pendence, gladly admits the agent's right to the full com- mission until he thinks he can do without assistance; then looks for a cheaper agent, and of course, pays the usual penalty of over-smartness. "The fact that this advertiser's first success is soon turned into doubt or defeat is small consolation for the agent who spent hours of study and weeks of work in the effort to launch him aright. Every good agent is accustomed to this sort of thing. Flagrant ingratitude, we might call it if we were discussing the moral rather than the business side of it — and for the advertiser it is very bad business. "There can be no question as far as the advertiser is con- cerned that the good agent is entitled to all the commission the publisher pays him. "He is of greater assistance to some advertisers than others; but I contend that the intelHgent agent is worth a great deal more than he gets, even in an instance where the advertiser furnishes all his own cuts and copy, forwards complete plates direct to the publication, selects his own media, and does the checking in his own department. "It is plain that no one besides the advertiser himseK is as much concerned in his success as the publisher. Adver- tising that does not pay is soon discontinued. A discouraged customer is hard to start over again. Every advertising failure, whatever its cause, works ill to the business. Under the present system the agent is the employee of the publisher; 170 MODERN ADVERTISING paid to spread the gospel of publicity, paid to nurse new- advertisers into life, paid to help them live and thrive after they are started. "If we regard the agent as the employee of the pubUsher, then we must criticize the publisher for the indiscriminate selection of his representatives. "We must say to the pubUsher, 'Nine-tenths of your employees are not fitted for their work. Either because of laziness or inabiUty they give away part of the wages you pay them in order to shirk the work you expect them to do. You are paying nine-tenths of your employees to make mis- chief and confusion, undoing the work of the other honest tenth who keep faith with you and help the advertiser.' " I contend that the present agency system is a peculiarly vicious one because it fosters a lot of parasites who thrive under conditions which they in no way help to create or maintain. "By setting aside a miscellaneous lot of men and paying them merely for being agents you put a premium upon in- competency. " The agency system may undergo some radical changes, but the agent will never be ehminated. The pubUsher can not afford to do without him, no more can the advertiser. The agency business, like every other business, is the product of conditions. It is, in some instances, as good as it can be made with existing handicaps and in others as bad as the pubUsher will permit it to be. "The questionable agent finds his support in the ques- tionable publisher. When the reliable publishers decide to support the competent agents we shall have better adver- tisers and more of them. " The whole question is up to the pubUsher, and I want to say that the procession is waiting for the newspaper. The leading newspaper pubUshers to-day are fostering what is bad in the agency business. Their want of fairness, of honor and of business judgment in their attitude toward the cred- itable agent is only to be compared with their utter lack of dignity and decency in their treatment of each other. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 171 " If a score of the leading metropolitan dailies would unite in refusing-recognition to the unscrupulous, irresponsible and incompetent agent, they would do more than any other force at this time to right abuses in the advertising business. They would render an incalculable service to themselves. They would do a great work for the success of every new advertiser — and some of the old ones." Seymour Eaton, in a speech before the Sphinx Club, an advertising organization of New York City, said that advertising methods which brought success in the past would not necessarily bring success in the future; the methods employed last year would prob- ably not be fruitful this year ; the methods used this year would probably fail next year. Conditions are constantly changing, and the successful advertising agent must be alive to the situation or he will be likely to lose money for his client. No advertising agent should allow himself to be influenced or coerced in favor of any publication. Nothing should count but the presentation of the claims of a given publication and his calm judgment on those claims. He should steadfastly regard the interests of his client. He should ignore friendships and special pleading. He should select those mediums which his judgment, training and experience lead him to believe to be the best for the purpose in hand. The publisher keenly appreciates the work of an advertising agency along these lines, but realizing that many agents on his books have not this necessary equipment, he is often in a quandary. Some pub- lishers offer the advertiser a service of their own. They employ writers and designers, and either sell or give the service of these men to the advertiser. Such 172 MODERN ADVERTISING methods, however, can only hope for success with very limited appropriations, in which one publication only is considered. It must necessarily follow that after the advertiser is strong enough to stand alone, he must either handle the work himself or employ a disinter- ested advertising man. This, because he can never shake off the lingering suspicion that the publisher is an interested adviser — interested too largely in the sale of his own advertising pages. The publisher is in business to sell advertising space, and as a success- ful merchant his natural inclination must be to sell all the space he can to a given advertiser before he permits other publications to be considered. The advertising agent has, or should have, nothing to sell. He is a professional man in a sense, and should have but one interest — the success of the adver- tising campaign upon which he is engaged. He should concentrate his energies on making this campaign a success just as a lawyer concentrates his energies in handling a case in court toward securing a favorable verdict for his client. The only verdict an advertising agent is pleading for is the verdict of the people in favor of the goods he is advertising. The development of the advertising agency has covered a period of upward of fifty years. In the beginning it was plain merchandising, the profes- sional element not entering into consideration at all. The agent represented certain publications and he had something tangible to sell — ^which was white space. The advertising rates at that time were flexible. He got as high a price as he could. He sold to the highest bidder. George P. Eowell, the publisher of Printers' Ink, THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 173 a weekly paper devoted to advertising interests, and one of the originators of the advertising agency busi- ness, says that no one will ever be able to make as much money out of advertising commissions as he himself did, meaning by this that the percentage of profit on any given appropriation was greater in the beginning of the advertising business than it is to-day. The first men who founded advertising agencies reaped a good profit, the profit that comes to the orig- inator of any good idea. As advertising agencies multiplied, competition forced a gradual decline in commissions, until the percentage has approached a fixed point. This fixed point has settled somewhere between ten and fifteen per cent. It seems now to be generally accepted that the commission of from ten to fifteen per cent, is a just and right compensation to the agent, and sufiBcient to allow him a proper margin for giving good service to the advertiser. These terms seem to be acceptable to most of the agents. Advertising men, however, can be divided into several classes : First are those operating on the old lines and who are little more than brokers in space. Their service is not particularly valuable. They re- lieve the merchant of the details of correspondence with publications, of adjusting rates, of the bookkeep- ing, checking and billing incident to an advertising campaign. Such agencies are not in position to earn the maximum commission, and realizing this, they are willing to share their commissions with the advertiser. Unfortunately, in doing this, they go into direct com- petition very frequently with the modern advertising 174 MODERN ADVERTISING agent to whoiii the brokerage in space is merely inci- dental to the professional side of the campaign — ^that is, the planning of the campaign itself, the prepara- tion of " copy," the " follow-up " system and the gen- eral study of the market. To the modern agent, even the maximum commis- sion is an inadequate return for the service he renders unless the appropriation is a very large one. In order to protect the better agency, a number of the leading magazines have made it conditional — and in some cases have a written contract to that efEeet — that ten per cent, shall be the commission and that no agent shall divide this ten per cent, commission with his clients. The abuse of the splitting of commissions applies almost altogether to the magazines, as newspaper com- missions and newspaper rates still vary so much, and as the newspapers themselves are not, as a rule, very particular on this point and set up no iron-clad con- ditions. But the action of the magazines by no means settles the question. In the first place, is ten per cent. a fair and just compensation for planning an adver- tising campaign? Second, if it is, just what shall be done for that ten per cent. ? Each agent settles these questions for himself. If ten per cent, is charged for the mere clerical act of placing the advertising in the magazines, check- ing up the insertions and rendering bills for space, it is a high rate. But if it is the amount charged for real advertising service in making plans, selecting the mediums, and preparing the " copy " and designs, the price is low — in some cases too low to be profitable. An appropriation varies. It may be one thousand or THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 175 one hundred thousand dollars. Yet, within certain limits, the amount of work to be done for the one- thousand-dollar plan is almost as much as that for the one-hundred-thousand-dollar plan. When an agent places a four-inch advertise- ment in The Ladies' Home Journal, his commis- sion is thirty-three dollars and sixty cents. If he places a page advertisement in The Ladies' Home Journal, his commission is four hundred dollars. It is easily possible that the design and " copy " used in the four-inch advertisement may involve just as much time, labor and thought as the page adver- tisement. Then the agent gets respectively thirty- three dollars and sixty cents and four hundred dollars for the same amount of service. Of course, these things even themselves up in handling a number of appropriations, but it will be seen that a compensation fixed by this basis is illogical and unfair. Meanwhile, the better class of agencies make an arrangement whereby they maintain the ten per cent, commission with an extra charge for designing, engraving, com- position and all the mechanical details incident to an advertising campaign. This is more businesslike than the other method and is the present status of the matter. Manifestly the labor of writing an advertisement is more or less uniform. A design can cost anywhere from five dollars to a thousand dollars, and generally it is for the advertising agent and the advertiser to decide how expensive a design — or in other words, how good a design — should be used. The opinion of the agent in such cases is important, as it is his duty not to recommend any unnecessary expense; but on the 13 176 MODERN ADVERTISING other hand, he should not fail to insist upon any ex- pense that seems necessary. In distinction from this, there are many agencies which make it a business to place magazine adverti- sing at a cut price. This cut price is sometimes lower even than five per cent. But the agency which at- tempts to place a large volume of business on such a small margin is a menace to the publishers. Within the past two years there have been many failures, some of which have shown assets of practically nothing and liabilities of upward of a million dollars. Many manufacturers who have decided to adver- tise and who lack a thorough realization of the differ- ence in agencies, select the list of publications decided upon, the size of space and the number of insertions, and then secure bids. Such bids, of course, cover nothing but the mere placing of the advertising in the magazines. To secure these contracts, agencies of the broker- age type — ignoring the agreements and signed con- tracts with publications — ^will bid as low as they must go in order to be favored. And if the list is a long one and contains many weak magazines — that is, mag- azines whose lowest net rate no one is sure of — they can often make themselves good. As long as the bulk of the commission, even at two or three per cent., is more than ten per cent, on the magazines that insist upon ten per cent., the agent is safe. Even the advertiser who intends to turn over all his advertising work to an agency sometimes insists upon bids. Manifestly, except where a difference in rates can be secured, the agent who secures the con- tract at five per cent, is agreeing to give the same THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 177 service for which another would charge ten per cent. As the cost of space can not be cut with the better magazines, the agency must necessarily " cut " the quality of its service. The laborer is worthy of his hire. The advertiser is not going to get the same service from an agency which charges five per cent, commission as he would from an agency which charges ten. !N'o man can deliver a thousand dollars' worth of goods and charge five hundred dollars for the goods and make money, and no advertising agent is going to do it. There are only two logical solutions of the situa- tion : One is that the publishers must revise their lists and cut out the fungus growth that now retards their progress, doing business only with agencies of whose methods they are in no doubt, or eliminate the agency altogether and make a net rate to everybody, so that no agency or individual will get any advantage what- ever in placing business. Then the advertising agent will charge a definite price for his service, the same as a lawyer or an architect would charge, which will be a certain percentage of the amount of the appro- priation. This would naturally put out of business a large number of agencies which at present have no excuse for existence except as mere placing machines. The advertising agencies which have the largest mortgage on the future are those whose service in placing advertising is their least important claim for recognition. Agencies resting securely upon a foun- dation of furnishing effective plans, striking designs, good " copy," competent advice and thorough systems, are in the same relation to their customers as is a sal- aried advertising man on the customer's pay-roll. As 178 MODERN ADVERTISING things are at present, however, the agency which in- sists upon a straight ten per cent, plus the cost of designs and mechanical accessories, and delivers the service, is by far the best agency for the advertiser. The kind of service such an agency can give is worth more than ten per cent, of the appropriation, and the agency which persistently refuses to split the commis- sion is the agency which persistently refuses to depre- ciate its service. The contract which some of the leading magazines require advertising agents to sign is insisted upon not merely for the protection of the better class of agents, but for the protection of the magazine itself. The cutting of rates was recognized by The Curtis Pub- lishing Company, owners of The Ladies' Home Jour- nal and The Saturday Evening Post, as a serious menace to advertising standards. The Ladies' Home Journal at that time being one of the leading adver- tising mediums of the country, representing the largest amount of money and the greatest volume of advertising, together with the largest circulation, formed a part of nearly every advertising estimate. Unscrupulous agents, in order to get the business, would cut the rate of The Ladies' Home Journal more seriously than that of any other paper, as it repre- sented a larger amount of money ; then having secured the order, they would attempt to reduce the amount of space to be used in The Journal to less than had been estimated upon. In this way The Journal was discriminated against and suffered. Thomas Balmer, then western agent of The La- dies' Home Journal, in collaboration with a western advertising agent, arranged a form of contract and THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 179 plan by which this difBeulty was met. His plan has been gradually put into effect until every agency recognized by The Ladies' Home Journal has signed the contract. Other leading magazines have contracts more or less similar in form. The Ladies' Home Journal agreement is as follows : The Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia. Gentlemen : In acting as your agent for the placing of advertising in The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Everdng Post, for which we are now allowed a commission of ten per cent., we hereby agree to maintain your full card rate, less the regular cash discount of five per cent, for pay- ment before the first day of month following date of bill. We further agree not to quote any price for advertising in The Ladies' Home Journal or The Saturday Evening Post at less than your full card rates at that time in effect, and should this agency, or any of its solicitors or connections, accept business and violate this agreement, either by direct cut in price or by allowance in any form, we will, upon satis- factory proof of same, pay you the full card rate for the busi- ness on which cut or allowance has been made — subject only to the regular cash discount. We further agree to be held responsible for any quotation of your price at less than your full card rates, whether we do or do not secure the business, upon which the estimate has been made, and we agree that any quotation at less than rates will be considered a violation of om- agreement. It is understood and agreed upon our part that, should this agreement be violated a second time, we are to be dropped from the list of agents for The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, and that any future business from us — if accepted by you, will be subject to the regular cash discount only. We further understand and agree that ten per cent, added to your net rate to us is a cut in your rate, and further, that 180 MODERN ADVERTISING the five per cent, discount for cash can not be allowed to an advertiser, unless the advertiser pays us as promptly as we must pay you to obtain it. We further understand and agree that estimates on both The Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post must be made separately, and not with a list of publications, where any deviation is made from the publishers' full card rates at that time in effect. This agreement is to supersede and cancel all previous agreements on this subject. Very truly yours, An agent living up to his agreement not to quote net rates, not to split commissions, and charging a straight ten per cent, on all business placed, would render to a customer an estimate something like this : January 1, 1905. Estimate for THE Company. Net. Gross. Ladies' Home Journal, 1 col. 12 times. $14,400.00 Delineator, (I 12 ' 8,040.00 Saturday Evening Post ,i page 12 ' 5,400.00 Christian Herald, ti 12 ' $2,268.00 Century, tc 12 ' 2,250.00 Scribner's, It 12 ' 2,700.00 Leslie's, ct 12 ' 2,721.60 McClure's, It 12 ' 4,492.80 Munsey's, tt 12 ' 5,400.00 Harpers', ct 12 ' 2,430.00 Review of Reviews, " 12 ' 2,160.00 Cosmopolitan, It 12 ' 3,870.72 $13,450.32 Commission 10%.. 1,345.03 14,795.35 $57,478.15 THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 181 The net column represents publications which do not insist on an agreement not to quote net rates. Ten per cent, is added to this net price, but nothing is added to the price for magazines quoted gross. The tools used by an agent are not numerous. The chief part of his equipment, aside from his pro- fessional knowledge, is a complete and classified set of the rate-cards of all publications — magazines, news- papers and trade papers. To these are added the rate- cards for street-car advertising and bill-posting. Some agencies in this country carry the rate-cards of foreign countries, such as England and its colonies, but not often. If an American advertising agent has a customer who desires to advertise in England, he usually makes arrangements with some English agency to do the placing in both Great Britain and its colonies. Several American agencies maintain Lon- don offices which perform this service. The American agency which has on file the current rate-card of every publication in the country, is well equipped to make estimates for its plans. The mere possession of rate-cards is not enough, however. It takes a man expert in that sort of work to make an estimate. When a plan is confined to the leading magazines, this is not so difficult, as the magazine rate- cards are gotten up in a more uniform shape than those of other publications, as, for instance, the newspapers. Still there are a number of variations to be noted. For instance, some magazines give a discount for three pages used within a year. Other magazines give a discount for six or for twelve insertions during a year. One column in The Ladies' Home Journal 182 MODERN ADVERTISING amoxmts to a quarter of a page as there are four col- umns to the page. There is a special quarter-page rate of one thousand dollars, but this always means a quarter page two columns wide and half a column deep. When the quarter page is used in the shape of a single column, the line-rate prevails, which makes the cost of the space twelve hundred dollars. In other words, a quarter page in one part of The Journal costs one thousand dollars, and in another part of The Jour- nal costs twelve hundred dollars. The reason for this is that a perpendicular column is a more desirable form as it is always placed next to reading matter. These distinctions must be borne in mind by the agent or estimator who is making up an estimate for a customer. The rate-cards of The Century and the Butterick Trio are given herewith as samples of rate-cards of representative magazines. The Century rate-card is one for a magazine of the standard magazine size. The one for the Butterick Trio is a rate-card for three publications separately or in combination, showing regular rates, special positions and the like. These may be taken as typical of magazine rate-cards. It is important for the agent to know and keep watch of the fact that a customer is entitled to a dis- count for continuous insertions. Often when it is the advertiser's intention to stay out of a given number, by using a very small advertisement consisting of only a few lines, the minimum number always being speci- fied by the publication, the lower rate can be held. It is also important that the agent should promptly notify his customers of a proposed advance in rates. When a magazine has reached a circulation greater THE CENTURY MAGAZINE 33 East 17TH St., New York Size of Type Page, jl inches long by 5! inches wid«. Single Column, 7I inches long by 2^ inches wide. The Day of Publication, between 27th and 31st. Advertising Forms Close on 30th of Preceding Month. Price, per page, $250; half, $125; quarter, $62.50. ** ** line, $1.75, nonpareil. ** " inch, $21.00. Discounts: 3 months, 5^. 6 months, lo;^. 9 months, 15^. i year, 25^. Six pages or more within one year at yearly rates. Preferred Positions by Contract. Century Advertising Supplement, $1400 to $1800 for four pages. Special Net School Rate : $15 an inch; $7.50 half inch. Uniform display for all spaces less than quarter page. Terms : Cash. Note. — 3 pages Century and 3 pages St. Nicholas together, within the year, at $300 per page; /. e., yearly rates in each. THIS SHOWS A RATE-CARD FOR A MAGAZINE OF STANDARD SIZE (5ix8 INCHES) TYPE PAGE, 183 "The ButtericRTrio For advertisements with the same copy and key for THE DELINEATOR THE DESIGNER and NEW Idea Woman's Magazine Per Agate Line, each insertion. ^ ..$ 7.12-i- Column advertisements (134 lines) each insertion 954.75 Double Column Advertisements (268 lines) each insertion..; 1,809.00 Full ,Page> Advertisements (400 lines) each insertion, 2,550.00 Special Positions Second or Third Cover. . * 2,850.00 For ftll the Rbove, forma close lOth of second preccdlog month ; example, Nov. 10 for Jan. Issues. Fourth Cover (Back Cover) including making of plates, 4,000.00 Sranlngdue lat of third preceding month; eiample, Oct. iBt for Jui. Issues. THE DELINEATOR Published by The Biilterick rnblkbing Co., L(d. Per Agate Line, each insertion < $ 5.00 Column Advertisements 1 134 linesVeach insertion 670.00 Double Column Advertisements (268 lines) each insertion, 1,340.00 , Full Page Advertlsenmnts (400 lines; each insertion ..... 1,800.00 Special Positions Second or Third Covers 2,000.00. For all the above, forms close If^th Of second preocdtng month ; extUBple, Not. 10 for Jim. issues. Fourth Cover (Back Cover) Including making of plates . . 3»000.00. Driving due 1st of third preceding month ; Example, Oct. 1st for Jm. Issues. THE DESIGNER Published by the Stimdiird Fashion ConipHoy Per Agate Line, each insertion • . . .- $ 1.50 Column Advertisements (134 lines) each insertion 201.00 Double Column Advertisements (268 lines) each insertion, 402.00 Full Page Advertisements (400 lines) each Insertion .... 540.00 Special Positions Second or Third Cover. 600.00 For kU thfl Hbore. forms close 10th of second preceding month ; «zMmple, Nov. Iti for Jan. lasuea. Fourth Cover (Back Cover) Including making of plates . . 900.00 Siawlng duo 1st of third preceding month j. example, Oct 1st for Jan. Issues. New Idea 'Woman's Magazine PabiUhed by the New Idea Puttern Company Per Agate Line, each Insertion ■ . ■ $ 1.00 Column Advertisements (134 lines) each Insertion 134.00 Double Column Advertisements (268 lines) each Insertion, 268.00 Full Page Advertisements (400 lines) each insertion . *. . . 360,00 Special Positions Second or Third Cover 400.00 For kU the above, fomw.olose 10th of second preceding month ; exomple. Not. 10 for Jan. Issues. Fourth Cover (Back Cover) including making of plates . . 600.00 Drawing due Ist of third precedlni; month ; example. Oct. 1st for Jan. Issues. THONAS BALHER, Manager Advertising Dept. BnttericK Building. New YorK WM. H. BIACK, Western Advertising Manager, 200 Monroe Streiet, Cliicago THIS SHOWS A HATE-CARD WHERE SPACE IS SOLD BY THE LINE IN PUBLICATIONS HAVING THREE COLUMNS TO THE PAGE, AND WHERE A COMBINATION RATE IS ALSO GIVEN FOR ALL THREE PUBLICATIONS USED TOGETHER. 184 THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 185 than that on which its current rate is based, it is cus- tomary to raise its rate, usually giving due notice to both agents and advertisers. Sometimes the privilege of reservation for as long as a year at the old rate, is allowed to actual advertisers who indicate the amount of space they will use in that time. That is, it is reserved on actual orders. Some publications even allow it to be reserved hypothetically with the privi- lege of cancellation, which practically amounts to ex- tending the old rate for another year. When it comes to estimating from newspaper rate- cards the real work of the expert comes into play. A knowledge of newspaper rate-cards is confined to few men, and consists more of experience than it does of natural ability. In the office of every large agency handling newspaper work there are on file lists of rates applying to all the newspapers of the country. Ifewspaper rates are flexible, especially in the ease of smaller newspapers. Some newspapers will accept almost anything for their space. It is the business of the estimator of a newspaper agency to know just how little a newspaper will accept, and to devise schemes to beat even that rate down to a lower level. It is customary to send the advertising to the news- paper accompanied by a check in advance, which cheek is a little less than the lowest known rate at which that newspaper will accept business. In many cases the needs of the country editor will lead him to accept the check and sell his space at less than he has ever sold it before. It is also customary to offer goods to the coun- try editor in exchange for space. The self-respect- ing, prosperous paper, even though a small one, will 186 MODERN ADVERTISING promptly refuse all such tenders and offers. The condition of the newspapers is constantly improving, and such tactics are no longer as successful as they used to be. In the case of the metropolitan newspa- pers these facts are not true to any great extent, al- though special prices and cut rates are given to large advertisers. Inflexibility of rates, either in the case of magazines or newspapers, has never been absolutely established. There are some experienced advertisers who say that there is no publication which does not have a special rate for some one. A newspaper rate-card is a very complicated piece of literature because in addition to the regular line- rate and rate for special positions, there is a long list of classified advertising, sometimes as many as fifty or sixty headings, for each of which there is a different rate. The rate-card of the New York Sun, a news- paper known to almost every one, is reproduced here- with as a sample newspaper rate-card. The rate-cards of smaller newspapers are similar in form, but not so elaborate : Dally and Sunday Advertising Rates In Effect August 1. 1903. CANCELLING ALL OTHER RATE CARDS GENERAL DISPLAY ADVERTISING Per Agate Une. RUN OF PAPER 40c. WOMAN'S AND SOCIETY PAGES 45c. LAST PAGE 45c. PAGE OPPOSITE EDITORIAL 45c. FIRST AND LAST PAGE OF SECTIONS 45c. Amusements, Daily and Sunday 50c. Art Sales and Exhibitions 25c. