The Book on Advertising (The Business Man's Library, Volume 7)
Volume seven of the System Company's Business Man's Library, a 1911 printing of a book first copyrighted in 1908, written by Truman A. DeWeese, publicity director of the Natural Food Company.
What it is
Volume seven of the System Company's Business Man's Library, a 1911 printing of a book first copyrighted in 1908, written by Truman A. DeWeese, publicity director of the Natural Food Company. The preface says it is not a primer but a working book for the man who buys space and must make it pay. DeWeese defines advertising as acquainting the public with the name, nature and uses of a product, and says good advertising must create a "New Want", citing the safety razor, the pianola and breakfast cereal. His test for copy has three parts: attract attention, interest, convince. His "bull's-eye method" lists ten selling points for a shredded wheat biscuit, then tells the writer to use one or two per ad. Later chapters cover magazines against newspapers, retail ads, mail order and follow-up letters, keyed ads, street cars, billboards, budgets and the agency.
Why read it now
Three ideas hold. The bull's-eye: one dominant point per ad, with the other reasons rotated across the series. Rosser Reeves later called it the unique selling proposition, and agencies still brief a single-minded message for the same reason. Second, his warning that the medium bringing the most inquiries is not always the one bringing the most sales. Today that is the gap between cost per lead and cost per sale, and his answer, judge media on sales at the end of the year, still stands. Third, continuity: he says spasmodic spurts do not pay, which agrees with later work on continuous scheduling and mental availability. What has dated: the claim that advertising is "only repetition" and mainly creates wants from nothing (Ehrenberg-Bass evidence says most ads remind and reinforce), the health claims in his biscuit list, and his rejection of keyed ads, when the fix is to follow each key through to the sale. Use: before a campaign, write the ten reasons to buy, give each ad one of them, and tag every lead source so it can be traced to a paid invoice.
Passages worth keeping
I would define advertising as the art of acquainting the public with the name, nature and uses of a salable commodity.
الإعلان في أبسط تعريف له أن تُعلم الناس باسم السلعة، وما هي، وفيمَ تُستعمل.
How shall we know good advertising copy when we see it? By its power to attract attention, to interest and to convince.
يُحكم على النص الإعلاني بثلاثة أمور معًا: أن يلفت النظر، وأن يشد القارئ، وأن يقنعه. ولفت النظر وحده لا يكفي.
It is better to hammer home two or three reasons each day or each week or each month than to bunch all the reasons into one advertisement
لا تحشر كل أسباب الشراء في إعلان واحد، بل كرر سببين أو ثلاثة في كل مرة ووزّع الباقي على الإعلانات التالية.
the medium which brings the most inquiries is not always the one which results in the most sales.
كثرة الاستفسارات من وسيلة ما لا تعني أنها الأكثر بيعًا، فالعبرة بمن يشتري فعلًا لا بمن يسأل.
Millions of dollars are thrown away annually in desultory advertising where there is no selling organization to supply the demand created by advertising.
الإعلان الذي يخلق طلبًا دون فريق بيع جاهز لتلبيته مال ضائع، فلا بد أن يعمل الإعلان والبيع معًا.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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