The Clock That Had No Hands, and Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising
Twenty essays of about 500 words, first copyrighted by the Chicago Tribune in 1908 and collected in 1912 by George H. Doran.
What it is
Twenty essays of about 500 words, first copyrighted by the Chicago Tribune in 1908 and collected in 1912 by George H. Doran. Herbert Kaufman writes to the local retailer who doubts that newspaper space pays, and each essay runs on one analogy: a store that does not advertise is a clock with no hands; the bombardment of the Satsuma forts that ended Japan's isolation; Thermopylae as the value of being first in a trade; Cato repeating his call against Carthage for twenty years as the case for daily insertion. The middle essays turn practical: write copy as you talk and then cut it, use small words, always print prices, avoid the "sales" habit, never copy another store's ads. The closing essays teach the merchant to buy newspapers: test each paper for a month, pay only for readers near the store who can afford to buy, and distrust circulation claims.
Why read it now
Read it as what it is: a newspaper selling its own space, which is why every problem ends in "advertise in the paper that carries the most ads". Several rules still hold. Frequent sales train customers to wait for the next one; research on price promotions agrees that they mostly subsidize people who would have bought anyway and raise price sensitivity. Prices in retail copy separate lookers from buyers. Plain words beat clever ones, which readability testing supports. His warning against long gaps between insertions fits modern continuity planning, and his test, a different item in each paper for a month with the returns tabulated, is a simple media split test. What has dated: the claim that advertising "costs nothing" (most ad effects fade within months, and only part of the spend builds lasting memory), the promise that the first advertiser in a trade wins (studies of market pioneers find many of them fail), and the class and racial caricatures in several essays. Use: before buying media in Riyadh or Jeddah, ask what share of the reach falls inside your store or delivery radius, and price only that share.
Passages worth keeping
all that advertising can do when it accomplishes most, is to influence the reader to investigate your claims.
أقصى ما يفعله الإعلان أن يدفع القارئ إلى التحقق من كلامك بنفسه، فإن لم يجد ما وعدته به خسرته.
Advertising really costs nothing. While it uses funds it does not use them up.
يرى الكاتب أن مال الإعلان لا يضيع لأنه يتحول إلى سمعة وثقة يملكها المتجر، وهي مبالغة تخدم بائع المساحة.
The copy that omits prices sacrifices half its pulling power
الإعلان الذي يخفي السعر يفقد نصف قدرته على جلب المشترين، ويأتيك بمن يتفرج لا بمن يشتري.
Don't get the "sales" habit. "Sales" are stimulants. When held too often their effect is weakening.
التخفيضات منشط مؤقت، وإذا تكررت كثيرًا أضعفت المتجر وجعلت الناس لا يشترون إلا بخصم.
It isn't the number of readers reached, but the number of readers whose purses can be reached, that constitutes the value of circulation.
قيمة الوسيلة ليست في عدد من يصل إليهم الإعلان، بل في عدد من يملكون المال لشراء ما تبيعه.
What it teaches best
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