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 187 Per Agate Line. Auction Sales 20c. Automobiles 25c. Bankers and Brokers' Cards 40c. Bank Reports 40c. Bank Cards — National, State, Savings 40c. Birth, Marriage, and Death Notices $1.00 each Bicycles 20c. Business Notices — ^preceding Deaths 75c. Business Personals 40c. Cemeteries — following Death Notices 40c. Copartnership Notices 40c. Dividends, Interest, Elections and Meetings 40c. Divorce Notices $1.00 each Election Notices (PoUtical) 40c. Engagement Notices $1.00 each Excursions 40c. Excursions — Daily by the Month 25c. Financial 40c. Hotels — City, Out of Town, European 20c. $4.50 per line per month, or E. 0. D. two months. Hotels and Restaurants 20c. $4.50 per Une per month, or E. O. D. two months. Instruction 20c. $4.50 per line per month, or E. O. D. two months. Lectures, Daily and Sunday 50c. Legal Notices 40c. Memorial Resolutions — following Death Notices 40c. Mining 40c. Miscellaneous 40c. Medical 40c. Official Legal Notices 40c. Personals 40c. Political 50c. Proposals 40c. Publications 25c. Public Notices 40c. Railroads 40c. Railroad Time Tables 40c. Railroad Time Tables — ^Daily by the Month 25c. Railroad Time Tables — Daily by the Year 15c. Religious Notices 20c. Resorts — Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring 20c. $4.50 per line per month, or E. O. D. two months. Steamboats and Steamships 40c. Steamboats and Steamships' Time Tables 40c. Steamboats and Steamships' Time Tables — Monthly. . 25c. Steamboats and Steamships' Time Tables — ^Yearly 15c. Society and Lodge Notices, following Death Notices . . . 40c. Special Notices 50c, 188 MODERN ADVERTISING Per Agate Line. Sportsmen's Goods 20c. Trust Companies 40c. Turf 50c. Undertakers — following Death Notices 40c. DISCOUNTS, TIME— DAILY, SUNDAY OR EVENING.— A discount of 10% will be allowed on general advertising that pays the line rate of 40 cents Daily and Sunday and 30 cents Evening when an order is given for 28 lines or more to be used E. O. D. in either paper within a year. A discount of 5% will be allowed on 28 lines or more to be used E. O. D. in six months, or on 28 lines or more to be used twice a week for one year. A special discount of 25% will be allowed when a contract is made for a card in either paper of 10 lines or more to run daily for one year or every other day for one year only under the following classifica- tions: Banks, National, State or Savings; Bankers and Brokers and Trust Companies. DISCOUNTS FOR SPACE— DAILY, SUNDAY OR EVE- NING. — Time and space discounts cannot be applied to the same contract. Space discounts on lines to be used within one year are as foUOws : On 5,000 lines, 5% ; on 10,000 lines, 10% ; on 20,000 lines, 15%; on 35,000 Imes, 20%. NO DISCOUNTS.— No discount is aUowed on any adver- tising that does not pay the line rate of 40 cents Daily and Sunday and 30 cents in the Evening. Discounts do not apply to any advertising under the following classifications: Amusements, Art Sales and Exhibitions, Auction Sales, Bicycles, Sportsmen's Goods, Religious Reading Notices, Legal Notices, Proposals, Political, Public Notices, Turf, or any advertising for which a special rate is made. COMBINATION AND REPEAT RATES— DAILY, SUN- DAY, AND EVENING.— An advertisement under the classifi- cation of Publications run in the Daily and Evening Sun within a week, no change of copy, 40 cents a line for both papers. Resort advertising to run daily in Daily, Sunday and Evening Sun for 30 consecutive times in each or E. 0. D. in each within a period of two months, 25 cents a line for both papers. Instruction ad- vertising subject to the same rate as resorts. Railroad and steam- ship Time Tables, daily in each paper by the year, 25 cents a line for both. Steamboats and Excursions, daily in each paper for the season, 25 cents a line for both. BROKEN COLUMNS, CUTS AND DISPLAY.— There is no extra charge in the Sun, Daily, Sunday or Evening, for display type, cuts or the breaking of column rules, except that all adver- tising must be at least 28 lines across two columns, 50 lines across three columns, 75 lines across four columns, and 100 lines across five or more columns. Advertising that does not conform to this rule will be charged 50 per cent, extra. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 189 PREFERRED POSITIONS— DAILY, SUNDAY, EVE- NING. — Next to reading matter, 5 cents a line extra ; following and alongside reading matter 10 cents a liiie extra; top of column, 50 per cent, extra; top surrounded by reading matter, double price; bottom of page surrounded by reading, 50 per cent, extra. Designated page, 5 cents a line extra. Position advertising to measure at least 28 lines single column. LOCAL AND FOREIGN ADVERTISING.— General adver- tising that has a New York City address will be treated as local advertising. Local advertising is ordinary New York city busi- ness carrying a local address. General advertising is ordinary display business with a foreign address or without any address. PAYMENTS, ACCOUNTS.— AH bills are due as soon as ser- vice is rendered, but for the convenience of advertisers and agents, payments may, if mutually agreed upon, be deferred to not later than the ISth of the month following that in which the adver- tising appeared. ADVERTISEMENTS NOT REPEATED.— Advertisements that are not received in time for all editions of the Evening Sun will not be carried in any editions of the foDowing day, except as the publisher may direct. DIMENSIONS.— The page of The Sun, Daily, Sunday, and Evening, is 16i inches wide and 21f inches deep; 7 columns to a page, each column 300 agate lines deep and 2f inches or 31 agate ems wide. READING NOTICES— DAILY AND SUNDAY.— Set in agate with Adv. affixed: First or Editorial Page, 12.50 per agate line. Financial pages, $2.00 per agate line; run of paper, $1.50 per agate line. READING NOTICES— EVENING.— Set in Agate with Adv. affixed: First or Editorial or Financial Page, $1.50 per agate line; run of paper, $1.00 per agate line. SCALE OF MEASUREMENT.— Agate type setting 14 lines to the inch, about eight words to the line, lower case, about five words to the line in capitals. No count lines, agate measure- ment only. ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENT, SATURDAY EVENING SUN. — A special discount of 25% will be allowed on all adver- tising of 28 lines or more to run for 52 consecutive insertions. CONTRACTS. — -All advertising to secure the benefit of any discount should be arranged for by written contract before the first insertion. PAGE RATES. — ^There is no page, half-page, quarter-page or column rate in the Daily, Sunday or Evening Sun. Line rates only. 190 modern advertising Want Page Advertising Rates ONE, THREE AND SEVEN TIME RATES 1 insertion 3 insertions 7 insertions per Agate per Agate per Agate line. line. line. Agents Wanted 10c 24c 42c *Board and Boarders Wanted 10c 24c 42c Business Chances 10c 24c 42c Cast-off Clothing 10c 24c 42c Clothing 10c 24c 42c ♦Country Board — Boarders 10c 24c 42c Dancing Academies 10c 24c 42c Dentistry 10c 24c 42c Dogs and Birds 10c 24c 42c Farms — Sale; Let; Rent; Wanted. 10c 24c 42c For Sale 10c 24c 42c Furnished and Unfurnished Rooms Wanted or To Let 10c 24c 42c Good Will and Interest 10c 24c 42c *Help Wanted 10c 24c 42c Horses and Carriages 10c 24c 42c Houses, Flats or Apartments Wanted or To Let 10c 24c 42c ♦Laundry Wants : . . 10c 24c 42c Lawyers 10c 24c 42c Loans 10c 24c -420 Lost, Found and Rewards 10c 24c 42c Machinery 10c 24c 42c Millinery and Dressmaking 10c 24c 42c Mortgage Loans 10c 24c 42c Musical 10c 24c 42o Opticians and Optical Goods 10c 24c 42c Patents 10c 24c 42c Pianos and Organs 10c 24c 42c ♦Professional 'Situations Wanted . . 10c 24o 42c Purchase and Exchange 10c 24c 42c Real Estate 10c 24c 42c Salesmen Wanted 10c 24c 42c ♦Situations Wanted 5c 12c 21c Storage 10c 24c 42c Typewriters 10c 24c 42c Watches and Jewelry 10c 24c 42c Yachts and Sailboate 10c 24c 42c Double price charged on entire advertisement if not set solid in agate type, except classifications marked ♦. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 191 No advertisement taken for less than the price of two lines. Insertions must be consecutive to secure 3 and 7 time rate. Count 8 words set in agate to a line for Want page adver- tising. Count 5 words of agate caps to a line. Advertisements ordered to appear under another classifi- cation than the one to which they properly belong must be charged at the rate of the higher classification, or the general advertising rate of paper when rate of classification to which they belong is lower than the general advertising rate. There is need for what is known as a flat rate among newspapers, but no movement in that direction has ever been successful. A flat rate is a regular rate per line per thousand of circulation for news- papers in the same class, having the same rate and the same variations from that rate. Newspaper space is frequently sold in quantities of a thousand lines, flve thousand lines, twenty thousand lines and other amounts to be used within a given time, for which there are always special reductions. An advertising agency in sending advertising to a magazine or a newspaper uses a certain form. Each agency has its own form, but these are substantially the same, the conditions being only those peculiar to that agency's method of doing business. We repro- duce on the next page a form which is used by one agency for placing its business. It is only necessary that all of the facts about the insertion of the adver- tisement should be entered upon the order and made a part of the order. After advertising has been placed and the agency begins to receive the publications in which that partic- ular advertising appears, it is necessary to check up this advertising to form a permanent record of its insertion. The methods used for checking vary ac- 14 o o (N o O s 153 C C O O 3 O c QJ O ?> "© CO (/I ^ M- c o J3 5 P 3 ~ 2 §3 CJ^ c>^ cs - c/l a. o m o Ou i- B O < u -a ""^ ° E oB^ •6-- .»cg S S S'S " rt a « 4) n S 8 "■£ S ■s a u 192 A. WILLING ADVEKTISER, NEW YORK CITY PUBLICATION Everybody's World's Work Review of Reviews. . . . MoClure's Scribner's Harpers' Montlily Century The Outlook The Literary Digest.. . . Success Saturday Evening Post. Frank Leslie's Monthly. National Magazine Collier's Weekly Ordkr Bent No. 400 Date Total No. of Inecrts 9/1/04 13 401 t( 13 403 U 13 403 " 13 404 " 13 405 " 13 406 l< 13 407 (( 13 408 (( 13 409 (( 13 410 " 36 411 " 13 413 9/36/04 1 413 10/1/04 1 Spaob October, 1904. Cut Shnt Copy Sent Paooif 0, K. BY Pttoor Sent TO Advertiser FOR Files Monthly Weekly Daily Half- tone Line Electro C.&H. Adv'r No. Date Page 3 pages 9/7 9/7 9/7 9/7 \)/S V 4 " i( " U U V 4 " 2 " 4 " 4< i( « V 34 24r( 81-34 4 " *' (( " (( V 4 " 3 pages (t (1 t( (( V V 1 page 9/3 9/3 0/3 9/3 9/3 V 1 page 9/2 9/3 9/3 9/3 9/3 003 H page 9/30 9/30 9/30 9/20 9/31 V 1 page 9/7 9/7 9/7 9/7 9/8 V 3 pages 9/30 9/30 n/30 9/30 9/30 V 353 lines 9/30 9/30 10/1 10/1 10/1 V Inserted , Position Back page Front " Facing reading Center page Front page Center " BlLI^D No. 173 173 174 173 173 173 173 175 175 170 175 173 330 17 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/9 9/30 10/35 Check Due 9/16 9/34 10/8 9/34 9/34 9/34 9/34 10/39 10/39 10/14 10/39 9/34 10/8 10/39 Rec'di 9/15 9/34 10/8 9/34 9/34 9/34 9/34 10/39 10/39 10/14 10/39 9/34 10/8 10/39 Paid Pub. 9/17 9/25 10/10 9/35 9/35 9/35 11/10 11/10 10/15 10/80 9/35 10/30 10/30 Cut Ordered Sent to AND Date Remarks 9/30 National Magazine, Boston, Mass, THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 193 cording to the size of the agency and the nature of its business. An agency which handles a great deal of newspaper advertising requires a large force of check- ers. Such an agency receives every morning all of the daily newspapers published in the cpuntry, and each one of them has to be looked over carefully to be checked. The checker must notice the date, the name of the paper, the position of the advertisement, the number of lines it occupies, whether all instruc- tions as to typesetting, display, " keying " and such things have been followed, and all these things are entered upon the checking sheet. The checking of magazine advertising is not so eomplicated a process, but it must be done with the same carefulness. A form for the checking of maga- zine advertising is reproduced herewith. It varies somewhat from a form which would be used for newspaper advertising, but it is sufficiently accurate to show what facts are recorded in checking. These, then, are the tools of the advertising agency : A complete set; of rate^cards, forms for placing advertising and forms for checking up the insertions of advertising. The size of the agency depends upon the volume of business it does and its character. A complete agency such as that of IST. W. Ayer & Son, of Phila- delphia, places magazine, newspaper, street-car and bill-board advertising, and checks it all. Such an or- ganization has, in addition to a complete office force, a large staff of solicitors who constantly call on cus- tomers. It maintains offices in other large cities. It is founded on the theory that professional service can be built up into a great and complex organization 194 MODERN ADVERTISING the same as "would be done in the case of a manu- facturing plant. The fact that the small agency depending more upon the service than the size of its equipment, con- tinues to do business successfully in spite of the large and completely organized agencies, proves that it is by no means a settled fact in the minds of the adver- tiser which it is that affords him the greatest assist- ance in his advertising. There is a tendency on the part of many of the old-time agencies to degenerate into a loose organiza- tion of individual agencies, each solicitor amounting to an agency in himself as far as his ability enables him to go. Such an agency has no central policy, no distinct style, no complete service. Each solicitor shifts for himself, and the destinies of the advertiser are in the hands of the solicitor who, takes his order.' Advertisers may be roughly divided into two classes — the old advertiser and the new. The first class consists of those who have been advertising for a long period of time and have reached a point where they appropriate annual amounts of money reaching ' The actual number of advertising agencies in the United States is problematical. The business directory of New York city alone gives 260 agencies in that city. This, of course, includes every kind of an advertising agency, good, bad and indifferent. Some of these are certainly not even worthy of the name as their business is very limited, sometimes being confined to placing one account in one or two newspapers or something like that. A list of advertising agents compiled by an advertising publica- tion shows that there are about 460 agencies in this country which are recognized by the managers of publications, but this list also includes a great many small and local advertising agencies. It is safe to say that there are not more than fifty advertising agencies of national scope which are seriously considered by advertisers. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 195 up into hundreds of thousands of dollars as regu- larly as they make appropriations for rent, invest- ment, salaries or raw materials. This appropriation is placed with some leading agency which proceeds to invest it on a plan usually arranged between the agent and the customer. It is a part of the advertising agent's work to suggest new plans for using this money, although a certain amount of it will be used in the old channels such as magazines, trade papers, street-cars, bill-boards and printed matter, but it is the agent's place to suggest new methods of using these old mediums, new designs, new ideas, new policies and new plans of selling in connection with the regular sales department. The extent to which an advertiser will go in work of this kind depends entirely upon the ability of the agent. To this class of advertisers belong all the well- known names in the advertising world — the great packers. Swift, Armour, Fairbanks, and Libby; the breakfast-food and cereal manufacturers, H-O, Pos- tum Cereal, Force, Quaker Oats, Grape ISTuts, Cream of Wheat, and Shredded Wheat; the soap-makers, Ivory, Pears and Colgate; the brewers, Pabst and Schlitz; the shoemakers, Douglas and Bliss (Eegal), and the clothiers, Hart, SchafFner & Marx, Sykes and Kirschbaum. Such houses spend anywhere from one hundred and fifty to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually in advertising. Enoch Morgan's Sons' advertising expense for Sapolio amounts to something like one thousand dollars a day. The other class of advertiser is the man who has a new article to exploit, or an article which has never been advertised. Such an advertiser is usually inex- 196 MODERN ADVERTISING perienced. He may be a single individual ; the inven- tor, for instance, of a new article ; or a new company may be formed around the invention to secure capital to advertise it properly. In any ease the advertiser goes to some adverti- sing agency to which he has been recommended. Here is where the advertising agent exercises his higher mission, which is that of business counsel. The question of marketing the product is then dis- cussed thoroughly, territories are considered, mediums explained, selling facilities planned and distribution arranged for by the advertising agent. He then rec- ommends an advertising plan calling for a certain appropriation unless his customer has already decided just how much money is available for advertising. In presenting this plan to his client, he goes into de- tails in proportion to his customer's knowledge or ignorance of advertising. In the case of a new adver- tiser it is necessary, generally, to explain just what is to be done, how the money is to be expended, and why. A very large appropriation would be necessary for advertising over the entire country, using maga- zines and newspapers, probably both street-cars and posters, and certainly a great deal of general printed matter. The best way to describe the preliminary work of an agency for a prospective client is perhaps to take a particular case similar to one occurring frequently in general advertising work. No one class of goods is so widely advertised or has so large a sale as food, and especially what are generally known as breakfast foods. We will suppose that an inventor of food combiria- THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 197 tions in Battle Creek has devised a new prepared cereal for breakfast use. Having secured his formula and built a plant for its manufacture, he goes to the advertising agency to find a market for his output. The first requirement is a name. The lave decides that a name in order to be protected by copyright must be a coined word — that is, not a word common to the language. No advettiser can take a word in common English use and forbid any one else to use it. A coined word is a word made up expressly as a name for a particular article as a means of identifying it. It can be protected by copyright so that no other man can use it as applied to that particular article. Sa- polio, Uneeda, Zu Zu are all examples of coined words. Force, on the contrary, is a word in common use and can not be protected by copyright. Names are often made in various ways. Some- times they are inaccurate spellings of well-known words, such as E-Z Bed. Sometimes they are initials of the article or of the firm as H-0 for Hornby's Oats ; K & G, the name of a widely advertised corset, the initials being those of the firm which makes it — Roth & Goldsmith. The requirements of a good name are that it shall be euphonious, easily remembered, and where possible appropriate. Many names of widely advertised articles are, however, grotesque, meaning- less, hard to remember, uncouth, and in every way ill fitted to serve the purpose. Next to the name comes the package. This is important. An advertiser tries to have his article considered by the dealer as attractive shelf-goods. A package, especially for a food, should be dainty and appetizing, so as to produce a good impression. De- 198 MODERN ADVERTISING signs are made very carefully and a color scheme selected, the name displayed in such a way as to catch the eye of any one observing it upon the shelf of the dealer. The size of the package is determined, or the carton, as it is called, -which will hold the quantity to be retailed at a certain price. In prepared break- fast foods, for instance, the package holds two pounds. A horse is difFcrent from a man. He likes what is good for him. Feed your The best Sustenance for a horse The H-O Co.'s Horse Feed. He y^^^^^ -^ -pj^^ jj.q (>^ .^ jj^^.^^ will take to it, and it will make a better hone of him. Feed. '*™ C. W. MILUI, EipHB IUMk, Tr W. THE SILHOUETTE EFFECTIVBLT USED IN NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING. • and the price varies from ten to fifteen cents. One to two dozen cartons are packed in a case. A price is fixed at which the factory product can be sold to the jobber at a profit to the manufacturer, allowing for a liberal advertising appropriation. The jobber adds a small profit for himself, usually about five per cent,, and sells to the dealer. The dealer's price on an advertised article is nearly always fixed by the advertiser. For instance, in a breakfast food to be sold at fifteen cents for each two-pound package, the dealer would pay $2.75 per case containing two dozen THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 199 packages. The cases would cost the jobber about $2.67^. The profit to the manufacturer would consist of the difference between the selling price from which has been deducted the cost of manufacture and the cost of advertising. The cost of advertising as related to the cost of manufacture, of course, varies largely ac- cording to the article. All of these things have to be studied carefully, and in the case of a new advertiser the agent's advice is helpful. He has had experience in similar cases and knows what percentage of profit will be perma- nently safe. These things being finally determined, the next step is the actual advertising. Often a newly formed company has not capital enough, or upon the advice of the advertising agency, it will decide that the capi- tal available is not sufficient for the purpose. Then the advertising agency secures additional capital for the company, either by selling stock privately, or ad- vertising publicly to small purchasers the sale of this stock. The necessary amount having been secured, the advertising agent will then allot this among maga- zines, street-cars, painted signs, bill-boards, or what- ever mediums will, in his judgment, produce the quickest results. He will also make an allowance for a limited number of trade papers, for printed matter which will be sent to the retailers and also matter popular in its tone for general distribution to the public. There is almost no limit to the variety of com- binations which may be made on any given appro- priation, and it is in this work that the ability of 200 MODERN ADVERTISING an advertising agency is displayed. While fortunes have been lost on advertising, it seems that the greatest percentage of failures have been due to bad judgment displayed in selecting advertising mediums and plan- ning the work. The modern method of presenting the advertising plan to a prospective advertiser differs materially from that formerly employed. Then the personal element was a large factor. The personal magnetism of the solicitor and the salesmanship he displayed in talking with his prospective client, together with his list of publications and their rates, generally settled matters, and often do to-day. But agencies which are placing their strongest claim for business on the professional side of their work, whose main plea is that of personal service, who steadily resist the temptation to employ a staff of solicitors and build up a mushroom business, such agents depend more upon the careful study and presen- tation of the case than upon their personality. The most important development of modern agency work is the attention it is giving to the ad- vertising of staples. Of these staples the manufac- ture and marketing of textiles is the greatest field. Thomas Balmer is responsible for a very definite movement having for its object the interesting of the manufacturers of textiles in the possibilities of ad- vertising. In this he has had cooperation from many agencies which have profited by increased business. As a pertinent illustration, not only of the pos- sibilities of textile advertising, but also of the manner in which a thoroughly equipped advertising agent presents a plan of campaign to a prospective adver- THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 201 tiser, an actual letter sent by an agent to one of the largest textile corporations in the world is repro- duced. The plan was based upon an initial appro- priation of $100,000, to be spent within a year, as shown by the following estimate. The actual name of the corporation is disguised under the style of The United Textile Company : Estimate for the United Textile Company Net. Gross. Ladies' Home Journal, 1 col. 12 times. $14,400.00 Butterick Trio, 1 " 12 ' 11,457.00 Saturday Evening Post , i page 12 ' 5,400.00 Collier's Weekly, 1 it 12 ' $3,780.00 Youth's Companion, 4- '* 12 ' 6,048.00 Woman's Home Comp'] ii " 12 ' 4,131.00 Christian Herald, 1 11 12 ' 2,268.00 Century, 1 col. 12 ' 2,250.00 Scribner's, 1 ct 12 ' 2,700.00 Leslie's, 1 " 12 ' 2,721.60 McClure's, 1 " 12 ' 4,492.80 Munsey's, 1 " 12 ' 5,400.00 Harpers', 1 " 12 ' 2,430.00 Review of Reviews. 1 " 12 ' 2,160.00 World's Work, 1 " 12 ' 1,296.00 Cosmopolitan, 1 " 12 ' 3,870.72 Good Housekeeping, 1 " 12 ' 1,836.00 Outing, 1 " 12 ' 1,263.60 Everybody's, 1 *' 12 ' 5,100.00 Metropolitan, 1 " 12 ' 2,700.00 Harpers' Bazar, 1 *' 12 ' 1,935.36 Ladies' World, i page 12 ' 3,780.00 McCall's Magazine, X " 12 ' 3,078.00 Life, 1 it 12 ' 680.40 Literary Digest, 1 col. 12 ' 816.48 $49,895.16 Commission 10%. . ... 4,989.52 54,884.68 tl00,984.48 202 MODERN ADVERTISING Mb. Jonas 0. Browne, Secretary and General Manager, The United Textile Company, New York. Dear Sir: This letter is an answer to the question : WHY SHOULD THE UNITED TEXTILE COMPANY ADVERTISE? Advertising has but one object, and that is profitably increasing the sales of the product advertised. The United Textile Company is making a staple product, one of the most staple in the world. Clothing is second only to food as a necessary article of demand, and woolen clothing for both men and women comes first in importance. Last year you produced, according to your own figures, forty million yards of cloth. The year before your gross in- come is given at thirty-five million odd dollars. The average value of your product is probably about a dollar a yard. It is estimated that the value of domestic woolens made during 1902 was $297,000,000 or 94 per cent, of all the woolens used in this country, the other six per cent, being imported. According to these figures, which are correct enough for our purpose, you are making only one-eighth or 12^ per cent, of the total amount of domestic woolens produced. There- fore, you have a field in this other seven-eighths, a part of which you certainly can cultivate by proper advertising. The textile industries have not been so ready to seize the advantage of advertising as a builder of new business as have the great companies making food-products, such as biscuits, packing-house by-products and breakfast foods. Yet we beheve that the advertising of textile goods is the greatest possible field of the future. We believe that your company has within its grasp the chance of creating the greatest advertising success in advertising history. The object of your advertising should be to teach Amer- ican men and women to wear American-made fabrics. The advertising should be directed against imported fabrics. It THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 203 should exploit especially the superior fabrics of the United Textile Company. The American pubUc should be taught that American woolens are just as good as or better than the imported. Men and women should be educated so that when about to buy a suit, coat, cloak, wrap or any other article of clothing which can be made from your goods, they will insist upon the United Textile Company's products, and they will see to it that the United Textile Company's trade- mark is on them — whether the article or garment is made to order or ready-made. Your Advertising Must Be Educational The public should be taught as far as possible the names and characters of different woolen goods, especially the names of new, seasonable fabrics, but above and beyond all that, they should be taught that the United Textile Company's trade-mark stands for quality, and that the United Textile Company is behind that trade-mark to produce the best goods that can be made. No layman is able to distinguish the different grades of cloth. The manufacturing clothing business has been one of the most profitable in the world, simply because the average man or woman who wears clothing is unable to discriminate the fabrics. He is at the mercy of the tailor or of the retail dealer. As far as making the goods is concerned, he has the tailor or manufacturing clothier to refer to, but for the fabric itself he has nothing but the tailor's or clothier's word. A trade-mark upon cloth gives the same guarantee of quality that it does upon other trade-marked, advertised goods. A trade-mark has no value until it is advertised. It begins to be advertised just as soon as good goods go out bearing the mark, but such advertising is not far-reaching enough. Advertising which stamps the mark upon the mind of every man and woman who could be a purchaser of woolen goods, is the only advertising which will make the trade-mark of the United Textile Company its most valuable asset. It (s probably unnecessary to call your attention to the value 204 MODERN ADVERTISING of such trade-marks as that of Walter Baker & Company, Limited, Royal Baking Powder Company, National Biscuit Company, and others of national and international note. It could be answered that these are all food-products, but there is nothing in advertising itseK that confines the value of trade-marks to trade-marks of foods. It is simply that the food people have been the first to perceive the great profits to be obtained from publicity. The next step is to come from the textile industries, and no one company has the pos- sibilities and the goods to realize this so quickly and so greatly as the United Textile Company. At present the layman — that is, the consumer who goes to his tailor to buy a suit — picks out the fabric entirely from the design and color. He does the same thing when he buys a suit ready-made. Sometimes he goes by the label of the manufacturing clothier. We have been assured by a manu- facturing clothier of wide experience and undoubted hon- esty, that a very large percentage of the fabrics used by even leading and high-priced tailors, recommended to the customer as imported, are in reality domestic, probably the greater portion of them your own products. This in itself is no reflection upon your goods, but if we can teach the American public that American-made fabrics are just as good for the purpose, under their own name, as im- ported goods, and if we can-appeal, not only to the public's common sense, good judgment and pocketbook, but to its patriotism as well, then a man will go to his tailor and demand the American-made products, and especially those of the United Textile Company, because of your advertising. The writer knows from actual experience that your serges offer every quality that he can get in the imported serge. This is undoubtedly true of other products. It is also equally true that the American man does not know this, that he is hypnotized by the fetish "imported," and pays double the price for something no better. You have several unusual advantages. You have the organization both for manufacturing and selling. You have capital to advertise intelligently and sufficiently to get the A MODERN CLOTHING ADVERTISEMENT DESIGNED BY ONE OP THE BEST- KNOWN ARTISTS. IT REPRESENTS THE LATEST PROGRESS IN THE DESIGNING rOH CLOTHING ADVERTISEMENTS. 206 MODERN ADVERTISING best results. You have products which will bear advertising. You are in position to increase your sales. The field is there as shown by the actual consumption of American woolens. You are a foremost, representative American industry, making a product which never can be superseded. Styles and designs may come and go, but woolen fabrics will be used forever. It is impossible to conceive any new invention, any whim of fashion, any change in habits which will do away with the use of woolen fabrics for clothing for men and women. You have the broadest and strongest foundation upon which to build a great advertising asset. HOW THE ADVERTISING SHOULD BE DONE Trade-Mark It is essential that you should have a broad, general trade- mark to be used upon the entire output of products of the United Textile Company. This trade-mark should be general in the same way that the In-er-seal trade-mark is general to the products of the National Biscuit Company. Each pattern or each general division of goods could and possibly should have an individual trade-mark, or at least a name, presumably a coined word, which would be used in connection with the general trade-mark of the United Textile Company. The way in which this should be worked out is a matter of detail. The method of trade-marking the goods, whether the trade-mark should be stamped on the cloth, woven into the selvage, pasted on the bolt, will depend upon the practical question of manufacturing and convenience. A very novel method has just been invented for producing a trade-mark upon textile fabrics, which we will be very glad to explain to you in detail if you are not familiar with it. This may or may not be practical from the point of view of your own experience. Our suggestion is that the trade-mark, presumably in THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 207 three colors, these colors being the red, white, and blue of the national colors, be reproduced upon the outside of the bolt, on the cloth direct, or on a label, the particular name of each fabric to be woven into the selvage, where selvage occurs, fol- lowed by the letters "U. T. Co." Meanwhile the first important step in general advertising is the securing of the trade-mark. We are offering a number of suggestions based upon several specific ideas. The first idea consists of an individual monogram of the letters, "U. T. Co." Several of these trade-marks show all the letters of your entire name interwoven in one monogram. The second iS a trade-mark combining your name and monogram in connection with a patriotic emblem, such as a star, shield, or pennant. The third shows your monogram in combination with something having to do with wool, as the sheep's head. The fourth is a combination of your monogram, the pa- triotic idea and the wool idea. The fifth is a modification, showing sheep's shears as be- ing typical of the wool industry. These five classes offer several designs each, all of which are herewith submitted. Appropriation The amount of money that you should spend can be based upon several things — upon a certain percentage of your gross business or profits, or upon the plan of campaign suggested to you, which requires a certain amount to accomplish certain things — but the size of the appropriation that you are willing to devote to this advertising must be determined first. We are recommending a number of plans of magazine advertising based upon various propositions running from twenty-five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars and over. The average appropriation of advertisers doing a national business runs from two hundred and fifty thousand to a miUion dollars, of which usually about one hundred thousand 15 208 MODERN ADVERTISING dollars is spent in the magazines, although some companies use as high as one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It is generally admitted that the National Biscuit Company has made a tremendous success of its advertising. The gross business of this company in 1902 was forty million dollars, and the net earnings about three million six hundred thou- sand dollars. Their advertising appropriation is probably about $750,000 a year, which is an expenditure of less than one-fiftieth of their total business, and only twenty per cent, of their net earnings. If the United Textile Company should spend twenty per cent, of its net earnings, the appropriation would be about $700,000, or two per cent, of the gross business. We do not expect you to appropriate any such sum at the start, but we firmly believe that if you go into advertising as you should go into it, the time will not be long before you are spending that amount of money and thereby greatly increasing your present volume of profits. We do not believe that any director of the United Textile Company would hesitate an instant to spend $700,000 in advertising if he could add a million dollars to the net profits of the business thereby. Neither do we beheve that any man familiar with the actual working of advertising doubts for a minute that this thing is possible. Among the companies whose names are known to you, who are spending as much as $750,000 a year in advertising, we may mention the following : Royal Baking Powder Company. Baking Powder. Postum Cereal Company Grape Nuts and Postum. Force Food Company Force. N. K. Fairbank Company Fair3' Soap and Gold Dust. Swift & Companj' Premium Hams and Bacon. Ralston Mills Food-Products. Enoch Morgan's Sons Sapolio. Proctor & Gamble Company Ivory Soap. Armour & Company Extract of Beef. Whatever your appropriation, it must be large enough to accomplish your purpose. One insertion in every magazine THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY • 209 of the country, even of pages, will not be a profitable invest- ment. Neither will three. Advertising of your character must be based upon continuous advertising year after year, every month. You need not necessarily use the complete list of good mediums, but even if you use only a few maga- zines, your spaces should be large enough to tell your story and to be seen, and should count on appearing in every issue of every magazine. If you will take a copy of any standard American maga- zine and look through it, you will see that the big advertising- successes are using large spaces, generally pages, and are appearing in each issue of every magazine they use. Sapoiio, Ivory Soap, Gold Dust, the Ralston Food products, Cream of Wheat, Colgate's Soaps, as well as the clothing manu- facturers. Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Kuppenheimer, Sykes & Kirschbaum, are all using page copy. They are using a comparatively large number of magazines, and what is more important, they are appearing in each issue of each magazine. Neither we nor any other advertising agency can consent to a proposition like yours being advertised on anything but a plan which calls for enough money to carry it out to success. If you use only ten publications, you should use these ten pubUcations for at least a year, and you should use at least pages, except in the large women's publications and weeklies, where a quarter of a page will be sufficient for good display. Specific Forms of Advertising 1. Magazine advertising. 2. Literature of all sorts. 3. Street car cards. 4. Posters. Magazine Advertising is the backbone of your sort of work. Magazines imquestionably lead in the establishing of a trade-mark and in popularizing an article of wearing apparel or fabric, just as they lead in foods and household goods. PHOTOGRAPH PROM STILL LIFE USED IN A MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 211 Any list which you would use, to be representative, should consist of the best women's papers, the best men's maga- zines, the best popular weeklies, the best religious pubhca- tions and the best home magazines. This list can be ex- tended to almost any length. For instance, we are showing you one proposition calling for something inside of one hun- dred thousand dollars. There are twenty-iive magazines on this list having an aggregate circulation of over nine millions. WiNCmSTEK REPEATING RIFLES FOR HUNTING. Shoot a Winchester once and you will shoot a Winchester always: That's because Winchester rifles after a test of over thirty years re- present today in accuracy, reliability and quality, the highest develop- ment in gunmaking. Wnatever your preferences may be, some one of the nine different Winchester models will surely suit you; for they arc made in all calibers, styles and weights. Use W/inchester guns for all kinds of shooting and Winchester cartridges for all kinds of guns. WINCHESTER .REPEATING ARMS CO., NEW HAVEN, CONN. ATMOSPHERE IN A MAGAZINE HALF-PAGE ADVERTISEMENT. The actual readers of each copy of a magazine average five people. You can easily prove this in your own home by noting the magazines you subscribe for and how many members of your family are apt to look at them. Thus it wiU be seen that by using these twenty-five publications you can reach half the population of the United States twelve times — that is, an entire year. We do not say that it is essential for the success of the United Textile Company's advertising that it should use 212 MODERN ADVERTISING this entire list of magazines and spend this amount of money. We do say that if it does use this appropriation and this list it will establish its trade-mark and create the demand for, its goods just that much sooner. It requires a certain amount of extra effort to start the advertising of a new article. After it is started the momen- tum carries it. For the first few months your advertising will not show resvilts, but, on the other hand, it will show results for some months after all advertising has stopped. A synopsis of the qualifications of each magazine men- tioned has been shown on a separate sheet. These twenty- five magazines are the representative magazines of the country. Literature Possibly the greatest advantage we have to offer in the wa}' of service to the advertiser is in the character and variety of the literature which goes with our magazine advertising. You will find a great many agencies which can place mag- azine advertising for you. You will find quite a number which can select just as good a list as we can. Every agency gets just as good a price for the space in the magazine as we do. Some claim to get a lower price, and some offer this space at a lower price to you, but this merely means that they are charging less for the service they render, the natural deduction being that they render the lesser service for the lesser price. We do not know any agency which is prepared to carry out so thorough and effective a system of collateral adver- tising through novel and unusual literature as we are. The Uterature and the way it is used form the most effec- tive part of your magazine advertising. Without it the maga- zine advertising is incomplete, and yet it is the part of the work that is seen the least. In an ocean-liner most of the ship is below the water-line. You see a little of the htiU, smoke-stack, rigging, and every- thing above the rail. Below are the engines which do the THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 213 actual work, the rudder and the steering apparatus. So in advertising. The advertisements in the magazines are the part above the water-line. The printed matter of all sorts and the plans for putting it in the most effective place are what make the magazine advertising effective. The effect of advertising the products of the United Textile Company will be in evidence upon the manufacturing clothier, the retail clothiers, the custom tailors, and upon the woolen commission men, jobber and wholesaler, and upon the wholesale and retail dry goods houses and department stores. Each and every one of these classes of businesses should be informed of the plans and advertising of the United Tex- tile Company. Their cooperation is necessary. It is true that sufficient advertising will compel every one of these trades to handle your goods, but it is also true that while you can compel them, cooperation will bring about the results more quickly. The main idea of the United Textile Company in com- bining the various mills which make up its personnel was to strengthen its position as relates to the various trades. The independent mill is almost at the mercy of the commission man. It has no future. The commission man dominates its manufacture, fixes prices, and is the only customer the manufacturer has. Your large organization makes you superior to some extent to this relation, but between you and the public is an immense machinery which you can not control. The demand for your goods should come from the consumer, who is after all the court of last resort, through his dealer or tailor to the clothing manufacturer, and from him through the jobber and commission man to you. Forty million American men and women insisting upon United Textile Company's fabrics is bound to have its effect upon your output. The first class of literature you will need is booklets in regard to your fabrics, booklets about the United Textile Company in general, booklets about various seasonable. 214 MODERN ADVERTISING fashionable and stylish fabrics both for men and women, which you will distribute in two ways. First, in answer to your magazine advertising. Every ad will contain a suggestion that the reader send for a booklet. The object wiU be, first, to get attractive literature in the hands of an interested party, and second, to gauge the in- terest of the public. The address in each magazine will be varied to some extent so that you can, when necessary, determine which publication inspired the reply. This is a matter of mere tabulation which can be attended to by an intelligent clerk or stenographer. You will advertise men's goods in men's magazines, women's goods in women's maga- zines, and both in the home magazines. Meanwhile your advertising department will be in a posi- tion to recommend any inquirer to a custom tailor, retail clothing store or dry goods store where United Textile Com- pany's fabrics can be had. Of course it is undoubtedly true that you are already weD established in nearly every leading store, but your advertising will bring so great a leverage to bear upon the trade that you will have a list of places in each town to which you can refer any inquirer. This is all a matter of routine. All the correspondence will be in the shape of form letters which can be written out by a regularly organized advertising department. In addition to this, you should be in position to give each house in the chain between you and the consumer appro- priate literature. Advertising should go to the jobbers and wholesalers about your woolens, to the manufacturer of clothing and to the tailor. Literature should also go to the buyers of dress goods for department and dry goods stores, as well as to wholesale dry goods houses. This literature will consist of printed matter sent out at regular intervals, presumably every two weeks, to the same people for an entire year. The tone of this printed matter wiU be, first, that American fabrics for American people is the keynote of the United Textile Company's manufacture; that you intend to make your trade-mark stand for quality, THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 215 and that you wish both the trade and the public to know that you will live up to your trade-mark, guarantee your fabrics, and make good any defects. This poHcy will be passed from you through the various handlers to the pubUc. Also you will constantly call attention to the fact that you are telling the story of the United Textile Company's fabrics to half the population of the United States every month, and this in itself will be the strongest leverage you can have upon sales of all kinds. No matter where your orders come from, no matter what men are interested in buying your goods, they must all of them be readers of some of the maga- zines upon your Ust. They are being influenced just as well as the actual consumer. Street Cars Street car advertising can be used judiciously to a small amount, to popularize your trade-mark. The magazine advertising will be specific. It will be de- voted to seasonable fabrics. It will afford room for descrip- tion and illustration. The street car cards, however, will be used to popularize your trade-mark and teach the public what it stands for. It will be general, urging every pur- chaser of woolens in any form to insist upon the trade-mark of the United Textile Company. We do not know at this writing how far you go in the manufacture of woolens. We do not know if you make blankets, for instance, and other goods that are not wearing apparel. If so, your stand will be that everything woolen or worsted should bear the United Textile Company's trade- mark. Street car advertising costs on an average fifty cents per card per month. Posters The same idea will be followed in a moderate way in poster advertising. Probably the best and most direct poster advertising is 216 MODERN ADVERTISING that of the elevated stations in New York City. We would recommend the use of both uptown and downtown stations, calling for 192 one-sheet posters, changing the posters each month, the expense being about six hundred dollars a month. New York is the great center of the United States. Pretty nearly every one comes here some time during the year. It is a great buying center, and thousands of buyers in all lines in which woolens are used are here twice a year. These people are influenced by the advertising in street cars and upon elevated stations just as much as the public. It will have effect on their buying, as well as upon the use of your goods by the public that wears them. That is the wonderful thing about advertising. It is cumulative. Impression is added to impression until the-idea is well established in the minds of the pubUc. Scope of the Advertising As we have outlined in this letter your possibilities are unlimited. Your advertising should be planned on a very broad ground. It is to appeal to a deeply-intrenched instinct of the American people — that is, patriotism. It is to appeal to a deeply-intrenched instinct of the human race — that is, pecuniary advantage. American-made woolens for American men and women, partly because they are American, and especially because they are cheaper, is a strong argument. Your woolens as against all other domestics because they are trade-marked and are known and can be identified, and because the great corporation of the United Textile Com- pany is behind them to make good, is an argument which can not be beaten. If it should ever come about that the tariff on imported woolens is removed or greatly reduced, several years of ad- vertising will have made the United Textile Company so strong in this country that it will be impossible for the foreign manufacturer to compete. On the other hand, the first large manufacturer who takes up the advertising of woolens is going to have a tremendous THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 217 advantage. If you have a year or two headstart of all com- petitors in establishing your trade-mark for woolen and worsted goods, it will take your competitors just that long to get to the same position, and meanwhile you will have gone on. Your advertising should not only be done on a large scale and done rightly, but it should be done now. The WHERE ARE THE CLOTHES THAT HAVE RUBBED to pieces this washboard ; gone before their time — your health and temper, too? PEARLINE does away with the rubbing; prolongs the LiFe of Fabrics — yours, loo. PEARUNE REDUCES The Hours of Work CHARACTER AS SHOWN BY PHOTOGRAPHY. time is absolutely ripe for such an exploitation. Never was the American public so keenly expectant of new things; never has it been reading advertising so religiously, and acting upon that advertising so promptly; never was there a nation so open-minded, so ready to listen to argument, so reached through its different interests as this country of ours. The United Textile Company stands in the position to- day of being the one great corporation which can pull off the most tremendous advertising coup of advertising history, and one that will stand as a monument for years to come of the possibilities of printers' ink rightly expended in swelling the profits of a great corporation. 218 MODERN ADVERTISING Our Service cutiomen are not inick oa the Ubel chat ii ituck on their breacl. They alwayi wonder who licked it. Spu-lu' Wued Bread Wrapper* are clean and unitary, and produce ao imprcuion about the luker that ererjr baker ought to want. Aik for pricei, printed or unprinted. Union Waxed and Parchment Paper Company 177 Broadway New York ■ iNvAImUIu We stand in the position of soliciting your advertising business as an advertising agency organized upon new lines. Advertising agencies may be divided into two classes: The old-school agency consists of a large corps of solicitors. The soliciting of business is the chief "'%''/~|i\/'ll aim of the agency. We are not pre- ■ ^^ W ' pared to say that they render no ser- vice, but that service, such as it is, is obscured by the fact that too many people handle the same advertising. It is a long reach between the solici- tor and the man who actually executes the plans. Then some of these agencies rest entirely upon cut rates. They take business at almost any percentage of the advertising appropriation because they have no service to render except the service of a placing machine. They are merely clearing-houses which take your advertising and send it out to the publications, render bills and collect. We accept magazine business at the established commission of ten per cent, because we have found, in com- mon with other modern agencies, that proper advertising service can not be rendered for less. This is the commis- sion recognized by the leading magazines, and some of them insist on signed agreements with agents to maintain this commission. Any agent who offers to cut the rate of these publications is violating a signed contract, and it may be inferred that an agent who will violate a contract with a magazine will break confidence with the advertiser. Service is something that can not be measured entirely by CATCHY STYLE FOR TRADE - PAPER ADVERTISING. THE GENERAL ADVERTISING AGENCY 219 dollars and cents. If you pay so much money for a com- bination of space and service, and if the price of space is a fixed one, the agent who takes your business at a cut price must cut out some of the service. We have no solicitors. Our house is a partnership of two men, and the advertising accounts which we have, have the entire thought, attention and actual work of these two men. We are not accepting any more business than we can handle personally. Our business is a professional one, just as is that of an architect, a lawyer or a doctor. You get the benefit of our own immediate advice, without any middle- men, solicitors or others to obsciu'e the relations. Our success with the customers we have has been marked. We can refer to the advertising managers of all prominent publications as to our standing and abiUty in the adver- tising world. We will gladly furnish a list of our present clients, and refer you to the officers of any company for whom we are work- ing as to what we have accomplished. We are prepared to bring to the advertising of the United Textile Company, not only a technical training in connection with some of the best advertising that has been done in the past ten years, but also unhmited enthusiasm as to its future possibihties. Yours very truly, Black & White. CHAPTEE IX RETAIL ADVERTISING Retail advertising is the advertising done by retail dealers through local newspapers and other mediums in order to reach "people who will come to the store and buy goods. Retail advertising differs from general advertising ehieily in respect to the fact that it is local rather than general. The same quali- ties that make general advertising good apply to retail advertising. But, as a rule, retail advertising is not so well done. The manufacturer who is selling a product over the entire country can afford to pay more than the retailer does for both his " copy " and for his designs. This is true, not in general, but in particular. A number of retailers, especially those in the large cities, do just as good advertising and spend just as much money upon their copy and designs as the general ad- vertiser, and in some instances more. Department stores pay very large salaries to advertisement writers, and give a great deal of thought and study to their cuts, designs, illustrations, type display and the like. Retail advertising is the real support of the news- papers, and a great proportion of it comes from the department stores. In a great many cities these stores use as much as a page a day in a given newspaper, and in some cases two and even four pages have been used in a given day. In metropolitan cities, such as l^ew York, Chi- 220 RETAIL ADVERTISING 221 cago and Philadelphia, as high as $12,500 a year is paid to the man who has charge of the advertising. This man may have as many as a dozen assistants, some of whom are advertising writers, others of whom are printers, designers, artists, stenographers and clerks, making a complete advertising department in itself. The retail advertiser as such can not use the maga- zines or any publication having a general circulation. His chief medium is the newspapers which circulate not only in the city where the business is located, but in nearby suburban towns tributary to the main city from which the store draws shoppers. A modern development of business and of adver- tising is a chain of stores operated by one manufac- turer, who thus becomes a retailer on a large scale. Such a chain of stores can be advertised in mediums of national circulation, giving the addresses of the stores in the different cities, unless the list is too long, in which ease the reader of the advertising is advised to look up the store in his own town. One of the largest enterprises of this kind is an association of cigar stores which maintains not only one but many retail stores in a single town, and has spread all over the United States, so that small towns have at least one store of this syndicate. This adver- tiser uses both magazines and newspapers. Several shoe manufacturers and other businesses follow the same plan. The advertising done by these syndicates of stores is not retail advertising in a strict sense, although the stores are retail stores. When a manufacturer sells goods by general advertising, whether he sells 222 MODERN ADVERTISING it through the regular retail stores or through his own retail store, the advertising he does is more near- ly similar to general advertising than it is to retail advertising. The retail advertiser then is the man who adver- tises in local newspapers to get local customers to come to his store to buy goods. In the smaller towns there is a close personal relation between the dealer him- self and his customers. In a large city a great store grows up with an army of clerks, and the advertiser himself as a personality is unknown to the shoppers. At the head of retail advertising stands, as has been said, department-store advertising,^ and the • An official statement, made by a man familiar with depart- ment-store advertising, places the annual expenditure for this sort of publicity in New York and Brookl3m at $4,0C)0,000. He divides it as follows : John Wanamaker 8500,000 Siegel-Cooper Co 400,000 Simpson-Cfrawford Co 400,000 R. H. Macy & Co 350,000 Adams Dry Goods Co 300,000 Bloomingdale's 300,000 Heam 250,000 Ehrich Bros 200,000 Frederick Loeser & Co., Brooklyn 200,000 Abraham & Strauss, Brooklyn 200,000 Rothenberg & Co 175,000 H. O'Neil & Co 150,000 Saks & Co 100,000 B. Altman & Co 100,000 A. D. Matthews & Sons, Brooklyn 100,000 Chapman & Co., Brooklyn 100,000 Stem Bros 75,000 H. Batterman, Brooklyn 75,000 Lord & Taylor 50,000 Koch & Co 50,000 Arnold, Constable & Co 35,000 Small department stores 50,000 $4,160,000 The Good Ship "Christmas" Now Docked at Wanamaker's THE PHILADELPHIA STYLE OP DBPAIlTMBNa>STOBB ADVERTI- SING. ONE DOMINANT IDEA HOLDS THE PAGE ADVER- TISEMENT TOGETHER. 16 224 MODERN ADVERTISING pioneer in department-store advertising is without question John Wanamaker. Although there are many department stores to-day whose advertising is as in- telligent and as productive as that of the two Wana- maker stores, it is true that the modern idea of department-store advertising grew up under the man- agement of John Wanamaker in Philadelphia. It is generally said that Manly M. Gillam, an advertising writer of reputation, is largely responsible for what is known as the Wanamaker style of advertising. In an interview given to Printer's Ink,-*^ Mr. Gillam has described his connection with the Wanamaker advertising : "I was then managing editor of the Philadelphia Record," he said lately at the office of the New York Herald, "and knew nothing of advertising. My training had all been along news and editorial lines. There wasn't a great deal of adver- tising printed in the Philadelphia papers at that time, but soon after going to the Quaker City my attention was attract- ed by the daily announcements of John Wanamaker. They were seldom a column in size, and more often a half column. But the items of store news were set in pica old style, which, among the black ads of that day, made them conspicuous through their inconspicuousness. It seemed to me a very good type for setting advertisements, but I thought I could improve the manner in which they told their story. "Mr. Singerly, publisher of the Record, had a magnificent herd of Holstein cattle at his country place outside of Phila- delphia. They were kept with greater care than some people keep their children — housed in stone barns, fed on ensilage, groomed Uke horses. The milk was scientifically cooled, the cream separated by centrifugal machinery and butter churned from it with every regard for the best product. In • September 7th, 1904. RETAIL ADVERTISING 225 Philadelphia at that day the famous Darlington butter sold at a dollar a pound and never lacked buyers. But the butter from Mr. Singerly's Holsteins, every whit as good, was put on sale two days a week at the old Central Market at regular market prices. It didn't sell. There were some buyers, but no regular demand. '"Hang it all, Gillam,' he said to me one day. 'Why doesn't it sell? See if you can't write some sort of advertise- ment to make that butter go.' " Well, when I got round to the matter, the first thing that struck me was the old style, pica of the Wanamaker ads — Wanamaker type, we called it. Then I began to ask myself what argument could be employed to interest people in this Holstein butter. This brought me eventually to what I * believe is the principle of all advertising. I asked myself why I, or my wife, or my family, should use that butter. Because it was good — better than any other to be had at the price. The point was, therefore, to let people know how good it was. " I began an investigation of Holstein cattle, and found that for a thousand years this breed had been the pride of Europe. When America was a wilderness the Holstein herds had been cared for like children, and many famous butter-maldng strains, like the English Holderness, were de- rived from them. It was intensely interesting to me, and I felt sure it would be to the public. So three ads were planned — the first to give the history of the Holsteins, the second to tell about them in America, and the third to deal with Mr. Singerly's herd and the methods of making butter at his farm. Three cuts of Holstein cows were made. The ads took a half column of space in the Wanamaker type, with the cut in the center. The facts were so interesting that any one who began to read would continue to the end. The only advertising argument was comprised in a nonpareil line at the bottom — 'Butter from a herd of Holstein cows will be on sale to-day at the Central Market at regular prices.' One ad did the business. At noon of the morning the first ad was printed there wasn't an ounce of the butter left, and the other 226 MODERN ADVERTISING two ads established a demand that far exceeded the capacity of the dairy. "Some months after Mr. gingerly asked me what I knew about music. '"Nothing at all/ I said. '"Well, there's a man named Willard Spenser here in town who's writing an opera for the Temple Theater, and I want you to advertise it.' "The Temple Theater belonged to the publisher of the Record, but had never paid. This new opera was ' The Little Tycoon.' The Japanese were a-n unknown people then, and I found out what I could about them from books. A hundred and fifty Httle ads were written describing their life and manners, such as their way of sleeping on a wooden pillow with a lantern to keep away evil spirits, their custom of shaking hands with themselves, getting on to a horse from the right side and so forth. These were printed with little cuts of Japs planting rice, drinking tea, and so on, and at the bottom of each was a line, ' The Little Tycoon will give a reception at the Temple Theater to-night.' Almost imme- diately the theater began doing a business that far exceeded its capacity, and the opera had a run in Philadelphia that was never equalled on the road. After that I wrote some advertising for Kellar, the magician, then a youngster in his profession, using the facts of Kellar's own life and travels as the main theme of interest. "But this is hke getting into an old garret. Perhaps I am telling you of things that are of no interest to present- day advertisers. To make a long story short, John Wana- maker came to the Record, one day and wanted to engage the man who had written the Holstein ads. I was doing as well as I had ever hoped to do on the Record, and my rela- tions with Mr. Singerly were those of a son. In my heart, however, I knew that I was only a theorist in business affairs. I wrote advertising confidently, but it was entirely on theory. I was a book merchant, if you please. The best capital that any man can have is what he has in his head. To come in touch with the greatest retail business in America would add RETAIL ADVERTISING 227 infinitely to my Imowledge. If it led to nothing else I should be a better newspaper man for the experience. I accepted the offer. "When I went into the new position it was with a real awe of the department heads that Mr. Wanamaker had gath- ered about him. To me, it seemed, every individual one of them must be a veritable master in merchandising, and the store an aggregation of little Napoleons of commerce. I found, however, that while each head knew all about goods, widths, prices, grades, and everything that pertained to buying in his department, there were few who had any notion of public demand or general business methods. They knew the people from whom they bought, but not those to whom they sold. The genius of John Wanamaker, for manage- ment, made the seUing organization. I feel safe in saying that he is even a poor buyer, but in determining pubhc de- mand and getting close to the people he is a wizard. " The half column to a column of space used daily was a big advertisement in 1886. With my eighteen years of ex- perience in gathering and writing the news of the world, it was natural that I should treat the advertising as a news proposition. In the store I sought centers of interest. The style of my predecessors had been sprightly and entertain- ing, but ran chiefly to talk, with few prices and little seUing argument. It was excellent, yet seemed the wrong thing. After stirring up interest, why not put some meat on the bones of the skeleton that had been created? Plenty of prices were made a feature of the ads, and the story was varied from day to day by putting emphasis on different departments. The news of the store — that was the idea. Some days we had strikes in hosiery, and on others red- handed war in dress-goods. Advertising in a big store might be compared to gathering fruit from a great orchard. Every- thing depends on selection of interesting subjects. Some men go out and gather the ripe, tempting things that appeal to the public, while others set before readers in their ads only the windfalls, green plums and rotten apples. "My theory of the reader's treatment of advertising was 228 MODERN ADVERTISING a glance. So presently the ads were cut up into paragraphs with little subheads to catch the eye and make easy reading. Every ad had little hooks to catch attention, and followed the line of least resistance. I soon saw the convenience of having the ads set in the store, and put in a composing-room. There was economy in it, too, for by cutting out a word here and there we saved several lines of space daily, and as the cost of a line in all the papers was something like four dollars, the service really paid for itself. Mr. Ogden was in the Phila- delphia store then, and persistently advocated the use of illustrations. We recognized their value, but didn't know how to produce enough interesting pictures to supply the daily demand. Mr. Wanamaker said it was impossible to make suggestive cuts in sufficient number, but Mr. Ogden persisted — he was an enthusiast. Finally, we had a con- ference on the matter and each took home a set of proofs to think up subjects for illustration. I produced four with the greatest difficulty, and was heartily ashamed of them. The others had about as many. All seemed puerile, but Mr. Wanamaker gave the word to go ahead as soon as we had fifty pictures in reserve. Several weeks must have passed before we secured that number, for ideas came slowly. I could suggest three hundred pictures to-day from one of those ads, but you must remember that we were on entirely new ground then. "The average space was a column a day, but sometimes we took a page, and once two pages. But the next day's ad would be a half column. The advertising simply reported the normal gossip of the store. The size of the ad indicated its importance. A three-column announcement in the Phila- delphia morning papers was instantly recognized by the people of that city as an event at Wanamaker's. It was a good method, that. I think to-day that the normal news of a large store can be amply told in a column of newspaper space. The news of the store is like the news of the world. You can't take Port Arthur every morning, or bury a Queen, or assassinate a President. If you do, the thing palls. Worse yet, the advertising man must work in the treadmill of a page RETAIL ADVERTISING 229 a day, with the result that the advertising becomes lifeless and perfunctory. "From all this gossip of all times I presume you want me to draw an advertising moral. Well, I firmly believe that the methods followed then are better than those of the present, and that we must eventually come back to them by reaction. Present-day ads are too big. The desire to attract by bigness of space and bigness of statement has become a disease. The bread is spread so thin sometimes that you can't taste the butter. The everlasting grind of filling a page a day inevitably leads to exaggeration. In an old Oriental legend each Caliph on ascending the throne shot an arrow, and each was supposed to shoot further than his predecessor. That's what advertising men try to do now. Exaggeration soon leads to demoralization. I grant that there is a certain portion of the public that can be attracted by big ads and sensational statements. In Boston I helped break up the get-rioh-quick swindle of a swindler who promised people twenty-five per cent, on their money, and it seemed that when his game had been fully exposed the public would never bite again. But lately we have had 520-per cent. Miller, and I now believe that a 1,000-per cent, swindle would catch vi>;tims. Years ago in Philadelphia there was a clothing merchant who attracted people by the most sensational, lying statements. He seemed to do well despite his dis- honesty. One day Mr. Wanamaker frankly asked him why he pursued a method of getting business that was so far from legitimate. " ' Mr. Wanamaker,' he replied with equal frankness, ' there are one million people in Philadelphia. Ten per cent, of them are fools — one hundred thousand. If I can get ten per cent, of those — ten thousand — I can do a profitable busi- ness. And you must always remember, that our population is increasing.' "He thrived for a number of years, but on that corner to-day there is no clothing store. Now, right among the sensational, spread-eagle advertisements of to-day there are smaller announcements of firms people trust so implicitly 230 MODERN ADVERTISING that they don't need much advertising. Their reputations for fair dealing and conservative statements are so firmly established that their column a day carries more weight than somebody else's page. When they say 'Three dollars re- duced from five/ the public knows that five dollars was the actual selling price of yesterday. Others resort to little subterfuges — and I confess that I have used them myself — like 'former value five dollars,' meaning, in reality, that they were perhaps worth that in the time of Louis XV. Right here is the diseased member of the advertising body. I indicate the disease, but leave you to infer the remedy. By the law of reaction we'll eventually revert to quieter methods. "From time to time there has been hot discussion as to who organized the old style pica method of advertising. Mr. Wanamaker says that he selected this type himself, and Mr. Ogden supports him. Some years ago the Dry Goods Economist asked me to write an article that would settle the point. I thought it would be easy to do so by looking up the files of Philadelphia papers. But far earlier than 1861, when Mr. Wanamaker began in Oak Hall, I found old style pica ads in Philadelphia dailies, and even ads that had the Wanamaker style of taking the people into his confidence and talking to each reader individually. None of the adver- tisers had ever carried the idea out as persistently or fully, but the germ was there, and I concluded that instead of setthng the matter with an article I could only add to the fuel of the dispute. The Wanamaker style was a growth, depend- ing on no one man. Each successive writer has added some- thing to it, and the experience of years has added most of all." Whether due to this fact, or to some other, Phila- delphia still remains the home of the best department- store advertising. Each large city appears to have a certain style of its own, and the man familiar with such things can tell instantly on seeing the advertise- ment set up as it appears in the newspaper whether the store is in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York or THB rmUAOO wistyTu>-HBi There Are Only 41 Buying Days from No\y Until Christmas. The experience* of everybody supports the wisdom ol early shopping lor Christmas. Our holiday hnes oF merchandbc are now more complete than ever belore at this date— and your Iriends to be remembered are known. The better selections and the more leisure possible now make early holiday buying a pleasure. Many people are already busy with their Christmas shopping lists. Ths ilvn u mueb more tmipiaaialy iboM rwr it/en lie rtttffineJ btadquarters far Cbmtmai pa4t Our grtir wintjr itneki hiva'contrlbuHJ tlM tallowing Itenu lUuBtritlrn ' - - . j^^aa^.-"— ti^srw-'"'^- silk Petticoat Spedtls, 93.05, S5. Walklnfl Costumes -New Styles Just Received. Imported Colored Dress Fabrics, Yard. S1.00. ^J^ ~ Women's Cants In the Latest Models New Desfnu In Lace. Silk arfd Wool Waists THE CHICAGO STYLE OP PAGE DEPARTMENT-STORE ADVER- TISEMENTS SHOWS WEIiI/-BALANCED ARRANGEMENTS. 232 MODERN ADVERTISING Boston. Chicago is the second best as far as the char- acter .of department-store advertising is concerned; New York is third, and Boston fourth. This is not saying that department-store advertising is more profitable in the cities in the order named; it is simply that from modern advertising standards it is better done. That is, it is better written, better illustrated, better set up and better printed. Preparing the advertising of a large department store is almost as complex as the work of issuing a daily newspaper. Department stores advertise every day or almost every day, concentrating their large advertising on the day preceding the principal shop- ping day of the week in that town. In small towns that day is usually Saturday, because Saturday is the pay-day in most small towns, and because those towns have no Sunday newspapers. Therefore, the leading department-store advertising appears in the papers Friday night and Saturday morning. In a large city, such as New York, Monday is the leading shopping day, and the heaviest advertising is done in the Sunday papers. Some stores, either for reasons of principle, or for reasons of policy, do not advertise on Sunday, contenting themselves with Saturday night and Monday morning. Some retail Stores go so far as not to make window displays on Sunday, drawing all their curtains between Saturday night and Monday morning. The Wanamaker adver- tisements, for instance, do not appear in the Sunday papers. But the fact that the great bulk of depart- ment-store advertising appears on Sunday has made Monday the great shopping day. Friday was for years the dullest day in the shop- B KFw TQHK TDOta rrmn^v. PEcflnigB «, iwt Sim))gim€jatofi>r^€g— iPgillSBt%tm DECEMBER e. 1MM. TOYS Interesting news for holiday shoppers XHaUl ba.klJUlTlllK-T1«l^>lricUll . - . ^^. ..... o.i&«^ •> am ■!>> am- cib ikd ■■ . Solid «>ld uid siWer Cbrhtm&B iewc]ry Sterllntf silver nt ^ price Man'a Spaclut tcMl&r '22 PrtDc* Alberi A Bale' of f«ahioi»ble fun of new de Cirb Al U la U Uh Thin R«ulnr fc??=l!c rifl^suBa' ^'='-?a^,Ma:^^r .^J^JWTEgig LSftsri^:: law SMI Drcuinj Jkcbeti, Wkiiti, Bkth Robes. Flannelelle Goods, CaHBIouiH ■allnholi'Wcu' ClnnnM Prim la SatrrJH Ton Boys' Connbin&tionS^tils High Classi^HaJr Goods ^3S-lt& Vimm Opening Sale of Boolu for Chriilm&i fiim|. HiiPjgel3WHBfoiinJMan»Hoy5BtiinilslilntBafgiiiiisi -5^ T«j Lsnd OiKBs TomoiTOW , nein t ihI En joy Its Wonden iiSp?Tf, TraoieBiSDlpt^ THE BOSTON STYLE OP DEPARTMENT-STORE ADVERTISING HUNS TO HEAVY DISPLAY, ESPECIALLY OP PRICES. 238 MODERN ADVERTISING fined to getting up the regular newspaper advertise- ments. Large department stores use many other mediums, such as programs, local publications not strictly newspapers, out-of-town newspapers, street-car space, posters, billboards, painted signs, electric signs, novelties of all kinds, and in addition to this a large volume of printed matter, all of which comes under the jurisdiction of the advertising man. In some stores the window-dressing is made a department of the advertising work. In others it is a department by itself. In a large store the head window-trimmer has a number of assistants. The art of dressing windows attractively has become a spe- cialty by itself, and some men are very expert in it. A good window-trimmer commands as high a salary in some eases as an advertising man. Of course, in a strict sense he is an advertising man. Successfully arranged windows are a strong part of a department- store's advertising. The printed matter sent out by a department store is quite a business by itself. Such stores issue at least one general catalogue, and a large number of special ones. Then there are circulars, folders, envelope-stuff- ers, bundle tickets and other small printed things which are dropped into envelopes or bundles, or dis- tributed in the store. Department stores sometimes publish a monthly magazine or house organ, and in the ease of some stores this rises to the dignity of a very serious magazine, containing fashion news, ar- ticles on dress and toilet, and even stories, poems and illustrations. The advertising manager must prepare this or have it prepared for him. A general catalogue is prepared because a big RETAIL ADVERTISING 239 store kas customers covering a very wide territory. Often a store which does not regularly solicit mail- order business receives nevertheless a large number of orders by mail, and a great many requests for prices and descriptions of goods, which can best be answered by means of a com- plete catalogue. Some depart- ment stores encourage mail- order business and regularly advertise their catalogue over the entire coiintry in national mediums, but, of course, stores which do this are in this case mail-order advertisers, and such advertising comes under that heading. Next to the department stores, the largest retail adver- tisers are the clothing stores. The clothing-store advertiser does not have the same variety that is offered by the depart- ment store, but in itself this ad- vertising is often carried very far. One large retail clothing store, which main- tains three different branches in TSTew York City, has done for years retail advertising which has a national reputation. This store is known as Rogers, Peet & Company, and the Rogers-Peet style of adver- tising would be recognized by any one familiar with advertising. It is a curious fact that there is not and never was any member of the firm bearing either the name 17 "English squares." Four-in-hands. A quantity of rich scarfs that we've had on our shelves at ti and $1^0— about half at .each , price. Rogers,, Peet & Company* XI' Bmidwar'. cor. VkRMi opposit* atr lun- •U Binadnr. ear. UU. _ ud ltd to IM tu At* UW BlMdwH. car. AL 4iul U Wut Md BL THE ROGERS-PEET STYLE. 240 MODERN ADVERTISING of Eogers or of Peet. The men behind this business, for some reason, invented the euphonious name, " Eogers, Peet & Company," and under that name the business has grown to large proportions. Adopt- ing a fictitious name for a big business is unusual in this country, although in England it is a very com- mon thing indeed. Another very noteworthy instance in the advertising world is that of Perry Mason & Company, for over seventy years the publishers of the Youth's Companion. When the Youth's Companion was started it was such a trivial thing, and had so little chance of success, that its founders decided to do business under a fictitious name. As the years rolled by the publication of the Youth's Companion became the largest enterprise of its founders, and proved a very profitable one, but in all that time and up till now the business name of the house has been Perry Mason & Company, although no one of that name has ever been connected with the business. To return to the advertising of Eogers, Peet & Company, this house is famous not only for its unique newspaper advertising, but also for its printed matter. A great many catalogues, booklets, folders and bundle tickets are used in the advertising of the three stores. Street-ear advertising and even poster work is in- dulged in. Everything that goes out- of the store, including the boxes, bundles and envelopes, is utilized for attractive, refined and dignified advertising. By tricks of type and designing a certain definite individ- uality is given to each piece of advertising, so that, however diversified the use to which it is put, it can be recognized at a glance. This idea is one that is gradually appealing to more advertisers as time goes RETAIL ADVERTISING 241 on. To accomplish it successfully requires consider- able ability. The retail-clothing advertiser of the small town is greatly helped by what is known as ready-made advertisements. These are advertisements which have been designed and written by the advertising depart- ment of a wholesale clothier. The wholesale clothier, in consideration of the purchase of his clothing by a retailer, will supply that retailer with a set of ready- made advertisements, consisting of electrotypes of attractive cuts and the reading matter to 'go with them. The retail clothier will buy space in his local newspapers and pay for it himself, using the cuts and copy furnished by the manufacturer, signing it, however, with his own name and address. By such plans as this the advertising of the retail clothier has been made a great deal better than that of the ordinary run of retail advertising in the same town. So successful has this plan been in securing a great deal of advertising for the manufacturer, that it is now being adopted in other lines. Eeady-made advertisements are furnished by manufacturers of shoes, furniture, carpets, underwear, hats, gloves, ties and other things. The design and advertising fur- nished by the manufacturer always bear strongly upon the merits of his own product, of course. Large re- tailers often carry the products of several manufac- turers, from all of whom they obtain cuts and adver- tisements which are useful. Retail advertising depends entirely upon direct results. A retailer can put an advertisement in a newspaper and know when his store opens the next morning whether it has paid or not. The general ad- 242 MODERN ADVERTISING vertiser knows only in a general way, by the volume of business. The retailer knows by the actual number of requests for a given article advertised at a given price. In its direct results retail advertising bears a close relation to mail-order advertising. The same quality of direct appeal is required to make it success- ful. The possibilities of successful retail advertising are almost unlimited, but its possibilities are seldom realized, because a man running a retail store in a small town is not the man who appreciates the great possibilities of successful advertising. When he is, he soon ceases to be where he is. It will be noticed that some towns and cities have better retail advertising than others. In a town where the retail advertising is good, it is all good. This is due frequently to some very enterprising newspaper which has fostered and encouraged good advertising. Some newspapers — and not all of them are located in large cities — possess regularly organized adverti- sing departments, which are placed at the service of the retailer to prepare his copy and designs for the local newspapers. This, too, has its effect in improv- ing the advertising that is done. Outside of specific instances, such as unusually successful retail advertisers, the great bulk of retail advertising is comparatively unimportant. This means that the individual advertising is not very good and is frequently very unsuccessful. Taken as a whole, however, the retail advertising in this coun- try is the largest and most important advertising done. The importance of retail advertising depends upon the number of people engaged in it. There are not more than a thousand national advertisers, large and RETAIL ADVERTISING 243 small, while there are hundreds of thousands of retail advertisers. It is on this account that all books writ- ten about advertising up till now have been books de- voted to the problems of the retailer. There have been over a dozen of these books, no one of which does more than touch upon the subject of general advertising, if it does that. A book intended to help general adver- tisers would have a small sale. Advertising books have been written to make money and, therefore, have been sold on the theory that they are helpful to the retailer, and they generally are. The fact that the advertising problem of each re- tailer is repeated in each different town has made it possible to build up what is known as syndicate work. An advertising syndicate supplies copy and designs to retailers at a very small cost by selling the same cut and the same advertisement in each town. The advertising of a retailer does not generally conflict with the advertising of a man in the same line of business in the next town. There are, for instance, forty thousand hardware dealers in this country, a great many of whom advertise. A syndicate can af- ford to pay a good price for a design of a sufficiently general nature so as to iit almost any store. This design, together with the copy, is sold to as many re- tailers as will buy it, electrotypes of the cut being furnished. The local retail dealer either uses the copy as written, or changes it to fit some particular case in his own announcements. Service like this has been sold for as little as twenty-five cents for each advertisement, but the bet- ter sort of service costs from fifty cents to a dollar per advertisement. A retailer contracts for so many 244 MODERN ADVERTISING cuts with copy per week, and these are received, not all at once, but from time to time. This is one rea- son why the retail advertising of the country has been so greatly improved in the last fifteen years. In the last ten years nearly every kind of retail business has been advertised. Local corporations holding a monopoly for supplying some of the necessi- ties of life, have adopted advertising to increase the number of their customers, even when there is no com- petition. The newspapers are used by gas companies, telephone companies, electric lighting companies, water companies, various street railway and rapid transit lines and other interests not at one time con- sidered as advertisers. This development of advertising has become very interesting, and it has been very successful. When there is only one gas company in a town, everybody who wishes to use gas must go to that company, but in every town there are a large number of people who persist in burning kerosene, who can be persuaded to adopt gas. There are people who have gas in their houses for illuminating, who have not thought of it for cooking. Intelligent advertising for gas consump- tion skilfully teaches people that it is better to cook with gas. Some companies offer a gas-range free. Some offer to equip a house with gas-jets. Others rent a gas-range for a nominal sum. In various ways these companies extend their business by advertising, despite the fact that they have no competition. Such advertising may be classed as retail advertising. CHAPTEE X MAIL-OKDEE ADVERTISING Advtietising has been divided into general, retail and mail-order advertising. Mail-order advertising is that department of advertising and of merchandis- ing whereby goods are sold direct to the consumer by mail, the consumer in most cases living remote from the mail-order house. Mail-order advertising resembles general advertis- ing in that it is spread all over the country, but it resembles retail advertising in that the goods adver- tised are sold direct, the mails being the medium of transmission of the advertisement of the goods, of the catalogue still further describing them, of the money- order to pay for them, and finally of the goods them- selves, when small enough to be sent by mail, but otherwise they go by express or freight. The mail-order business, supplying as it does a real need, has grown to mammoth proportions. Many large houses are engaged in it, and the volume of their business as well as the amount of their advertising compares with that of the largest general advertisers. This advertising does not, as a rule, appear in the magazines that we know as such, though some of them, and especially the weeklies and women's papers, carry a certain amount of mail-order advertising. The great bulk of such advertising is to be found 245 246 MODERN ADVERTISING in the mail-order papers, publications which reach es- pecially the class of people living in remote and not easily accessible parts of the country, or in country districts and on farms near villages not well supplied with stores. Such people depend upon the mail-order houses for a large number of things they can not buy in the village general store, or if they can buy them, not at such low prices. These people make up the regular readers of the mail-order papers and are the regular customers of the mail-order houses. The gen- eral advertiser advertises to reach the consumer, but his goods are delivered by the retailer through his own store. The mail-order advertiser advertises to reach the consumer, but delivers the goods himself by mail, express or freight. The growth of the mail-order business has been due to the fact that three-fourths of the population of the United States live in the country or in towns and villages remote from anything in the way of a distributing center of goods other than the village store. It really stands for a great expansion of the meth- ods of a retail store wherein a tremendous volume of business covering the entire coimtry, and the privilege of buying goods in factory lots as it were, have made it possible to offer prices which even the big depart- ment stores are scarcely able to meet. The problem of a mail-order business is to defray, not only the cost of the goods, but also the cost of selling them, which includes advertising in a large number of mail-order papers. To such great proportions has this business devel- oped that it is said that in Chicago alone the mail-order MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISING 247 houses do a business aggregating fifty million dollars a year, most of which is controlled by three houses. The three firms whose names are best known in con- nection with this business are Sears, Roebuck & Com- pany, Montgomery, Ward & Company, and John M. Smythe Company. It is said that these three houses receive an average of twenty-five thousand orders or letters every day. They issue elaborate catalogues in which their wares are described in a way to convince people that better bargains are offered than can be given by local dealers in their towns. One of these catalogues, that of Sears, Roebuck & Company, weighs about four pounds, contains 1,200 pages, of three columns each, and describes nearly every article of human need or luxury. To mail one edition of this catalogue costs in postage alone $640,000. The amount spent by this house in advertising is still larger, and to this must be added the postage and printing of a great amount of literature, as well as the regular correspondence. " The history of Sears, Roebuck & Company," says the Mail Order Journal, " conveys an idea of the great opportunities the mail-order business offers to enterprising business men. This firm is only a few years old. Mr. Sears started originally in the jewelry and watch business, selling watches and jewelry by mail, through advertising in mail-order papers. Af- ter a short existence in Chicago, Mr. Sears removed to Minneapolis, where he associated himself with Mr. Roebuck, but after a few years this firm removed its establishment to Chicago. This took place at a time when the country was in the midst of an un- paralleled commercial crisis. Business was par- 248 MODERN ADVERTISING alyzed ; industry stagnant ; labor suffering and farm- ers impoverished by bad crops. It was thus during the hardest times that this business was started. Its capital was not very great, but its confidence in the future of the mail-order business made up what was lacking in money. By a thorough knowledge of the requirements of the mail-order trade, by strict econ- omy in its management, by shrewdness in buying goods and advertising space, it built up one of the largest, if not the largest, mail-order business in the country. Together with Montgomery, Ward & Com- pany, and John M. Smythe Company, it is practically monopolizing the entire mail-order business in the gen- eral field. These concerns are enormous department stores for mail-order buyers. There are 25,000,000 inhabitants in the small towns and villages, and nearly 30,000,000 farmers. This country has ample room for several dozen large mail-order houses. These three firms can not supply the entire demand of the population whose facilities for trading by mail are constantly being increased by the extension of the rural free delivery. The full development of the rural free-delivery service will bring dozens of gen- eral mail-order houses into existence. There is no better field of commerce open at present than the mail- order trade, and the sooner merchants avail themselves of this splendid opportunity, the surer they are of suc- cess and of building up a large and lucrative trade." As suggested by this extract, the introduction of rural free delivery has greatly stimulated the business of selling goods by mail. Rural free delivery offers a double advantage. First, the distribution, promptly and direct to the subscriber, of various publications MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISING 249 carrying mail-order advertising, and second, the dis- tribution of goods small enough to be delivered by mail, which comprise most of the goods sold by mail- order advertising. The government report for 1903 shows 19,398 rural free-delivery routes covering 494,950 miles of country roads, and delivering mail daily to a popula- tion of twelve million not living in towns and villages. The number of pieces of mail carried in six months from these routes was 307,428,128. Many of these people would not otherwise receive mail qftener than once a week, and during the busy summer seasons or during bad weather as infrequently as once a month. It is estimated that, with the appropriations now avail- able, 3,260 additional routes will have been opened before this book is published, making the total routes in operation in 1904 some 22,678. Only one county has had rural free delivery long enough to offer a basis of comparison. Such com- parison shows the following remarkable percentages of increase: Letters, 15 per cent.; postal cards, 18 per cent. ; registered mail, 21 per cent. ; circulars, 139 per cent. ; packages, 35 per cent. ; money-orders, 70 per cent. The plan laid out by the government calls for the development of forty thousand such routes within the next few years. The service offered by this postal-delivery system brings the advertiser's , offers and the goods themselves direct to the door-steps of the country population. This thing has given a greatly increased stimulus to mail-order advertising. The possibilities of the mail-order business are made very clear by a few statistics from the last cen- sus. The 1900 census shows that 46,647,848 people 250 MODERN ADVERTISING out of an actual population of 75,994,514, or 62.7 per cent., live in villages or on farms. The usual al- lowance of five people to a family gives 9,329,569 homes. Into every one of these homes from v?hich any business could be expected it is safe to say that at least one mail-order paper penetrates. The grov^th of the mail-order business has led to the creation of new and the rapid development of other mail-order papers. The gregariousness of business, even in publishing, is shown by the fact that at Au- gusta, Me., are published eleven of these different mail-order papers. Other such publications are scat- tered all over the United States. Three come from Waterville, Me. One publisher in New York has a string of five. Forty-one such papers show an aggre- gate circulation of 12,300,000, and an aggregate price for space of $37.21:| per agate line, which is lower than the average cost per thousand of circulation in the general magazines. Mail-order papers are all of the same character. They are clean. Their reading matter, while not of the highest literary sort, is innocuous. The paper upon which they are printed will not admit of half- tone pictures. The advertising is set in the densest possible form, so as to get the greatest number of words in the smallest amount of space. The chief consideration in a mail-order advertisement is to get a full description of the article in the smallest possible space. This is the sort of advertising in which an explicit description and the price must always be given. The more complete and enthusiastic the de- scription, the larger the returns from the adver- tising. A well-known mail-order expert has said that THE READER MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS A HIGH-CLASS MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISEMENT AS USED IN MAGAZINES. 252 MODERN ADVERTISING there are only two sizes for a mail-order advertise- ment. It should either be large enough to tell the entire story or small enough to induce the reader to send for a full descriptive circular. There is the widest possible difference between general advertising for mere publicity and mail-order advertising for direct results. The general advertiser is merely trying to stamp his name and trade-mark upon the minds of a large number of people, so that when they want his article they will be induced to ask for it at their stores. Mail-order advertising, on the other hand, tries to produce so strong an impression upon the desire of the readers that they will send the amount named in the advertisement for the article described imme- diately. Mail-order advertising is in this respect more nearly like that of the department store. In each case direct and immediate results are expected. An advertisement which does not pay immediately will never pay. When the advertising manager of a department store puts an announcement in the even- ing papers he knows next morning, as soon as the doors of the store are opened, whether or not it has been successful. When a mail-order advertiser puts his announcement in a mail-order paper he knows when the first mail is in whether or not it has paid. It is said that in order to conduct a mail-order business profitably the actual cost of the article should be about one-third of the selling price. One-third is al- lowed for the advertising, and the other third is profit. Undoubtedly the successful mail-order houses which seU by mail every conceivable article from a thresh- MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISING 253 ing machine down to a cambric needle, do business on a far smaller margin of profit than this. They have such a well-organized distributing force, and they carry so many articles that there is very little waste in their advertising. The woman who reads an advertisement of a ready-trimmed hat for $1.68 and sends in her money, gets a catalogue weighing some four pounds. Out of that catalogue she and her family and her friends are apt to buy a good many other things, so that the business does not depend upon the immediate results of the advertising but upon these cumulative orders which come in from time to time. With such a pow- erful selling force as a complete catalogue covering every article that can be conceived, these mail-order houses build up a great business. The writing of successful mail-order advertising is just as much a specialty as the writing of adver- tising to exploit the goods of a manufacturer through the ordinary channels of trade. It requires espe- cially an innate and unusual knowledge of human nature. Such advertising appeals to ordinary, com- monplace people. It should not aim above their heads. It is simply as complete and enthusiastic a descrip- tion of the article advertised as can be given, to which is added an illustration more or less accurate, and the price. Then follows explicit and, what would seem to many people, unnecessary detailed informa- tion as to the way of sending money. It should be borne in mind that the kind of people who answer mail-order advertising are not used to the ordinary methods of business. The mail of a house of this kind shows how large a proportion of its customers 254 MODERN ADVERTISING are unused to the simplest details of sending money by mail. The man who can write mail-order advertising best is the man who reads the letters of the people who buy his goods. He soon knows exactly what terms to use in describing any given article. This is some- $1.90 BEAUTIFUL TRIilED HAT ■^^^" BUMHCR PATTERH HAf TOR »l.tO. AIIB ABBBBa CutoatMidrataraUiiaMl,«w>loH9l.tO. uid UUH UrrElli wawlUModyonttilBnawMtitrlxlrcMbAtbr „ axpreM. Exunln«lt,D0Mtbefln«DMt«rUla, trrUonukd ••« how V hiinn min g It In, pnmpar* It with tha tntM BxpeoAr^ tiktl fttyour home' mlULoer? uid It you do not ■&7 It Is » tkIu* thkt !■ ■Implf MMolab- Ine, the pretttMt, moat strUBbAndbacomlDsbAt yon eT«r uw, U yoo ^ don't beneTaltlswortli»*«r7Mntof BS.OO, ratam It to tu and we will immedutelr reloni yonr moaer- Itils la » rlohir daalffned dreia bat for Bprine i ajtd sainmer. The latost etrle. v*rr fBiUeaaUa and hMirUg m jeaag mni old allk*. ajtd sainmer. The latast style. Vary fBiUeau — . , .- — DUIUIlrUL rAI Itnn IIAI and una quality, ahlrrad Bilk chiffon. Hand madaonaallkwlrvlrame. The shftpe haa a KnceTul, roUlae brim with a KLstad dent In back. The laclaKlamadBoIalilrreduid stitched, beat quality black tilBlne Bilk, wbile the trimming la overlaid with bknd ehlmd, black allk chlSon, Bvne extending in gathered folds to tba bell crown, wMoh la made ol black silk hair braid. Black aatln and dlk Qowen and block aatln (olla«a are beautifully arranged la front of the crown and elde of brim. 'The trimming of part of the ctowd and part of the brim la orerlald with black silk ClukntlUy lace, which ettenda in lolda to the baok of crown. A prBtlUy designed, new anaped gilt ornament la artUtlcallyp. arranged below the gnlrred eUk ehlffon, while a loop of gold cord la arranged — "' the left facing eiteading to the bandeao. Bandeau la trimmed with black allk l.._ aatintellaie and black allk lace. Thehat as described. In all black with gold cord, makes a very rleh tlful appearaoca, but can also be ordered In WHITE, PINK or LIGHT BLUE, with trlmmlnga to ^ I on baretr cevera the cesi of malerlal. We make thle extremely low price merely ae an adTertlsement for 9lavU our mlUlaerr department. It yon order this new, etyllsb, richly designed dresa hat yon will be eaTlng more than one-lult In price; yon will be getting one of the bandsomeot styles that will be shown, ■ hat that carrlea city aliile and dlsUnctlvenese In every feature. Our free UilUnerr Catalogue, eent on request, sbowa ...^.•r m ■«■ ^iim I astonishingly low prloea on oor complete line of spring and aammer hats, ahapea, trtm- A TYPICAL MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISEMENT. thing that it is difficult for the ordinary advertising writer to do unless he has had actual experience. Besides the mail-order houses which handle every kind of goods as do Sears, Roebuck & Company, Montgomery, Ward & Company, and John M. Smythe Company, there are a large number of houses which sell only one kind of goods as, for instance, houses which make a business of selling cheap carriages direct by mail. Such houses are known to the trade with which they compete as " catalogue " houses. Among the houses that have built up catalogue busi- ness in special lines are piano and organ makers, car- MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISING 255 riage builders, and various furniture houses. ITot all of these concerns run their own plants ; in some cases they contract for the output of a whole factory, or they buy a part of a plant, the articles made for them being of the cheapest sort. To give an idea of how cheap this is, it may be said that carriages are sold by mail as low as $14.95. The retailer in such goods always considers the catalogue house as his greatest enemy. Pie has the same feeling toward them that the small retailer had toward the large department store. And in each case the triumph of the concern with the large capital, great buying power and sweeping advertising is in- evitable. Mail-order advertising, as we have seen, brings in a large number of replies, about equally divided between those who send cash with the order, and those who write for further information. All large mail- order houses have a catalogue which is mentioned in each advertisement. This catalogue is mailed some- times free, and sometimes in return for postage, and from this catalogue customers continue to order, in many cases for several years. The amount paid for the catalogue is generally refunded on the first order. A certain percentage of all inquirers fail to pur- chase for a number of reasons. They may be idle curiosity seekers, or they may not have been suffi- ciently convinced. All progressive mail-order houses have a system of form letters which are mailed ^ promptly to all inquirers after a certain time. In some cases, especially when the article which drew out the inquiry is of considerable value, a follow-up system is kept up for a number of times and always 18 256 MODERN ADVERTISING brings in a certain percentage of orders which would not otherwise have been secured. It is also true that customers who buy articles by mail are apt to be steady customers. Houses which make a business of this sort of work keep these names and send circulars enclosing offers from time to time. An advertiser who has sold a popular book by mail for a number of years said that it took him at least six months to write a successful advertisement of a new book. He would try it in various publica- tions, and as the responses came in he would correct, alter, change or revise the advertisement to answer the questions most frequently asked by inquirers. In this way he finally produced an advertisement which fitted every apparent demand. This advertisement as finally arranged he repeated over and over again in all publications, in some cases running it for two and even three years. This same advertisement would bring in hundreds of thousands of inquirers and sell the book to a large proportion of them. A single half- page magazine advertisement is said to have brought in $45,000 on the first insertion for a single book. The general method followed is to repeat an ad- vertisement in a given publication until it ceases to draw. It is then inserted in other publications and so on. After it has been around a certain number of times, a new article is submitted and the list is gone through again. After a year or so the same ar- ticle can again be offered. The general mail-order houses have such a large supply of articles that they can offer frequent changes of seasonable and timely goods. A variation of the mail-order business is what is MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISING 257 known as letter-brokerage. For instance, a concern having advertised has received a large number of re- plies which are afterward rented or sold. A set of letters thus received in reply to an advertisement for a patent medicine would be particularly valuable to another man selling a similar remedy. Letters from people who send money for articles advertised are al- ways valuable to any mail-order advertiser. This business is more or less legitimate, accord- ing to the people who practise it, though, of course, it is open to abuses. One flagrant instance of abuse was that of a concern which advertised a remedy for a certain disease, which remedy contained nothing more than salt and water. The advertiser did a prof- itable business, selling it at a dollar a bottle until the post-office department found it out and issued a fraud order stopping the advertiser's mail. The advertiser then promptly moved to a new location, taking with him the letters he had received from his victims. He gave his remedy a new name, put a new wrapper on the bottle, and wrote to one of his victims as fol- lows : " I have heard how you have been victimized by Dr. So-and-So. Such swindles can not be too greatly deprecated. I know, however, that you are suffering from -^hat is supposed to be an incurable disease; in fact, the only thing that I know of that will cure you is my remedy, which I will be glad to send to you in return for a dollar." Astonishing as it may seem, thousands of those who had been vic- tims before, again sent in their dollars to receive exactly the same worthless remedy. Advertising, and especially the mail-order variety, has had to bear the burden of disreputable, fraudulent 258 MODERN ADVERTISING and indecent advertising more than any other one de- partment of publicity. In the case of articles sold through the stores no great fraud can be practised. The customer may read about such things in the news- papers and magazines, but he buys them of his own dealer, and sees the goods before he buys. Numerous ingenious schemes are made for defrauding credulous and innocent people through the mail-order papers, and even through the columns of the most reputable daily newspapers. It is hard to find a newspaper in the country so particular that at least a few such objectionable advertisements are not found in it, though the real field for such announcements is the mail-order paper. The most serious thing about such advertising is the helplessness of the government in dealing with it. It is often impossible to prosecute the advertisers, and the most the post-office department can do is to issue what is known as a fraud order. Such an order peremptorily and without redress stops the mail of the advertiser. This mail is opened and the money is returned to the senders, and they are advised that the concern is engaged in the business with intent to deceive. So clever are these advertisers that although it is patent to everybody that the advertising is deceptive, it is impossible to point out any actual deception. One advertiser offered to send a complete set of parlor furniture for the small sum of $3.50, saying that the picture given was an exact likeness. This proved true to the extent that the furniture was no larger than that in the picture. In other words, it was doll's size furniture, where the inquirer naturally expected a MAIL-ORDER ADVERTISING 259 parlor set that he could use in his own house. Yet there was nothing said in the advertisement that was not strictly true. Readers of mail-order advertising have sent twenty-five cents for a complete sewing-machine and received a cambric needle. They have sent fifty cents for a steel engraving of General Grant and received a one-cent postage-stamp. It is impossible for the government to prove that a needle is not a complete sewing-machine, or that a one-cent postage-stamp is not a steel engraving of General Grant. Still, the people who sent their money did not get what they expected. The post-ofSce is a paternal institution and has something of the discretionary power of a police mag- istrate in deciding things arbitrarily. A recent ag- gravated case was that of a music-dealer who adver- tised sheet music — 100 titles for ten cents. In return for the ten cents he sent 100 titles and nothing more. In other words, his customers paid ten cents for a catalogue, thinking they would get the actual music. A post-office inspector was put on the trail of the pub- lisher, but it took weeks to find him, as he simply inquired for his mail at the post-office and the address which appeared in his advertisement was the address of a branch postal station. One department of mail-order advertising which should possibly be mentioned at least is that of the correspondence schools. The first correspondence school was the outgrowth of a trade paper devoted to mining, which began in a small way to give instruc- tion by correspondence in mining engineering. This was so successful that the school enlarged its scope 260 MODERN ADVERTISING until its courses cover quite a variety of topics. So successful was the school that the idea was soon copied by all kinds of institutions with every degree of ability to teach. Most publications reaching young people are now filled with the advertising of cor- respondence schools. There are said to be one hundred thousand students of these schools scattered all over the United States. This advertising is mail-order advertising in its strictest sense. CHAPTEE XI THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVEETISING The present-day tendency on the part of expe- rienced advertisers is to get at the facts — to reduce the art of advertising to a science — to develop what may be called the mathematics of advertising. Advertising has laws and figures as have archi- tecture, painting, and music. The profession of an architect is work that calls for imagination, taste and other attributes of the mind^ which we call artistic. Yet the successful architect is capable of calculating the breaking strain of an iron beam, the weight and durability of stone, wood, steel or tin. Drawing has perspective, anatomy and even geometry behind it. The statistics of advertising bear the same relation to preparing a successful advertising campaign that the mathematics of architecture bear to the designing of a great library. The question with every advertiser is, does my advertising pay and how well does it pay? It has always been supposed that the general advertiser, the man whose investment is in pure publicity, could not know other than in the most general way whether or not his advertising has been successful. The results obtained by some advertisers who have secured figures in support of their theories have proved this conviction premature. The simplest method of determining whether or 261 262 MODERN ADVERTISING IF YOU WEAR Collar Buttons and want the kind that never break, because they are made from a single piece o f metal, don't fail to ask for KREMENTZ ONE-PIECE Collar Buttons not advertising is read is by offering sonaething for which the reader may send. This offer may take the form of a booklet about the article advertised, or a booklet containing helpful matter in addition to advertising matter — recipes for prepar- ing foods or drinks, special instructions for decorating a home, or something of that kind. The nature of the book is generally suggested by the article adver- tised. An advertiser making, say, a min- eral water, will send out a book of recipes for mixed drinks in which the mineral water is used. There is a wide range in the use of booklets of this kind, because one manufacturer making mixers, shakers and spoons for mixing drinks, sends out a very handsome book of recipes for the drinks themselves. An advertiser making an offer of this kind will get a certain number of replies, a small percentage of the number of people actually reading the advertising. If the article is sold through the stores, many people will buy that article at the stores. A certain percent- age will send for the booklet or whatever is offered. Millie in rolled pUte, sterling And gold. The name KremeiUz and (he C|uality is stamped on the back of every button. There's more gold in our plated button than in any other make. Write for booklet, " The Story of a Ctollar Button." KREMENTZ & CO. 69 Chestnut Street, NEWARK. N. J. please meatioo THB CRITIC AN INDUCEMENT TO WRITE IS OF- FERED. THE STREET ADDRESS IS PROBABLY A KEY. Macbeth, on a lamp-chim- THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 263 Another way to stimulate the use of an article is to offer something desirable in return for a certain number of box fronts, labels or metal caps to be taken from the package, bottle or jar. These are evidence of the consumption, or at least of the purchase, of a certain number of packages of the articles advertised. The question of whether or not to charge for the article sent is one which is treated differently by different advertisers. Some advertisers send it abso- lutely free. Others ask for the postage. Still others charge a small price, sometimes enough to cover the cost of producing the book- let or article. This is done not so much to reimburse themselves for the outlay as on the belief that people „„-, cfclVQ think more of something ll^/^ 5)ta^a for which they have paid Y-|-jRrf» than they do of something that IS given free. An- MyIndexttUswhuclilimcyfiuyourU»p. Bym uM Ihftt chimney, you get perhaps twice as much light, other reason theV charge u.d„,e.dell»rori™.yea.otehimBey.mm.ey. 1/ 01 seud It fircc; am glad to. -I -I f. 1 1 1 1 MaCBKTH, Pittsburgh a small smn for a booklet or other advertising is that it weeds out from the day's mail all curiosity seekers. Many people in this country write for anything that is offered free, whether they can use it or not. Such replies are one of the great drawbacks to offering something in the advertising. There is another way of charging for a book- let or other thing that is offered. The inquirer is asked to do something. The most ordinary form of request is that the writer shall send in the name of AN UNUSUAL NAME IS GIVEN TO THE BOOKLET. NO KEY. 264 MODERN ADVERTISING her dealer in the line of the article advertised. As explained in another chapter, the reason for doing this is to bring pressure to bear upon that dealer to place the goods in stock. Sometimes the inquirer is asked to send the names of several friends to whom adver- tising literature may be sent. All these things are efforts on the part of various advertisers to ascertain to some extent whether their advertising is being read or not. Next to the desire for knowledge of this sort, the advertiser likes to know which particular mediums Libbys Flavor X vr\>«.^ Condensed Mince Meat, Melrose Pate, Concentrated Soups, Potted Ham, Tongue, Peerless Wafer-Sliced Dried Beef, Cottage Loaf, Ve^ Loaf are ready to serve at a moment's notice, and are sold by all grocers. Our booklet, *^Ud SuGceam" GontklnlnE reelpea for twelve delicious Bolada, Bent frea upon request. McNeill a Libby AN ADVERTISEMENT IN WHICH A BOOK OP RECIPES IS OPPEHED. THIS ADVERTISEMENT HAS NO KEY. pull best. To accomplish this the advertising is " keyed." Some form of address is used which can be varied in each magazine. The inquirer reading the advertisement in a given magazine copies the ad- dress as it appears there. The replies are then sorted in the office of the advertiser according to the address. There are a great many ways of keying advertise- ments. All are good, but none is perfect. Variations of street numbers are possible where an advertiser is located in a small town, or possesses a very large plant. PorltiM n QHt thl» coupnii or writ* Tb« EQDUabI* Ule Aunvaou* SooUtr of tbe United Statai, f SO Brqadwari Naw fork. Dapl. Ho. «. FIlUBKBdnc InlaimilloD ii|*idlnE ■ CoiiiIduoui Inirilment EndoWnwnl foi | il limcl lo ■ ptjnn i •. yciii ol aic, twDillcUrjr fciti or ■(>■ A COUPON IN "WHICH THE AGE OF THE INQUIRER IS AMONG THE INFORMATION DESIRED. COUPON WITH KEY IN UPPER CORNER. SUMvl Cm>w C«., Kmt T«ll ■ Plow laul mc, nn MiproTil, pttpiJd. Mol'na BoDklmen' Shikapcaii In hal lulhBr. •KuUibctDir.lavrnioura oIUUdS diyi Dtncclpi otbooti.uidia •In «dHlBC dOh. di4DKc U B" A SQUARE COUPON. hudwi UuD * bo. HewTark. iMMMntf with' Nbw InHuu- ■■■i<^ / »o, n-i ■UcClnn't a^f... COUPON KEYED FOR PUBLICATION, For Free Books end Fotdtrtf hindlj Fill Out tbh Ceufon and mail to-day to F. A. KILLER, 0. P. A., The Railway Exchange, Chicago Street Addrtss^ Probable Deitinalion_ COUPON ACROSS BOTTOM OF PAGE, FORMS OF COUPONS. 266 MODERN ADVERTISING For instance, a building occupying an entire block is entitled to, say, fifty street numbers. Each mag- azine will be assigned a street number, but all mail will be delivered to the same office. The address shows which magazine inspired the inquiry. An advertiser may give fictitious addresses, using different street names, but leaving orders at his post-office that all mail shall be put in a certain box. Department letters and numbers are sometimes used, as " Department 29," or " Ask for booklet B." Also a booklet will be given a different name in each advertisement, and the title by which the booklet is asked for is a clue, but not always a sure one. Some people simply say, " Send us your booklet," and the key is lost. Differ- ent spellings of the firm name are sometimes used, but all keys go wrong at times. Every advertiser receives a certain percentage of inquiries which can not be classified, and which must be, therefore, divided proportionately among the different magazines. A variation of the " key " in advertising is the coupon, the use of which has grown to large propor- tions in the pages of the magazines and also in the newspapers. This coupon, which was originally in- vented by Ralph Tilton, at that time advertising man- ager for The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia, consists of a corner of the advertisement which can be detached by a stroke of the shears, and which offers a form of reply to be filled out and mailed to the ad- vertiser. Coupons have developed rapidly in adver- tising, but they have departed so far from the original idea that they are now found not only at the inside corners of the page, but also in the centers of pages and other places where they have to be cut out with KEYED FOR MONTH AND PUBLICATION. FORMS OF COUPONS. 268 MODERN ADVERTISING considerable trouble. This raises the question as to whether the coupon is valuable enough to justify the space it occupies. One prominent advertiser insists that the coupon is a direct detriment inasmuch as his customers would write detailed letters of important information if there were no coupon, and that they confine themselves to the facts asked for by the coupon otherwise. This consideration would be more impor- tant to some advertisers than to others. Large general advertisers who have satisfied them- selves that certain publications are good mediums for them, abandon all keys, continue to place a certain amount of advertising in the magazines they have tested, and trust to the volume of business from the entire country to prove to them that their advertising as a whole is right. Their own experience, which has cost them a good deal of money, is not available to new advertisers. Advertisers whose advertising brings direct re- turns keep very accurate records of their expenditure as to the cost of securing an inquiry and the cost of securing an order. Such advertisers are able to key their advertising not only by publications but by months. They know, for instance, not only that such and such a reply was inspired by The Outlook, but also that it was inspired by the advertisement in the November number. They can separate the November replies from the December replies. These advertisers know in dollars and cents how much it costs to get a given inquiry and what advertisement brought it. The exact cost of the inquiry is the cost of the entire advertising space that month divided by the number of inquiries received. The cost of an inquiry, how- John WkxAMAKEH. Bboadw^*^ Fourth Aveinub lUHTH If TEHTH STREETS Oct. u. 1904. To the Public:-- The latest, edition of The Century Dictionary & Cyclo- pedia & Atlas, which is now coming from the DeVinno Press, con pletes oqr arrangement with the publishers under which we havo been ablq to sell this great wo^k at half-price. As soon as this edition is exhausted our half-price offer will no-longer be in force, and the distribution will be resumed by the publishers. This notice is now going to all with whom we h&ve had correspondence about The Century, and, as a result, the sets are being taken rapidly. This important question confronts you and demands im- mediate fittention: Shall 'I secure The Century now, save half the publish- ers* price, have the use of the complete work while making small monthly payments; or. later, pay double the Wanamaker price and continue to get along without this great help in the meantii^e . ' Don't--if money and 'advancement mean anything to you-- dismi^B this question with the idea that you will purchase as conveniently after whil-e. The publishers believe the work is now so well established as The Great American Work of Reference thai people must have it and will readily pay the regular price. There will, therefore, be no "after while" so far &fi the Wanamaker half -.price, lit tie -payment sale is con- A earned. Consider the question wiiile the half-price ^^ prevails. Respectfully, ^^ ^^Cut thla IF you DOUBT ThB CMtn»'» direct, pmUi^TilM to yon wrlto Tonr .^^fumi •end with, « ud BddrMi lata tba coran- coupon, dMlguHng (br nnnAer) Itut ana of Iba tol' ^^oioMtntad Ooat Mi lawlnc proftiMir lUoitnUd boaUaU wblcb most lotoreata 70D HsU lbs coapon and ^W^ •»» CaDtnrr Dicuon tba booUat will b« aent Crae. Yonr raqnait wlU In no way obUgaU ron althar to ^r woi^ * aom. ind c™ or to laqnlra rnrtbar : ^^^ ofUie tuOt-Drtce offer, eta Ho. I— llio BnilncM Han. No, 4— The Pbyalclan. ^^ No. 1— Tba Lswrer. No, 6— Tha Teacher. _ ^W Nam» „ No. a— Tba ClergTnUD. No. 6— The Tecbnlcal Worker. ^W ClergTman. ■Tlie General Worksr. A PAGE MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT SHOWING COUPON ATTACHED 270 MODERN ADVERTISING ever, is not even in ratio to the cost of making a sale. An inquiry when it has been received is foUovced up with -printed matter, or by personal solicitation, or by whatever other method the advertiser uses, until the sale is made. Then the cost of making the sale is added to the cost of getting the inquiry, which makes the total cost of the sale. It quite frequently happens that the publication which is most fruitful in replies is most barren in orders. Therefore, a publication at a high price bring- ing in comparatively few replies may in the end prove more profitable than a publication at a lower price bringing in a large number of inquiries. All these things the advertiser patiently studies, compares and classifies, and upon these results he bases his list of mediums. An effort is sometimes made by general advertisers and others interested in advertising to find out how much impression advertising makes. Tests are ar- ranged to show the advertised articles which are remembered first by a selected number of people. The characteristic symbol or trade-mark of a number of advertisements is cut out and the whole lot pasted on the wall. A number of people are asked to identify the articles advertised by these marks to show how much of an impression each trade-mark has made. Such tests are by no means proof conclusive, but they are interesting as straws to show which way the wind blows. The " Jim Dumps and Sunny Jim " advertising of the Eorce Food Company was successful, and one of the reasons for its success may not have occurred to a great many people, even advertising people. THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 271 There was a time when no patent-medicine adver- tising, and, in fact, almost no advertising of any kind was complete without " before-taking " and " after- taking " pictures. Over and over again was this used in advertising, until it became almost a fundamental principle. The public liked to see instances illus- trated this way. It saw the man a physical wreck Jim Dumps' half-sister, pale and slight, Had very little appetite. She said : " Such dainty-loolcinK food Will please the most capricious mood. So crisp, so light— It teltes my whim I '• " It takes with all," quoth " Sunny Jim. orce" The ltcu)j-lo-3crrf Cctc^ a different food for indifferent appetites. SwHt, ctlip SaKbi of whcfti and nulL Slr«iUt>^ana »f\d Produoea Toteo. "Not haTlng enjoyed tbe beat of Iiealth lor tho past three reara, I have tried HBVerBtklDilaoI diet, Tho post alz moniha have given 'Forco'avor; thorough trial with good roaulta. It la not only ver/ palatable, but prodnoea benenelal reanlU. It ia very atreagthealng, and produces Juat wlist It olalma to do — 'Force.' "Obohob a. Bilit." THE ORIGINAL FORM OF THE *' SUNNY JIM" ADVERTISING. Itefore lie had taken a bottle of the preparation, and it saw him completely restored afterward. It saw the housewife who did or did not use a soap or a washing-powder or any other domestic article or utensil and the transformation afterward. The Jerry McCauley Mission down along the shorCj under the big bridge in New York City, fol- lows a similar plan. When a man comes into the 19 "TTie best food is the best doc- tor,"— the doctor himself will tell you so. "FORCE" is appropriate as soon as a few good teeth appear,— and it starts right in the first day to make quick, elastic muscle and sturdy, solid bone. •^tftA^bt^tf wheat la the Ideal eialn. " FORCE" Is the Ideal tnm of wheat,— honeit, wholesome, entire wheat, malted with barley, thoToughly cooked and crlspily Baked. it contains no glncose, nor any other delete rious Bweerenlng substance. STYLE ADOPTED THE SECOND YEAR. THE MATHEMATICS OP ADVERTISING 273 mission and decides to try to lead a better life, his photo- graph is taken. Then, pro- vided the rescued one succeeds in leading a respectable life, his picture is taken again at the end of six months or a year and put beside the first one. The contrast is startling. A complete set of such pic- tures is a more impressive ob- ject lesson for other wayfar- ers. All of this appeals to a certain instinct in human nature and, therefore, is good advertising. So in the same way the continued series of Jim Dumps and Sunny Jim, the before-and-after idea of Force, was one of its strong points. This may have been uncon- scious, but it was nevertheless eifective. Undoubtedly the reason the idea appealed to the Force Food people was because they recognized, with- out defining it, that satisfac- tion offered by a before-and- after idea. In analyzing advertising a distinction should be made between publicity for a sym- " Force-thoughts" XVIII. "»•• " Do you know that you get a new skin every month or BIX weeks — from four to twelve new skins for every gown or new suit of clothes yon buy? Do youknow that your finger- nails are completely renewed every six months, and your toe- nails once a year, and that your eyelashes last ahout a hun- dred days? CI grew up with the popular notion that one's body was com- pletely renewed every seven years; in reality, the change takes place within about thirty months ; and the only part that undergoes but httle transfor- mation is the enamel of your teeth- No wonder, then, that the food you eat is the all-important thing. From it was made all you are to-day — and to-mor- row's breakfast has a mighty big bearing on the way you'U decide an important matter two months from now! CAnd you know it's not the amount of nutriment in the food but the amount that is available that counts. "Force" is a food containing the high- est percentage of nutriment so far SB materials are concerned, and the scientific cooking pro- cess renders all this nutriment ready for immediate trans- formation into brain andmusole. It's because it is so easily di- gested that it helps us to Be Sunny. Toura truly, STYLE USED THE THIRD YEAB. 274 MODERN ADVERTISING bol and publicity for the article advertised. For in- stance, in the case of Force and " Sunny Jim," it is believed by a good many that the advertising exploited " Sunny Jim " at the expense of Force ; that a large number of people recall " Sunny Jim," but that a dis- proportionately small number of people recall that " Sunny Jim " was associated with Force. In other words, the attempt to make a symbol of " Sunny Jim " lessened the advertising for the article which was supposed to be exploited by the symbol. If advertising ever becomes an exact science, the first thing the scientist will have to do will be to determine the respective merits of advertising that explains and advertising that exclaims. In a given copy of a newspaper there are two advertisements of breakfast foods. One of these makes a number of explicit statements. There is no illustration, no design, no eye-catcher — simply plain type and explicit statements. On an opposite page facing it is an advertisement which to many people, and especially to advertising people, will seem infi- nitely better. This advertisement doesn't in any part of it say one single thing about the breakfast food advertised. It consists of a jingle and the name of the food. The jingle, while clever and metrical, and while it mentions the name of the food, says nothing about it that would, from an ordinary point of view, induce people to buy it. N'ow, which of these is the better? The latter is one of a series all connected by the same idea. It has been criticised by various experts of more or less experience, and their criticisms range from calling it distinctly good down to calling it distinctly THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 275 bad. At least five large advertising campaigns have been carried on this last year based upon an idea like this — an idea which could be repeated in each adver- tisement with different variations, more or less con- nected with a catch phrase or with a jingle. This sort of thing gets a great deal of publicity, but does publicity in itself sell goods? When you are told to " say Zu Zu to the grocer man," or that a food produces " The Smile That Won't Come Off," or that " Jim Dumps " ate Force and became " Sunny Jim," does that advertise anything to you ? If it isn't good advertising, why are big appropriations spent upon such ideas ? If it is good advertising, why do so many big, successful advertisers fight shy of it ? The real solution is this : That a large advertising appropriation will advertise anything to some extent ; that no matter how poor the copy, if it is put in enough places, and the name of the goods made strong enough, it is bound to sell these goods. Just how much it will sell depends upon just how good or bad the copy is — that is, how explicit or convincing it is. It depends upon the amount of competition of similar articles. It depends upon the attitude of the trade. It depends upon a host of other considerations. An idea which is based upon making a name or eatchphrase a household word will never succeed unless the advertising appropriation is a large one. There is a certain invisible line which no one has yet been able to find. To stop this side of it means failure. On the other side of it is success out of proportion to the amount of money spent. It is as if some one said that to spend one hundred thousand dollars in the United States upon one idea would fail 276 MODERN ADVERTISING to make your idea a popular one, but that by spending one hundred thousand and one dollars you could make your name, or your jingle, or your idea or your char- acter a part of the vocabulary of the country and get two or three hundred thousand dollars' worth of adver- tising additional which you did not get before. Just the particular point at which the tide turns and the public takes up your work and carries it on for you, no one has been able to determine. Of course, this happens in other things besides advertising. It is the real reason for the growth and distribution of slang. It is at the bottom of the furore that certain books cause. Certain books, for no reason that any publisher or writer can determine, will be taken up, like David Harum, and given the widest distribution until their name is familiar to every one, and even to non-liter- ary people. Other books equally good along the same line fall dead. Just what it is that induces the public to take up the publisher's cause and advertise a book, no one knows. It is always something which can become a craze, as it were, like ping-pong, tiddledywinks, or the " Bonnie Brier Bush," or the interest in athletics. 'No one knows why these things sweep over the coun- try, yet every one is more or less affected by them. It may be some sort of a germ or microbe (or it is something distinct in fashion). Fashion spreads all over the country from certain large centers. A year or two after the modish people in Paris, London and New York decided that a straight front effect was desirable, women even in the outskirts of Hickory Creek at least knew that a straight front was THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 277 desirable, whether they were able to dress that way or not. But a fashion is different from a craze. Some crazes are fashions, but not all fashions are crazes. That indefinable something which makes a hit in advertising, or in anything else, has not been fully classified, but it has something to do with repetition, and that is why so many ideas are successful simply and solely on account of the advertising appro- priation behind them and sometimes in spite of the idea. Every one has attended the sort of a show in which a certain character has what is technically known as a " gag." Take an example in a recent revival. You will remember how Little Lord Fauntleroy gets off that " I'll be jiggered." In the first act it doesn't awaken a ripple. In the second act it excites a respect- able amount of applause. In the latter part of the play it only needs to be mentioned to provoke a roar of laughter. The audience has been slowly educated to the phrase as a slang one. It has become a part of their vocabulary for the time being — for the evening, that is. In the same way a singer will start a topical song in which the chorus has a certain phrase. As each verse ends he brings in this phrase with a new signi- ficance. Each time it seems funnier than it really is. This is the effect upon the public on a larger scale of such expressions as " The Smile That Won't Come Off," or " Sunny Jim," or " Say Zu Zu," or " Uneeda Biscuit." The man who can decide just what ideas of this kind are good, provided they are sufficiently adver- tised, has discovered one of the secrets of advertising. 278 MODERN ADVERTISING and undoubtedly one of the secrets of human nature as it is found in the United States. In connection with this matter should be men- tioned the work of Walter Dill Scott of JSTorth- western University. Professor Scott used laboratory methods to determine, if possible, whether the prin- ciples of psychology could be applied to advertising. It was his intention to learn the principles by actual experiment, and then apply them to the preparation of advertising. Writing for the Atlantic Monthly, Professor Scott gives the following description of his own work : " In a former age the seller, the buyer, and the commodity were brought together. The seller described and exhibited his wares. The buyer saw the goods, heard of them, tasted them, smelt them, felt and lifted them. He tested them by means of every sense organ to which they could appeal. In this way the buyer became acquainted with the goods. His perception of them was as complete as it could be made. In these latter days the market-place has given way to the office. The consequent separation of buyer, seller and commodity made the commercial traveler with his sample- case seem a necessity. But, with the growing volume of business, and with the increased need for more economical forms of transacting business, the printed page, as a form of advertisement, has superseded the market-place, and is, in many cases, displacing the commercial traveler. In this transition from the market-place and the commercial traveler to the printed page, the advertiser must be on his guard to preserve as many as possible of the good features of the older institutions. In the two older forms of barter all the senses of the purchaser were appealed to, if possible, and in addition to this the word of mouth of the seller was added to increase the impressions, and to call special attention to the strong features of the commodity. In the printed page THE MATHEMATICS OP ADVERTISING 279 the word of mouth is the only feature which is of necessity entirely absent. Indeed, the printed page can not appeal directly to any of the senses except the eye, but the argu- ment may be of such a nature that the reader's senses are appealed to indirectly through his imagination. "The function of our nervous system is to make us aware of the sights, sounds, feelings, tastes, etc., of the objects in our environment, and the more sensations we receive from an object the better we know it. The nervous system which does not respond to sound or to any other of the sensible qualities is a defective nervous system. Advertisements are sometimes spoken of as the nervous system of the business world. That advertisement' of musical instruments which contains nothing to awaken images of sound is a defective advertisement. That advertisement of foods which contains nothing to awaken images of taste is a defective advertise- ment. As our nervous system is constructed to give us all the possible sensations from objects, so the advertisement which is comparable to the nervous system must awaken in the reader as many different kinds of images as the object itself can excite. "The day of reckless, sporadic, haphazard advertising is rapidly coming to an end so far as magazine advertising is concerned. Although the number of pages devoted to adver- tising in our best magazines has increased during these last ten years, the number of firms advertising in these same maga- zines has decreased. The struggle has been too fierce for any but the strongest. The inefficient advertisers are gradually being eliminated, and the survival of the fittest seems to be a law of advertising as it is of everything else that develops. "The leaders of the profession feel that their work has grown till it is beyond their control and comprehension. They have been successful, and hardly know how it has all come about. The men who have been the most successful are often the ones who feel most deeply their inabihty to meet new emergencies. They believe that there should be some underlying principles which could help them in analyz- ing what they have already accomplished, and assist them 280 MODERN ADVERTISING in their further efforts. As their entire object is to produce certain effects on the minds of possible customers, it is not strange that they have turned to psychology in search of such principles. Traditionally the praqtical business man scouts at theory. Psychology, to the popular mind, is something devoid of all practical application, related to metaphysics, and suited only to the recluse and hermit. If ever there was ground to expect sarcastic and pessimistic . prophecies from the hard-headed business man, it was when it was proposed to establish advertising on a theoretical basis deduced from psychology. Such adverse criticism has, however, been the exception. The American business man is not afraid of theories. He wants them, and the more the better. " The best thought of the advertising world finds expres- sion in the advertising journals and in the addresses deUvered by various experts at gatherings of professional advertisers. In 1895 in one of the leading advertising journals appeared the following editorial : " ' Probably when we are a little more enlightened, the advertisement writer, like the teacher, will study psychology. For, however diverse their occupations may at first sight appear, the advertisement writer and the teacher have one great object in common — to influence the human mind. The teacher has a scientific foundation for his work in that direc- tion, but the advertisement writer is really also a psychologist. Human nature is a great factor in advertising success ; and he who writes advertisements without reference to it is apt to find that he has reckoned without his host.' "The man who penned this editorial was a practical advertiser, but he admitted of no incongruity between the practical and the theoretical. "In Publicity for March, 1901, appeared a leading article on psychology and advertising. The following is a quotation from it : THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 281 "'The time is not far away when the advertising writer will find out the inestimable benefits of a knowledge of psychology. The preparation of copy has usually followed the instincts rather than the analytical functions. An ad- vertisement has been written to describe the articles which it was wished to place before the reader ; a bit of cleverness, an attractive cut, or some other catchy device has been used, with the hope that the hit or miss ratio could be made as favorable as possible. But the future must needs be full of better methods than these to make advertising advance with the same rapidity as it has during the latter part of the last century. And this will come through a closer knowledge of the psychological composition of the mind. The so-called "students of human nature" will then be called successful psychologists, and the successful advertisers will be likewise termed psychological advertisers. The mere mention of psychological terms, habit, self, conception, discrimination, association, memory, imagination, and perception, reason, emotion, instinct and will, should create a flood of new thought that should appeal to every advanced consumer of advertising space.' "In an address before the Agate Club of Chicago, the speaker said: "'As advertisers, all your efforts have been to produce certain effects on the minds of possible customers. Psy- chology is, broadly speaking, the science of the mind. Art is the doing and science is the understanding how to do, or the explanation of what has been done. If we are able to find and to express the psychological laws upon which the art of advertising is based, we shall have made a distinct advance, for we shall have added the science to the art of advertising.' "In a recent address before the Atlas Club of Chicago, the speaker said : '"In passing to the psychological aspect of our subject, advertising might properly be defined as the art of deter- 282 MODERN ADVERTISING mining the will of possible customers. . . . Our acts are the resultants of our motives, and it is your function in commercial life to create the motives that will effect the sale of the producer's wares.' "In response to this felt need on the part of the adver- tiser, several students of psychology have tried to select those principles of psychology which might be of benefit to the advertising, and to present them to the advertising world through pamphlets,' magazine articles,^ public ad- dresses,' and, in one case at least, by means of a book.* "The method employed by the psychologist in attempting to give advertising a theoretical basis has been quite uniform. He has first analyzed the human mind into its various activi- ties, then analyzed advertisements to discover what there is in them that may or may not awaken the activity desired. "This method can best be understood from an example. For an illustration we shall consider Mental Imagery as under- stood by the psychologist and in its application to advertising. "The man who is born bUnd is not only unable to see objects, but he is equally unable to imagine how they look. After we have looked at objects we can see them in our mind's eye with more or less distinctness, even if our eyes are closed or the object is far removed from us. When we imagine how an absent object looks we are said to have a visual image of it. We can not imagine how a thing looks unless we have actually seen it in our previous experience. The imagination can take the data of former experience and unite them into ' On The Psychology of Advertising, Professor Harlow Gale, author and publisher, Minneapolis, Minn., 1900. ' Mahin's Magazine, Chicago. This magazine contains monthly articles on The Psychology of Advertising. ' Found in the published proceedings of the various adver- tising clubs. * The Theory of Advertising, by Walter Dill Scott, Boston SmaU, Maynard & Co., 1903. THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 283 new forms, but all the details of the new formation must be taken from the former experience of the individual. "The man who is born deaf can neither hear nor imagine what sounds are like. Whatever we have heard, we can live over again in imagination — we can form auditory images of it. We can not imagine any sound which we have not ac- tually heard, although we can unite into new combinations the sounds and tones which we have experienced. " I can imagine how beafsteak tastes, but I can not imagine the taste of hashish, for in all my past experience I never have tasted it, and do not even know which one of my former experiences it is like. If I knew that it tasted hke pepper, or like pepper and vinegar mixed, I could form some sort of an image of its taste; but as it is I am perfectly helpless when I try to imagine it. I can, with more or less success, imagine how everything tastes which I have eaten, but I can not imagine the taste of a thing which I have not touched to my tongue. Analogous descriptions could be given of images of movements, of smell, of touch, of heat, of cold, of pressure and of pain. "We have no direct knowledge of the minds of our neigh- bors; we assume that their thinking is very much like ours, for their actions — outward expressions of thought — are so similar to ours. It was formerly assumed that, given any particular object of thought, all normal minds would reach the same conclusion concerning it, and, furthermore, the different stages in the line of thought and the "mind stuff" would be the same throughout. Such a conception is wholly false. Normal minds reach different conclusions under ap- parently identical outward circumstances, but there is a greater difference in the terms of thought, or the mind stuff with which the thinking is done. One man thinks in terms of sight. He is said to be 'eye-minded.' His thinking is a rapid succession of pictures. When he thinks of a viohn he thinks rather how it looks than how it sounds. "Another man thinks in terms of sound. He is 'ear- minded.' His thinking is a succession of sounds. When he thinks of his friends he hears their voices, but can not 284 MODERN ADVERTISING possibly imagine how they look. He does not know that there are other possible forms of thought, and so assumes that all people think in terms of sound as he does. If he should describe a battle his description would be full of the roar and tumult of the strife. "Another man is 'motor-minded.' He thinks in terms of movements. Even when he looks at a painting he whis- pers inaudibly to himself a description of the painting. Later when he describes the picture to a friend he may do it in the terms which he whispered to himself when he was looking at the picture. "Thus it has been found that there are great personal differences in normal individuals in their abihty to form certain classes of mental images. "All persons seem to be able to form at least unclear and indistinct visual images; most persons seem to have some ability in forming auditory images; very many can imagine movements with some degree of satisfaction. There are many who can not imagine how pickles taste ; others can not imagine the odor of a flower. There are persons who have a limited abihty to form all sorts of images, but most persons have a very decided ability for one class and a corresponding weakness for others. This difference in the ease with which certain classes of images can be formed as well as the differ- ence in individuals in imagining different classes of sensa- tions, is followed with practical consequences." This all illustrates the attempt of the advertiser to leave off groping in the dark. He turns to psychol- ogy on one hand to learn, if he can, how the human mind is impressed by certain kinds of advertising, and to statistics on the other hand to see if his deduc- tions are correct. Then he needs statistics showing the number, location and distribution of the people to whom he must appeal — whether the consumer or the dealer. THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 285 There is in existence no accurate list of drug-stores, grocery stores or hardware stores. There is not even an accurate tabulation of the number in each of these lines in the country. Such tabulation is made diffi- cult on account of various classifications. The dis- tinction between department and dry-goods stores is not accurate. In some towns some lines are carried in a common store which in other towns are distributed among different stores. Stationery and fancy goods are carried at drug-stores in some towns, which in other towns are a part of the stock of a bookstore. The Census Bureau has not yet taken up this depart- ment of work. An effort is now being made to bring pressure to bear upon the Census Bureau to collect sta- tistics which will be especially valuable to the general advertiser. What the advertiser wants to know are such things as the number of people engaged in retailing the dif- ferent lines of goods, the number of stores in a given territory, the annual sales in all lines of goods, the variation in demand for certain goods in certain parts of the country. During 1904 there was organized an association known as the International Advertisers' Association. The purpose of this organization is to ascertain just such facts. Among its leading objects are the secur- ing of statistics from the United States Government and elsewhere which will be helpful to advertisers, to secure changes in the postal laws which will be more fair to the advertiser than the present laws, to give him advantages and privileges which the postal department can well afford to give him. It is also intended to secure a ruling upon house organs which 286 MODERN ADVERTISING will place them in a elass by themselves between the present rate for second- and third-class matter. A parcel post will also be demanded. The chief object of this organization, however, is to secure statistics, classify them, sift them out, and have available for every member facts which will greatly aid him in pre- paring his advertising campaign. At present the more progressive advertisers secure these figures themselves as best they can. For in- stance, a large manufacturer of writing-paper eon- ducted a thorough investigation in a selected number of towns to find out at how many stores in each of these towns the inquirer could obtain his paper; whether, if it was not carried in stock, a substitute was offered, and if so, what paper was substituted ; whether the salesman knew of the advertising that was being done, and whether the advertising influenced the sales, and how much. The statistics collected in this way were very valuable in preparing the next year's work. An important question to an advertiser in regard to a publication is, to what sort of people does the publication go ? Who are its subscribers ? Are they rich people or are they poor ? Do they buy grand pianos or do they buy melodeons? Are they Amer- icans or are they foreigners ? Are they native Amer- icans or are they domesticated ? Are they farmers, or business men or women? A certain magazine makes the following claim in regard to its subscription list: "A magazine that has on its subscription list such names as Morgan, Gould, Aster, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Whitney, etc., can certainly render certain service to the advertisers of high-grade wares." THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 287 Is this a wise sentence or is it a foolish one ? Is it a good business stroke, or is it a piece of snobbery ? Is a magazine which reaches J. Pierpont Morgan a better advertising medium than a magazine which reaches John Smith, one of the many employees of one of Morgan's many industries ? Is it possible to reach the very rich by any advertising whatever ? It seems that a magazine which reaches Mr. Mor- gan's chief clerk, or his private secretary, or his valet, or his head gardener, or his butler, or the captain of his steam-yacht, would have ten times as much adver- tising value to the manufacturer of high-grade wares as a magazine that reached Mr. Morgan himself. Very rich people are influenced by advertising, and are reached by it, but indirectly rather than directly. A rich man is surrounded by circle after circle of business and personal associates and employees. ISTearly everything that he does is done through many hands. While he undoubtedly exercises personal se- lection in a great many cases, the merits of each article are usually investigated by a deputy. For instance, if Mr. Morgan is going to buy a steam-yacht, he probably takes more personal inter- est in it than in the purchase of, say, boilers, or cap- stans, or anchors. These equipments would probably be bought by the captain or the engineer of the yacht. All questions which Mr. Morgan decides, except those of the greatest importance, are decided or partly de- cided by assistants and employees. Undoubtedly the hired household servants in his various houses have much to do with buying most of the supplies for those houses. Any magazine which has a large general cir- culation reaching all sorts of plain Americans, carries 20 288 MODERN ADVERTISING advertising which has more effect upon the Morgans, Goulds, and Astors than any magazine which has their names upon its subscription list. Take, for instance, MeClure's Magazine. It is undoubtedly read by at least a thousand people who have more or less to do with the things which Mr. Morgan buys, or which Mr. Gould buys, or which Mr. Astor buys. Then again, a very small portion of the things which Mr. Morgan buys are used by him per- sonally. Mr. Morgan himself can only eat three meals a day. Whether he eats Force or not for break- fast, his meal would not call for any bigger sale of Force than the breakfast of his coachman or even of his smallest office-boy. On the other hand, if it were an automobile, it would probably be bought in collab- oration with his chauffeur, and the net result of all advertising of autos would probably have some bear- ing on his decision. Advertising that is persistent, the kind of adver- tising which strikes the eye and mind everywhere in the pages of magazines and newspapers, on the street- ears and on bill-boards, affects the whole human fam- ily, big or little, rich or poor, more or less. It is doubtful if Mr. Morgan was ever reached by a mail- order advertisement or any other form of direct ad- vertising. It is not to be supposed that Mrs. Morgan reads the advertisements of dry-goods stores in the daily newspapers, although being a woman, even though a rich one, she may do that. Undoubtedly, Mr. Morgan has heard of Pears' Soap, Ivory Soap, Force, H-O and hundreds of other articles, whether he consciously ever read an advertisement of them or not. Some of his money is invested in them, anyway. THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 289 And after all, this necessity of reaching the rich is not a very great one. The wealthy class is a very small percentage of the great American nation, and vyhile they hnj a great many things, they do not buy more than the rest of the country, and a good part of the buying public is made up of the employees and dependents of these rich people. Therefore, the news- papers and magazines which circulate generally are after all the best mediums for reaching the rich. In discussing the question of direct or indirect re- turns from advertising the following paragraph from a published interview with George Horace Lorimer, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, is of interest : "The circulation of a paper like the Post is an interesting thing to watch, for it reflects the slightest changes in editorial policy. While we get many letters from readers indicating their tastes, I believe that it is far more wise to define the wishes of the great silent majority. Perhaps it would be profitable for advertisers as well. I belong to the silent majority myself — buy advertised articles by preference, but never write to the advertisers." There is a great truth in the^e words — a truth which the large and successful advertisers have al- ready defined. A new advertiser usually expects and wants direct returns. He wants to feel that somebody is reading his advertising. The absence of direct returns is not only not proof that the advertising is not doing its work, but the receipt of direct returns is not even proof that the advertising is good. Advertising is a great force and a succession of accumulated impressions, and the greater number of 290 MODERN ADVERTISING people who are influenced by it are never known, at least definitely, to have been reached. These are the people like Mr. Lorimer and like ninety-nine one- hundredths of the better sort of men of this country — ^keen, wide-awake, alert and receptive — ^who go in the way of the least resistance. These men are reached in various sorts of ways by various sorts of advertising, which have effect upon them and which ultimately result in their buying. Most of them would be surprised if they were told that they were interested by advertising and acted ac- cordingly. It is as if there were some influence in the air which has not been correctly defined. They are aware that there is such and such an article, they know its good qualities, but they do not know where they got that impression. It may be from the chance remark of some one else who read the advertisement ; it may be the effect of the family's interest in the advertising, or it may be that unconscious, but never- theless effective, influence of the advertisements them- selves, which asserts itself even when the advertise- ments are not read. There are really just two sorts of advertising: The great general publicity covering the country and cropping out everywhere in favor of an article which can be benefited by such widespread publicity, and the fewer articles of which the advertising must be self-supporting, and of which each advertisement must bring in sufficient returns to pay at least for that advertisement, to pay for the articles and to pay a profit. The latter form of advertising does not offer anywhere near the field for ability, generalship and imagination as does the other problem. THE MATHEMATICS OP ADVERTISING 291 Notwithstanding the strong conviction on the part of the advertiser that advertising in certain publica- tions pays, the publications themselves are getting together some very interesting figures in regard to their own subscribers. McClure's Magazine has made a complete list of its subscribers in Cleveland and classified them very carefully by occupations, the list showing just how many bankers read McClure's, how many day labor- ers, how many school-teachers, doctors, dentists, law- yers, and so on. It shows how many of the profes- sional class, how many of the leisure class and how many of the working class read McClure's. It is usually assumed that a publication of the class of Mc- Clure's goes to the home, and that a home consists of a family averaging five persons. It is also assumed that the tastes and wants of a family are in the same class as those of the head of the family whose name appears as the subscriber to the publication. The kind of residences to which the publication goes was illustrated in another way by the Ladies' World. In a number of selected towns the home of every subscriber in each town was photographed. These photographs were printed in sets by cities so that an advertiser could see at a glance the character of the homes to -which his advertisement would be going if printed in the Ladies' World. This was a graphic way to show character in circulation. A class paper has gone even farther than that. The Northwestern Agriculturist is a paper reaching the farming element. There being a certain amount of skepticism in the minds of advertisers as to the kind of things a farmer buys, especially of the class 292 MODERN ADVERTISING of goods known as luxuries, the JSTorthwestern Agri- culturist instituted among its subscribers a very in- teresting contest. A list of fifty-one questions was printed in a certain issue, and an offer of a present made to all who filled in and returned the entire list of questions within a fortnight. A total of 2,621 let- ters were received, and the entire list had in most eases been answered. The object of the Agriculturist was to prove that farmers use just as high-grade and expensive goods as the city dweller. The 120,000 different answers were tabulated, and the results shown are summed up in the following statement: The two great lessons to be gotten from the figures are : 1. That farmers are using the best grade of goods, as, for example, note the kind of watches they carry — 1,190 Elgins and 707 Walthams (both high-grade watches), only 14 cheap Waterburys and 16 Inger- soUs. 2. That farmers are using the goods which have been extensively advertised in farm papers, rather than goods advertised in the daily papers or mag- azines, as is illustrated by the fact that 767 report that they are using Fairbanks' Gold Dust (which has been advertised in the farm papers), while only 93 use Pyle's Pearline which, though advertised in magazines, daily papers and street-cars, has never used the farm press. This second illustration is confirmed by referring again to the watches. Both Waltham and Elgin watches have been advertised in farm papers, while the makers of cheap watches have evidently recog- nized the critical demands of farmers, for the adver- tising of IngersoU and Waterbury watches has hith- THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 293 erto been confined to papers or magazines of city circulation, in spite of the too general claim of inex- perienced advertisers : ■ " Our goods are of too high grade for farmers' trade." The statistics prove that for farmers' trade the cheaper goods are not the readi- est sellers ; farmers demand good goods and are both willing and able to pay for such, if they are advertised in the farm papers. At least it remains to be proved that cheap goods could also be sold to farmers. 3. That machinery which is advertised only in trade papers reaching the dealer, rather than in farm papers- reaching the men who use such machinery, in "What Make of Baking Powder Do You Use?" Of the 2,621 letters received, there were 1,894 which answered the above question and 727 which ignored it. Baker Bengal Bon Bon - Cabinet Calumet - Chapman - Climax - Cook's Choice Corn Belt Crown - Crusader - Economy - Eddy Reliable Electric Light Grand Union - Griggs, Cooper Co. 10 In addition to the above, 112 families out of 1,894 use 43 other makes of Baking Powders, no one of which is m,en- tioned five times. Total using Baking Powder, 1,875 ' none, 19 5 Horsford 7 13 Hunt - 21 12 I. C. - - 121 7 Jacques 15 183 Kansas City - Ill 7 McMurray - 8 10 Palace - 56 8 Perfect 21 14 Price - 1.34 12 Reliable 9 6 Royal - 635 S Rumford 35 18 Schilling - 9 6 Silver Star - 80 26 Snowflake 20 Grand Total, 1,894 THIS TABLE PROVES CONCLUSIVELY THAT ROYAL, WHICH IS THE BRAND OP BAKING POWDER MOST THOROUGHLY ADVERTISED, IS THE ONE THAT IS USED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT BY FARMERS. ' 294 MODERN ADVERTISING no case proves the most popular. For example, iu plows, the John Deere plows are far in the lead ; John Deere & Company advertise to the consumer more liberally than any other plow manufacturers. This example repeats itself in many of the tables. A few of the tables given in the book are repro- duced here, more to show the character and re- sults of this investigation than as statistics for ref- erence. "What Make of Toilet Soap Do You Use?" Of 2,621 letters receiTed, there were 1,507 which answered the above question and 1,114 which ignored it. Armour & Co. 9 Haskins Bros. 54 Beach & Son 6 Ivory - 227 Big Four - 21 Jap Rose 41 Bullock, Ward & Co. 5 Kirk - 86 Buttermilk - 23 Lara - - 5 Castile - 128 Larkin's Oatmeal 61 Cocoa 9 Lenox 9 Cocoa-Sterit 5 Minnesota Soap Co. 11 Crofts & Reed 31 Mother's Medicated 5 Cudahy's Borax Castile 7 Palm Olive - 26 Cuticura - - . - 49 Pears' - 20 Dawson's Witch Hazel 6 Swift 3 Fairy - - - 103 Tar - 34 Glycerine - 68 Watkins 7 Glycerine Tar 9 White Lily 17 Graham Bros. - 3 White Rose - 9 Grandpa's Wonder - 141 WiUiams - 17 In addition to the above, 284 families out of 1,507 use Toilet Soaps made by 117 different makers, no one of which is Tnentioned jive times. Total using Toilet Soap, 1,472 none, 35 Grand Total, 1,507 THE ODDS IN THIS TABLE ABB IN FAVOR OF IVOBY. WE THINK MOST OBSERVERS OF ADVERTISING WOULD SAY THAT IVOBY SOAP IS ADVERTISED MORE THAN ANY OTHER BRAND, BUT EVEN pears', COSTING FIFTEEN CENTS, IS USED TO SOME EXTENT BY FARMERS. THE MATHEMATICS OP ADVERTISING 295 "Do You Use Cereal or Breakfast Foods? What Kinds?" Of the 2,621 letters received, there were 2,191 which answered the above question and 430 which ignored it. American Cereal Co. 8 Pettijohn 39 Banner Oats 81 Quaker Oats 180 Cream of Wheat - 145 Ralston - 16 Force - 147 Rolled Oats 41 Grape-Nuts - -227 Saxon Oatmeal 18 Great Western - 5 Shredded Wheat Biscuit - 18 Horse Shoe Rolled Oats 6 Vitos - 71 Korn Krisp - 15 Wheat Hearts 6 Malta Vita - 65 Wheatine 21 Mother's Oats 30 Wheatlet - 19 Oatmeal - - 493 Yankee Rolled Oats 63 In addition to the above, 226 families out of 2,191 use Breakfast Foods of 198 different makes, no one of which is mentioned more than five times. Total using Breakfast Foods, 1,929 Using none, 262 Grand Total, 2,191 THIS TABLE SHOWS NO SUCH OVERWHELMING RESULTS IN FAVOR OF ANY ONE ARTICLE, BECAUSE ALL BREAKFAST FOODS ARE ADVERTISED TO SOME EXTENT AND MOST QUITE LARGELY, SO THERE IS A MORE EQUAL DIVISION THAN IS SHOWN IN THE BAKING-POWDER CHART. "Have You in Your Family One or More American Made Watches? What Make?" Of the 2,621 letters received, there were 2,621 which answered the above question. American Co. 42 IngersoU - - . - 16 Atlas - - 6 Montgomery Ward & Co. New Haven - 6 Aurora - 8 6 Century 12 Rockford - 36 Columbia 26 Seth Thomas - 22 Dueber 5 Springfield - 42 Elgin - - 1190 Standard 17 Hampden Hamilton 96 Trenton 6 11 Waltham - 707 nUnois Watch Co. 18 Waterbury - 14 In addition to the ahove, 114 families out of 2,621 use American Watches of 80 different mMkes, no one of which is mentioned five times. Total using American Watches, 2,398 Using none, 223 Grand Total, 2,621 THE REMARKABLE LEAD OF ELGIN WATCHES IS THE RESULT OF PERSISTENT ADVERTISING TO REACH FARMERS. 296 MODERN ADVERTISING A similar plan was applied to the publications of the Butterick Publishing Company by Thomas Bal- mer, advertising manager of the Butterick Trio. His experiment was on a larger scale and was far more representative, as the readers of the Butterick Trio are supposably distributed among all classes and ranks of society more thoroughly than the readers of the iCforthwestern Agriciilturist. Mr. Balmer set out to find out " what proportion of advertised goods are used by our readers; what proportion of our readers know and recognize these goods as being advertised goods; what proportion of our readers buy advertised goods because they are ad- vertised ; and more than all else — to point out clearly what advertised line of goods our readers are most in- terested in, in order that our advertising pages may contain only such offerings as are of the greatest inter- est to the greater number of our readers." Forms were inserted in each copy of the Delin- eator, The Designer, and The New Idea, the three magazines of the Butterick Trio, for July, 1904, giving a long list of articles used in every household : Furniture, Laundry sundries, House furnishings, Children's wearing apparel, Bedroom sundries, Toilet articles, Dining-room sundries. Sewing and dressmaking Heating and lighting, sundries, Nursery sundries, Wearing apparel. Foods, Outing goods, Kitchen utensils and Musical instruments, sundries. Miscellaneous. Under each general heading was a list of specific articles. Under wearing apparel were named : THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 297 Gloves, Men's clothing (ready- Corsets, made), Collars, Men's stockings. Underwear (union suits Men's shirts, or two-piece suits, Men's collars, wool, cotton, silk, silk Men's ties, and wool or linen), Men's shoes. Hose supporters. Men's gloves. Skirt supporters, Razors, Boots and shoes. Watches, Ladies' ready-made suits. Hair goods. Boys' clothes. Hosiery (women's), Millinery. The subscriber was asked to answer the following questions : 1. What brand or make do you use or buy? 2. Why did you select it? 3. If you had to buy again (or if you have not bought before) what would you buy? 4. Why would you select it? To repay the reader for her trouble in filling out the chart, the presents were offered in the form of books, fancy articles and the like for each fiUed-out chart. Over five thousand reports were received. The results were carefully tabulated and comprised a for- midable array of statistics for the advertiser, present or prospective. On the single subject of hosiery, for instance, the results on page 298 were shown. The brands showing the greatest number of users are the ones most largely advertised. A very remarkable investigation was carried on in the Textile World Record under the auspices of 298 MODERN ADVERTISING WOMEN'S HOSIEET Why Did You Select It ? What Brand or Make do You USK OB BVY f > ■a -6 a B .1 ■a 8 o jj P u 5 1 1 i Amazon Knitting Co. . . . BlacljCat Burlington Burson Cashmere Cotton Des Moines Hosiery Mills . . 2 477 30 65 16 zr 4 1 20 53 149 IB 36 1 149 4 105 2 9 851 51 28 17 14 139 36 6 229 54 206 305 1 39 1 2 1 3 13 3 2 3 16 4 4 14 19 10 1 7 1 3 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 S 1 6 34 1 13 2 6 1 10 1 1 1 19 7 1 15 1 1 1 1 1 2 5 — _ 5 1 1 9 2 2 1 1 4 20 1 1 1 8 8 3 1 3 34 2 3 1 9 1 1 2 16 1 1 1 18 1 10 — Eiffel Black Fast Black Granite Dye Gordon Dye Hahns Hermsdorf Hayne Knit Lisle Matchless Onyx Shawknit Silk Samson Topsey Winona Mills White Foot York Knit. Mills 4- Thread . All kinds Not specified Miscellaneous THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 299 Mr. Balmer to find out the answers to the following questions in regard to the leading lines of textiles : 1. What the customer asked for. 2. For what purpose. 3. Why she asked for it. 4. What did you sell her? 6. Why did you sell it? 6. Why did she not buy? The leading department stores of the country were selected as the basis of investigation. The salesgirls in the different departments were given blank forms which they were to fill out in regard to the first ten customers who came to their counter on a given day. By taking the first ten a better average was arrived at than by making a selection from all of the customers of the day. The topics selected out of a long list of textiles Were the following : Muslins, Underwear, Silks, Hosiery, Dress-goods, Blankets. The form used by the salesgirls for the investiga- tion in muslins is shown on the following page, filled out as it was turned in. The statistics from hundreds of such slips were collected, analyzed and classified into tables for the use of the advertiser. One of the articles in the Tex- tile World Record had the following to say about the value of these investigations : "The general lessons to be learned from this array of statis- tics all point to the fact that the shopper asks for goods by MUSLIN. WbaT SHI ABSM Ton wo*T PUHFOBI. WBt aaa aheb ran IT. Wbatdidtodbkll RSRr Why Dtn. vov ULLttl If tod dohT sill bbs, wht hot t 1. Muslin. General. Looked at Fruit of Loom, Lonsdnle. and Dwight An- chor. B-t Fruitof Ijoom. She selected ft, though Lons- dale waq cheap- er. Dwight Anchor too lieary — Tionsdale too loosely woven. 2. Fruit of Loom. Sheets. Mother and neighbors rec- ommend iL Fruit of Loom. Oives good salis- factioii. Did- not care to try anything else. 3. Lonsdale. JJighl gowns. Heard it washed well and wore well. Burleigh long clolB. Everyone who has tried it keeps asking for it nr underwear. Lonsdale miialin was not rino enough and the Cambriowusuot BDSoItint«xture aa Buricigh. 4. Fruit of Loom. Pillow Had used it for Ave Tears. Bought Fruit of Loom and Dwight An- chor to try. Dwight Anchor wears well and launders well. ' Many women pfefer It. B. Unslin. Shirts. Something that would launder and wear welL Pride of West. Excellejit for shirts and cuts U>, good advan- Pruil of Lboiii loo thin in weight and Dwight An- chor too closely woven and flmi. 6. Cambric Aprons. Had never nsed it for this pur- pose, but thought. St .woli'ld make up well. India LiDOU. Pretty for aprons, launders well — perhaps doesn't fast so long. Cambric was not what she really wanted. 7. India Linon. Shirtwaist. Because it was sheer and pretty Persian Lawn. Finer and more dressy for waists. India Linon, al- thongh good value, was not so sh^r as Per- sian. 8. Fruit of LOODL Child's dnwen. Wanted some- thing that would wear well. Pride of West. Stronger wea»o aiiu good for .heavy wear. 9: Nainsook. Dnderwoar. Because her seamstress told her to. Burleigh long cloth and Nainsook. Burleigh is espe- cfslly nice for night gowns and drawers; for corset cov- ers. ' 10. Moslin. HoDsehold and bos- piulnse. Unbleaohedand fabrio for bandages. I^kwood Mills unblPached; cheese cloth for hospital use. LockwDod Mills is strong and firm for bandages, and Is not bsnh to the touch, Did not want anv moslin with dre^sinc or My.- Serected Lflckvood at onoi wiihoot looking at otfaen. THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 301 name whenever she knows the name of any goods that she considers reliable for any cause, either because she knows the name of the manufacturer, has heard of the brand, knows I. What she asked for Name of Goods. Wo. Selections. Fruit of Loom 27 12 6 3 3 VI a S '3 Lonsdale Pride of West Dwight Anchor Wamsutta New York Mills Berkeley L. C I ockwood Mills Jones' Cambric Utica Field's Longcloth Total 57 a a o o o O Unbleached muslin 4 4 2 2 28 7 6 5 2 2 Best muslin Strong muslin Bird Picture muslin Unspecified muslin Nainsook Longcloth Indian linen Total 62 One (1) did not ask 1 Total 120 the label, has used the goods before, or been recommended to use them by somebody in whom she has confidence. In every case the shopper used what previous knowledge she 302 MODERN ADVERTISING had to get the goods she wanted. Without advertising, but simply through other incidental means, the name or some fact about the article had been stamped upon her mind, and in her way, as far as possible, she tried to indicate to the salesgirl what she wanted. Sometimes she gave a descrip- tion of the purpose for which she wanted it. Sometimes she remembered the trade-mark or label. Sometimes she was utterly at sea, and the time of both the salesgirl and the shopper was consumed until the shopper could get what she wanted." A large number of tables were made up from these replies answering the different questions. Two of the tables are shown here as typical of the rest. The growth of advertising in this country and in the magazines has also been shown by figures. For these statistics Mr. Balmer is responsible. The Cen- tury Magazine was selected as one of the oldest and most typical American magazines and one that had had the most even and steady business growth. The general subject of food was taken as a basis, and it was shown that the first food advertising appeared during 1871, and was confined to five subjects and six advertisers who used about three and a half pages of advertising for the entire year. The entrance of every new food into the advertising world is shown by the chart, the date of its entry and the amount of space down to and including 1903. In this year thirty-five advertisers exploited nineteen articles of food in 142f pages. The chart is given in full. George B. Waldron was retained by Mahin's Mag- azine, an advertising paper devoted to the interests of an advertising agency, to tabulate statistics from the United States Census. These articles and tabula- tions showed the proportion of ignorant and illiter- CHAir V S110VVIX(. ( ;u()^) 'Til Ol ' 1 ^0(1 1881. \^ .\DVEI! nsiNO liV VK .\RS, I5ASK1) UL'ON TIIK CENTURY MAGAZINE. BY COURTESY OF THOMAS BALMEB Year 1871. 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. ■1879. 1880. 1882. 168.1. 1881. 1885. 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889. 1890. 1891. 1898. 1893. 1894. 1895. TO. 1897. 1898. 1899. 1900. 1901. 1903. 1903. ARTICLES w (fi 1 t a i 1 1-1 V. a 1 3 E 1 □ 3 43 25 20 40 35 E 2 2 1 1 1 11 p 3 21 1) 14 4 S. u E 1 1 1 v 1 1 1 i .'. 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"i ' j '.'. 1 } 19 1 , 'i i ;'. i i " 1 i . 27 \. .. .. 1*11 ., 51 E i '3 'a 8 8 ■ ■ 28 CO 1 '21 ii} 64 4} 'ii ■3} 12} 6 'S} J 'si ■& il '21 "i '.' 79} 3 ii 2i ill io ., 38 id 1 E i 'i 'i 2 2 '2 '2 1 2 83 'i' 'i' '2i 6 3J 'si 1^* 81 'Ii' ■3} '(ii 41 '«■ 77} i 3 2i iii 48 CO 1 E '2 i 5 2 'i 'i 2 2 i 1 ,3 i i '2 'i 'i 31 ■3' 23} 1} 21 '3' u 16 71 'o' 1 i2} ',5) 3} '•ii '2} 'si 'si 1161 3 26 2i 44 tn E 7 2 i i 2 3 2 1 i 'i '2 2 2 2 2 i 1 37 (d 1 i' '3' 451 11 i' '3' 61 '?! 10 "2' 'o' Ij' 9' 9} i'Ji 8J 7 'si 4 1691 t a 3 ',', iA ■ ■ 48 E 6 2 's 3 2 36 " i ; '^': B} . '.'.'. \'. ... 1 ... 1 . . 1. 121 . 121 . 81 . 12 . U . i ! '6' : 1 . i . 3 . i . 5) 3 5 . '6 ; 10 . B) . '5} '. 1,35} . ... 3 i 1 3 E :: 3 1 ;: i "i 33 4J 131 4} 18 8 6 3 id CO 1 E !! 6 2 ,35 p. ii .3,51 3} 'ii 4 'i' '■ii iii 16' 83l 11 SJ "} "i 11 142} 3 Corn Starch Flavoring Extracts Yeast Powder Teas Vinegar 1 1 1 2 1 i 1 ii 1 5 48 4 1 1 v 1 1 1 1 1 i\ 1 i 5 '.'.v.'. ij '.'. 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 } 'i 41 45 29 2 33 29 1 1 1 1 1 1 3i "i 1 15 49 13 Pudding [ . . Groceries • . . Relishes .. Condensed Milk Chocolate and Cocoa Infants" Foods Baking Powder Meats (Hams, Bacon, etc.) .... Flour Malted Milk 22 6 2} ■ ■ 1 ' ' Preserves, Jellies, etc Salad Dressing Beverages Deviled Crabs Soups Seasonings Canned Fruits and Vegetables. Coffee Olive Oil Cocoanut 2} 11 T -1 51 7 ;; :: 4) »! 1 1 u , 33 .. 2} 31 8} '71 6 41 'ci "j 10 134 is 8 '■] Cottolene Codfish •1 :i Butter Cheese Baked Beans Sugar Total Number of Firms. . . Total Number of Lines*. . . u 3J I T 4 33 8 " 9} * Number of lines to a page, 234. "IB^OX 00l0C0OCClCC0i-l-rt^05i-flClrHi-HC<|i-li-(T-l 'jaaqs JO ang *jC;j!jajj ■oijqureo loj 3[00!jsini •spiTBjq ou M-aug; ■jaq^o on Ai.au;3 •pafB3(idB auiB^ •ainpTj pjig M CO CO •»J0S 'asodjnd ejOMBuy ■uoi^jBpuanituooa'jj •|I8M siapnnBq ■noT^B^^ndffji ^(N -iH •iC^inq^Jna ' ^ C^ r-t .— ( rH 1— I 'spooS pasn pnH t^(NIMCCi-n-li-li-l 60' O C 03 1^ 3^ 21 304 MODERN ADVERTISING ate in this country to the educated and their distri- bution, the classification having important bearing upon advertising, as, of coursfe, those who can not read are almost completely beyond the reach of adverti- sing. Schools as wealth producers and the intimate connection between education and the earning powers of the nation was the idea of a second article, and a Pocket M©Lps AND Koad Guide These maps are beautifully printed in colon L and show on a large scale the streams, lakes, highways, trolly lines and railroads in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, reached by the Lackawanna Railroad and its connections. Inva.lua.Ue to Automobile Tourists, Fishermen and Travelers. A good map is a silent courier of out-door enjoyment Each of the maps in this edition is 1 7x28 inches. They are neatly bound in one cover and may be had by sending 10 cents in stamps to T. W. LEE. Gen. Pasis. A^ent, Lackawanna Railroad, N. Y. City. A MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENT IN WHICH THE BOOKLET IS THE SUBJECT OP THE ADVERTISEMENT. comparison was made between different groups of States. The two hundred thousand miles of railroad employing a million people was shown in its bearing upon advertising. The number of employees, their classification, their total earnings and their earnings per day were all given and compared. The earning capacity of the different departments of railroad work was also shown arid compared. In the same way, the THE MATHEMATICS OF ADVERTISING 305 sources of the nation's wealth production were dis- cussed, and the mechanics, farmers, merchants and • railroad men compared. ' The number and nationali- ties of foreign farmers, their distribution and the pub- lications they read were given, and a special investi- gation was devoted to German Americans, who form a large portion of American citizens, and who have a great ttiany publications in their own language. All of these statistics were compiled with the idea of di- recting the intelligent expenditure of the advertiser's money. When, for instance, an advertiser considers a publication printed in the German language, it is important for him to know whether the Germans as a class are rich or poor, where they are located, whether the given publication circulates in that terri- tory, and whether they are a merchant, a manufactur- ing or an agricultural class. These things are clearly shown by statistics. These results promise great things for the defi- niteness of advertising in the future. The psycholo- gist on one side with his deductions and the statistician on the other with his patient investigations will reduce that part of advertising which can be so reduced to an exact science. But such results will never dispense with the trained advertising man. Laws are codified, but the lawyer succeeds by means of his professional ability and his knowledge of the code. CHAPTER XII STYLES OF ADVEETISING An attempt to describe, or even to catalogue, the different styles accepted and used in successful adver- tising would be impossible within the scope of this book. Still there are a number of leading styles used by successful advertisers which may be noted in pass- ing and illustrated by examples. When a general advertiser has decided upon his plan of campaign, has selected the mediums which he thinks reach the people to whom he wishes to appeal, and has decided upon the amount of space he wishes to use so as to determine the size of the advertisements, then he is confronted by these questions : What sort of " copy " shall he use ? Shall it be plain type " copy," or shall it be " copy " in connec- tion with illustration and design ? If plain type, shall it have a border or not ? If an illustrated or designed advertisement, shall the illustration or design be a simple border effect, shall it be an illustration of the article itself, shall it be an idea, shall it be merely an eye-catcher, or shall it be a character which is to appear in a series of advertisements ? Finally, shall the illustration be in line drawing for reproduction by zinc etching, or a photograph or wash drawing to be reproduced by half-tone ? These questions are among the hardest to decide in advertising. Good " copy " is the desire of all advertisers, but 306 STYLES OF ADVERTISING 307 what is good " copy " ? Of course, good " copy " is " copy " that has sold goods, but it is not easy to tell in advance just what " copy " will sell goods. An advertiser naturally does not wish to do the same thing that some other advertiser has done, even when it has proved suc- cessful. An imitation of another man's work is apt to react, and it is by no means a settled fact that the same methods applied to another business will succeed. On the contrary, that very fact often leads to failure. The attempt to utilize, for instance^ the names and ideas accepted by the National Biscuit Company has resulted disastrously to a number of concerns. The imitation of the Pears' My grandmother used Pears' Soap; perhaps yours did. too. We owe them gratitude for that. Use Pears' for the children; they soon acquire the habit. Established in 1789. AN ADVERTISEMENT IN TYPE coined word " Uneeda " has been slavish, unreasonable, short-sighted and stupid. No advertising which has been a palpable imitation of the National Biscuit advertising has reached any measure of success whatever. In this chapter will be shown what a number of large and successful advertisers have considered good " copy," and which the results have justified. Plain type, especially when set with the skill and taste in display that is being shown to-day, produces What I know abovt Coffee Not very much; but more than I did in November. Americans should know coffee ; and they do, in a way. It is America's national beverage just as tea (except at dinner) is the national beverage of Eng- land, wine of France, and beer of Germany. Nothing short of the very best should satisfy us. We have been drinking miserably bad coffee ; not all of us, but you and I and the people we know. It isn't our fault. We couldn't get anything else. We blamed it on the cook, when all the time we were buying South American "Mocha and Java" so green, even after roasting, that we could squeeze the acid out of it. It was the best the market offered. It is a well-known fact among coffee connoisseurs that, with coffee as with wine, age greatly im- proves the flavor. The excess of acid in green coffee gives the coffee a bitter taste and is very injurious to people of rheumatic tendency. Practically all cheap coffees are green coffees. Seasoned coffees can't be bought for the price. There never was a time when a guaranteed pure coffee of high grade had so big an opportunity for success, and if there is anything better grown than the Ta>.baLrd Inn Coffee expert knowledge and money have been unable to locate it. Our Yeoman's Blend (50c.) is made up of five coffees but largely Java and Mocha: the Java imported through Holland from the Island of Java; the Mocha, the genuine Arabian bean, shipped direct from the port of Aden. The Mocha used in this and in the Squire's Blend (60c.) is the nearest approach to the genuine and famous Yemen that it is possible to buy. The Friar's Blend (40c.) has a small percentage of the best Bogota blended with other superior coffees. In all three coffees we aim to secure the pick of the oldest crop without regard to cost. The success of TaLbaLrd Inn Coffees over all other coffees will be due in part to the blending. These coffees are bought and blended by a man who is acknowledged by the coffee trade to be the best coffee expert and coffee blender in the United States. I am convinced that nothing so rich in flavor, so exhilarating in quality and so generally healthful as a mild stimulant has ever before been offered as a coffee beverage. These coffees are worth the money. They are cheaper in the long run than cheap coffees. A pound will go farther. We do not hope to secure the custom of people who economize on foods and who spend on medicines ten times the amount saved. The difference between good coffee and bad coffee is surely worth ten cents a week. The difference is just as great a? between good and bad of anything else; butter, for instance, or meat or bread. Ask your grocer to send you a sample pound. The proof of the pudding is the eating of it. <^^'' \^iBuai}^ THIS NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENT OP COFFEE IS A GOOD EX- AMPLE OP THE NARRATIVE STYLE OF COPY, WHICH IS BOTH INTERESTING AND CONVINCING, AND WHICH ILLUSTRATES THE THEORY OF SEYMOUR EATON THAT "ADVERTISING IS NEWS." 308 STYLES OF ADVERTISING 309 some very successful advertising. Especially in the magazines, where the tendency is to run largely to designs, does a simple type advertisement stand out well. For instance, several reproductions are shown of the Murphy Varnish advertisements. These repre- sent the best we have in type display. They go back to the typesetting of the masters of the printing art in the sixteenth century. They are set in a type face which is among the earliest that was designed and cut, but among the best we have to-day. No amount of display, and especially display using different faces of type, can compete in vigorous strength with these apparently simple advertisements. They are also reproduced to illustrate a style of _ advertising talk which, when well done, is very effec- tive. These advertisements are the work of John O. Powers, the elder, who is a master of vigorous and epigrammatic English, and whose advertising always suggests in the mind of the reader a desirable train of thought. They are further interesting because they advertise varnish to the consumer, not with the idea that the consumer should buy the varnish itself, but to interest him in varnish so that in purchasing any article, such as a carriage or piano, he would be particular as to the sort of varnish which was used upon it. The advertisement of " Taylor Old Style " roof- ing-tin is an example of more recent type display, having some qualities in common with the Murphy Varnish advertisements. A variation of type display is produced by a spe- cially designed letter. This has been done a number HALF VALUE IN VARNISH IS NO VALUE. A clipped and worn piece of gold is still worth its weight. Half a box of berries is worth half the price. A horse that will not do for the carriage may still do for the dray. But: — If the lens of a telescope is not prac- tically perfect, it is good for nothing. If a watch spring contains but a micro- scopic flaw, it is useless. Varnish that is not first-class must be classed as worthless for any fine WORK. The slightest flaw in its com- position will cause it to crack, or peel, or dry out, or discolor, or do something that spoils its usefulness. Really fine varnish is only made by experts, and it is not found on the bargain counter. Murphy Varnish Co. Head Office: Newark, N. ]. Other Offices : Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Chicago. Factories : Newark and Chicago. ONE OP A SERIES OF MAGAZINE ADVERTISEMENTS IN WHICH A SIMPLE TYPE STYLE AND VERY CONVINCING " COPY " MAKE AN EXCELLENT SUBSTITUTE FOR DESIGN OR PICTURES. 310 STYLES OF ADVERTISING 311 of times witli success. The advertising of the Pabst Brewing Company, which has appeared in the mag- azines for a year or so, was based upon a letter de- signed for the purpose. This letter was so happy in its proportions Amid all discussion of the best roofing material, the fact remains that •* Taylor Old Style" roofing tin has endured upon roofs for at least sixty-three years — how much longer we do not know. What other kind of roofing tin or other material has lasted so long? that it has since been cut and cast by type-founders, and can now be had in a regular type. A half -page magazine adver- tisement lettered in Pabst Old Style with only the trade-mark for display is shown as an ex- ample of strong, simple, masterful display. There are still appearing in the magazines a great many advertise- ments consisting altogether of type, which are not pleasing to the eye, but which are very effective. This is especially true in what is known as " mail-order " advertising. In tl^e chapter of the book devoted to that subject is reproduced a typical mail-order advertisement set in small type most solidly. People who are going to send money for an article in direct response to mail- N, & G. TAYLOR COMPANY KSTABLISBBD 1810 Philadelphia Don't economiie ten doUan oq the roof becaow no one can tee it. and apeod a thouBaod dolUn oo Interior decorationt whlcli uraplr apml to the eye. Our *' Guide to Good Roofi," aeot free on requeati f ivet Mine good pointers on the Toofing qaestion. REASONS AND TYPE TO TAKE THE PLACE OF DESIGNS. THE COST OF IT. In a board walk the largest item of ex- pense is the lumber: in a splendid violin the least item of expense is the lumber. In a plain wall the stone is the chief cost: in a piece of classic statuary the cost of the stone is hardly reckoned. This principle, in a certain degree, ap- plies to the making of fine varnish. We do not pretend that we put from two to five dollars' worth of material into each liquid gallon; but we do put in the scien- tific knowledge and the expert skill and the long-continued care which no ordinary varnish contains. If you wish to get rich music or a treasure of the sculptor's art or a job of varnishing that will be satisfactory, you must pay for something else than raw material. Murphy Varnish Co. Head Office: Newark, N. J. Other Offices: Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Chicago. Factories: Newark and Chicago. ANOTHER EXAMPLE OP THE POWERS STYLE. THIS WRITER NEVER USES DESIGNS OB ILLUSTRATIONS. STYLES OF ADVERTISING 313 order advertising, wish as full a description as possi- ble, and bad as these adver- tisements are from the point of view of general public- ity, they are very successful in securing actual orders. Apparently they appeal to a different class of people. As an example of type display in this mail-order style is reproduced the ad- vertisement of the 19 Washing Machine, which, despite a ridiculous old- fashioned wood-cut and its solid type matter, gave a vivid impression of the washing machine. In an advertising de- sign seeking to attract at- tention the border idea is a simple and effective method. An excellent example of this is the page of the Dei- mel Linen Mesh Company. Photographs are being more and more extensively used in magazine adverti- sing, despite the disadvan- tages from the poor paper and rapid printing used in the advertising pages of the BACKED by sixty years of practical experience* Pabst Beer is the pure, Kealthmlblend' ing of cboicest hops and fin* est barley un» der scientific cally perfect conditions. TYPE STYLE INVENTED BY AN ADVERTISBB. Let this Machine do your Washing Free. There are Motor-Springs beneath the tub. These springs do nearly all the hard work, when once you start them going. And this washing machine works as easy as a bicycle wheel does. There are slats on the inside bottom of the tub. These slats act as paddles, to swing the water in the same direction you re- volve the tub. You throw the soiled clothes Into the tub first. Then you throw enough water over the clothes to float them. Next you put the heavy wooden cover on top of the clothes to anchor them, and to press them down. This cover has slats on its lower side to grip the clothes and hold them from turning around when the tub turns. Now, we are all ready for quick and easy washing. You grasp the upright handle on the "sI3e of the tub and, with It. you revolve the tub one-third way round,' till It strikes a motor-spring. This motor-spring throws the tub back till It strikes the other motor-spring, which In turn throws it back on the first motor-spring. The machine must have a little help from you, at every swing, but the motor- springs, and the ball-bearings, do practically all the hard work. You can sit In a rocking chair and do all that the washer requires of you. A child can run It easily full of clothes. * ♦ • * ♦ When you revolve the tub the clothes don't move. But the water moves like a mill race through the clothes. The paddles on the tub' bottom drive the soapy water THROUGH and through the clothes at every swing of the tub. Back and forth, in and out of every fold, and through every mesh lu the cloth, the hot soapy water runs like a torrent. This is how It carries away all the dirt from the clothes, in from six to ten minutes by the clock. It~3rives the dirt out through the meshes of the fabrics WITHOUT ANY RUBBING,— without any WEAR and TEAR from the washboard. It will wash the finest lace fabric without breaking a thread, or a button, and It will wash a heavy, dirty carpet with equal oase and rapidity. Fifteen to twenty garments, or five large bed-sheets, can be washed at one time with this " 1900 •* Washer. A child can do this In six to twelve minutes better than any able w^asher- woman could do the same clothes in TWICE the time, with three times the wear and tear from the washboard. ***** This Is what we SAY, now how do we PROVE it? We send you our " 1900 " Washer free of charge, on a full month's trial, and we even pay the freight out of our own pockets. No cash deposit Is asked, no notes, no contract^ no security. You may use the washer for weeks at our expense. If you find It won't wash as many clotEes In FOUR hours as you can wash by hand in EIGHT hours you send It back to the railway station,— that's all. But, if, from a month's actual uso, you are convinced It saves HALF the time in washing, does tho work better, and does It twice as easily as It could be done by hand, you keep the machine. Then you mall us 50 cents a week till it is paid for. Remember that 50 cents is part of whr,t th e mach in e saves you every week on your own, or on a washer-woman's labor. We mtencf that the " 1900 " Washer shall pay for itself and thus cost you nothing. You don't risk a cent from first to last, and you don't buy It until you have had a full month's trial. "^ Could we afCord to pay freight on thousands of these machines every month. If we did not positively KNOW they would do all we claim for thom ? Can you afford to be without a machine that will do your washing in HALF THE TlSffi^ with half the wear and tear of the washboard, when you can have that machine for a month's free trial, and let It PAY FOR ITSELF? This offer may be with- drawn at any time it overcrowds our factory. Write us TO-DAY, while the offer is still open, and while you think of It. The postage stamp Is all you risk. Write me personally on this offer, viz.: R. P. Bleber, General Manager of " 1900 '* Washer Company, 237 Henry St., Blngham- ton. New York. 314 STYLES OF ADVERTISING 315 magazines. Tor newspaper work photographs and half-tones are practically barred. Line drawings are best. The newspaper advertisement of Force, which is one of the Sunny Jim series, given elsewhere, is a good example of newspaper designing which is bound to print well in almost any newspaper. Some years ago Ivory Soap ran a series of maga- zine advertisements which mmm-wm nrtMrmi^iM combined very good line ^^MATTERQF HEALTH drawings with type mat- ter. These were used in the magazines, but were also used in newspapers and other publications where the printing would otherwise be bad. Excel- lent results were secured, and they still remain a splendid kind of designing for advertising. Two ex- amples have been repro- duced. ^Wh^ Absolutely Pure HAS MO SUBSTnUTE USED FOR YEARS WITHOUT CHANGE. There still survive in magazines and newspapers some of the advertisements that were prepared many years ago, consisting almost altogether of the name of the article displayed, and which may still be con- sidered successful advertising as far as mere publicity goes. Among these is the well-known arrangement of Koyal Baking Powder which appears as a quarter page on the back of a great many magazines. The comments printed under the reproductions given in this chapter supply further examples of the fTi W" nNTER is coining, and with it the ever-increasing dread of pneumonia. To wear woolen underwear is but an urgent invitation for colds and [neumonia to enter. Underwear is often called *'body linens." Unen ab- sorbs — towels are made of it — it dries rapidly — is known for its cleanliness, but ordinarily it is cold and clammy. In the Dr. Deimel Underwear the coldness has been taken out of linen. By a special process of manufacture a soft, warm and porous fabric has been evolved, called Linen-Mesh (a word registered by Dr. Deime! in 1 894, but now used by others indiscriminately). Since its introducdon ten years ago, the Dr. Deimel Linen-Mesh Underwear has received the most faiendly and grateful appreciation throughout the world. All who are subject to colds and rheumatism, or threatened with bronchitis or pneumonia, will observe an immediate change for the better by adopting the Dr. Deimel Underwear. Send for free booklet, giving valuable and in- teresting INFORMATION ON THE UhDERVEAR QUESTION. Thc_D r. D«inid Underwear ii made In auch a wide variety of liiea that we can fit CTCfTfeodjr. If TOUT dealer cannot anpplr ron, write to um. The Deimel Linen-Mesh Co., 491 Broadway, N. Y. SAir FRAHasCO: 1 UontgDmciy Sb LONDONi 8S Stnnd. Hotel CMil.W.C. THE FIRST STEP FROM A TYPE STYLE IS THE USE OF A BORDER. STYLES OF ADVERTISING 317 range of ideas in advertising, which it is impossible to classify. Of late years there has been a certain tendency to introduce a character in the advertising which shall be used regularly, and which soon becomes a sort of trade-mark. One of the commonest variations of this is the portrait of the advertiser himself. A famous instance is that of W. L. Douglass, manufacturer of the Douglass shoe, now governor of Massachusetts, whose picture is probably one of the best known in advertising in the world. Mennen, the manufacturer of Mennen's Talcum Powder, is another instance. Ostrander, who has built up a system of selling real estate by mail, is an advertiser whose face is present in all magazines. The introduction of a fictitious character, of which Sunny Jim is an example, has had a wide vogue. Sunny Jim has been discussed in various aspects in different parts of the book. The breakfast-food ad- vertisers seem particularly partial to this form of publicity. The reader will recall many instances, such as that of the colored chef for Cream of Wheat, the Ealston Miller, and the Quaker of Quaker Oats. Two styles cut from the earliest numbers of The Century Magazine illustrate early advertisements of a dentifrice and a corset. The dentifrice is repre- sented by Sozodont, and the corset by Thomson's Glove-Fitting Corset. By way of contrast, and as showing the use of photography in modern adverti- sing, a modern advertisement of a tooth preparation and of a corset are shown. The use of versified forms in advertising seems more honored in the breach than in the observance, Women with long, thick hair find it difficult to keep it in proper order without too frequent washing, which renders it dry and harsh. The following method is effectual and need only be repeated once in two months, if the hair is well brushed each night. Beat the white of an egg sufficiently to break it, rub this well into the scalp. Wash it off thoroughly with Ivory Soap and warm water, rinse off the soap and when the hair is dry it will be found soft and glossy. Ordinary soaps are too strong, use only the Ivory Soap. e« 16 CorvRlCHT 1893, Bv The Pkoctbr & Gamble Ca A STYLE OF DESIGNING ESPECIALLY ADAPTED TO NEWSPAPERS AND POOELY PRINTED MAGAZINES. STYLES OF ADVERTISING TearSTeMouthi 319 c: :o: :o:-^ :ol * lo: :o: :o: ^o I BEAUTY& FRAGRANCE i ARE COMMUNICATED TO THE MOUTH BY SOZODONTj n'kich- renders the teeth' white, the grums Rosy and the breath swe^t. It thorouKhly removes tartar froiA the teeth and prevents decay. aoua BY ]>B.1TGGISTS. NOT SO ARTISTIC AS TO-DAY S DESIGNING, BUT WITH GOOD PRINTING QUALITIES NEVERTHELESS. and the breaches are often very ragged. The few good jingles which have appeared as advertising seem to furnish a justification for an immense amount of bad 32 320 MODERN ADVERTISING RuBifoAn . Ihe delicious liquid denSifrice, gives a growing sfiIi?faclion bec-aiiw its advantages increase 'wifh regiikir use-- It is ifis much a part of a w,ii- ! bred toilet as a cake of soap. , RoBiJOAm ■ the antiseptic, purifying deiilifnce, m a .-j ; more than satisfies because it does S ® •' more than clean the teeth. It makes w H.vti ■ beaiitifurgunis and sweet mouihs. w «'-^^ RuBiiOAm is constantly increasing in sales and '' must be giving satisfaction. It's wise to use RueiFOAM.*Y SOLD eve;rywhere. Price 25 cents, I SAMPLE FREE. ■ E.W.H0VT&COr.llbWell.M3SS.j AS IT IS DONE TO-DAY and indifferent kinds, and it is not even proved that the good verse is good advertising. But then, for that matter, neither is it proved that the bad verse is bad ad- vertising. Of course, the ad- vertiser has a certain justification in wanting to put what he has to say in metrical form. It is easier to make peo- ple remember things that have rhythm and rhyme. Children used to learn the names of the queens of England in rhyme and in the same way commit to njemory the prepositions which took the dative case in Latin. Ehythm as an aid to memory is as old as the ballad singers. Metrical forms came before prose forms, and all history was once verse. Therefore, it seems logical to insist that any advertiser who has something to say Keep a cake of Ivory Soap at the stable, it is most excellent for washing galled spots and scratches on horses, for it will cleanse ■without irritating, and the vegetable oils of which it is made are cooling and healing in effect. A WORD OF WARNING. There are many white soaps, each represented to be " just as good as the ' Ivory ' j '' they ARE NOT, but like all counterfeits, lack the peculiar and remarkable qualities of the genuine. Ask for " Ivory " Soap and Insist upon getting it, B.& COPVRICHT l3g3, BY ThE PROCTER & GaMBLK CO. CLEAN, OPEN OUTS, WHICH CAN NOT FILL UP AND BLOT, HOW- EVER HAPID THE PBESSWORK OR POOR THE PAPER. 322 MODERN ADVERTISING that he wishes the people to remember, can catch their attention and hold their memory with some statement that swings along in a rhythmic and jingling way. ARE STILL TRIUMPHANT! For fifteen years thejr have steadily gained in favor, and with sales constantly increasing have become the tnost popular Covszi throughout the United States. The *' G " quality is "warranted to vf^sx twice eis long as ordinary Corsets, and testimonials without number could be given of the pei^eci satis/action they have afforded for a long series of years. While scores of patents have been found worthless, x)\e principles ofthe Glove- Fitting have" proved /«7'ee o» application. THOMSON, LANGDON & CO. Mfrs. 70 and 72 Worth Street, N. Y* AN. EARLY EXAMPLE OF CORSET ADVERTISING. SO of Two or three people have done this sort of thing well that their work is now taken as a kind standard for verse advertising. For instance. W.L. DOUGLAS $3.So SHOES WORTH *3.22 AMERICA LEADS THE SHOE FASHIONS OF TfJE WORLD. TKe Lcidm^ Styles Originate in BrocKton. the Monu- fucturing Centre of Meri's Fine SKoes in This Country, Styles Ori^iniited by My Expert Model MaKer Are Copied Everywhi W. L. DwgUs 53.50 slioes have fcy Iheir excellent st>le, easy-fitlmg and superior wearing qualities, achieved the largesl sale o( any $3.50 shoe in the world. They are juat as good as those that coat you 55 lo $7 — the only differeuceia the price. If I could take you iuto tuy factory at Brockton, Mass., the largest lu thc^vorU under one roof hiaiting men's fine shoes, and show you the intiiiifc care with which every pair of Douglas shoes ts made, you would realize why W. L. Douglas -$330 shoes are the best shoes produced anywhere. II I could show VO" the difference between the shoes made in my brtory and those of other inakes, you would undersland why Douglas $3^ shoes cost more to make, why tliey hold their shape, fit better, wear longer, and are of greater Intrinsic value ihan any other $3.50 shcfe on the market to^ay. There is a great difference hi'tween wholesale and retail prices in shoes, Yoti pay only one profit 6a shoes made in my faclory and sold direct to youUirougu my own stores in the principal cities. ■juh is, you gel belter shoes for tlic price than are retailed elsewhere. The t My Own Secret Proces-i of Torvning the Botlom Soles Produces More Flexible and Lonj^er "Wearing Leather Than Any Other Tannage. EVEKY GENTLEMAN SHOULD HAVE THREE PAIRS OF SHOES TO DRES5 HIS FEET PROPERLY ON ALL OCCASIONS. He should have a pair of LacK Shoes tor cold and rainy weather ; a pair of Oxfords for *^rm sunny days, and a pair oi Patent Corona Button Shoes for dress or street wear. Don't pay $15 to $13 for these three pairs J you can get 3s much style* comfort and service in three pairs of Douglassbpes for $ JO, 5(). Wf L. Doug/as WgA Grade Boys' „Ji':'„''l';^.i^:.ri;'^ ir.'i'-llLsii^'i'^.'J'^^-V^L.I.'.'fl.o'?,?!," Shoes, $2.tH> an(# $t» 7S* Douglas uaos Corona ColtsklnlHhis $3.50" shoes. Corona Colt is oo«trfi