Printers' Ink, Vol. 151, No. 8 (May 22, 1930), with Consumptionism by Earnest Elmo Calkins
The May 22, 1930 issue of Printers' Ink, the New York weekly for advertisers, printed seven months after the 1929 crash.
What it is
The May 22, 1930 issue of Printers' Ink, the New York weekly for advertisers, printed seven months after the 1929 crash. It is filed for Consumptionism, extracts from Earnest Elmo Calkins's address to the Advertising Federation of America. Calkins, president of Calkins & Holden, calls this the age of consumption, says over-production is really under-consumption, and wants a consumption engineer who studies behaviour instead of questionnaires, finances buying through instalments and high wages, and makes people use up goods they now merely use, by artificial obsolescence if needed. Around it: Packard's level production plan that kept 10,500 men at work, Ernest S. Green Jr. on writing copy fast and editing it later, Frank Finney on executives who do not understand advertising, A. H. Deute against price cutting, advice on honouring a money-back guarantee, and the Eatmor cranberry growers' campaign. The cover is N. W. Ayer's Selling the Subconscious.
Why read it now
Calkins's best idea holds: find out what people want before you make it, and watch what they do rather than trusting what they say in a questionnaire. Research on the gap between stated and actual behaviour backs him. His worst idea has aged badly: he names artificial obsolescence as a goal, which France made an offence in 2015 and the EU's 2024 right to repair rules push against. His belief that spending would end the slump was answered by the deeper collapse of 1931 to 1933. Deute's case against cutting price to win orders fits Marn and Rosiello's 1992 finding that a 1 per cent price rise lifted operating profit by about 11 per cent for the average large firm. Green's rule, create first and criticise later, is how most writing teams now work. The Ayer cover argues for patient copy on a purchase planned for years, which fits Binet and Field's case for long-term brand building. Use: if your product sells mostly in Ramadan or at Eid, test copy that gives it one everyday occasion, as Eatmor did by selling cranberries as more than a holiday food.
Passages worth keeping
What we now call over-production is under-consumption.
المشكلة في رأيه ليست أن المصانع تنتج أكثر من اللازم، بل أن الناس لا يستهلكون بالقدر الكافي.
It is not his job to sell what the factory makes, but to teach the factory to make what the customer will buy.
مهمة مهندس الاستهلاك أن يبدأ من العميل، فيوجّه المصنع إلى صنع ما سيشتريه الناس، لا أن يدفع ما صُنع دون سؤالهم.
Goods fall into two classes, those we use, such as motor cars or safety razors, and those we use up, such as toothpaste or soda biscuit.
بعض السلع نستعملها زمنًا طويلًا وبعضها نستهلكه حتى ينفد، ويريد كالكينز أن تتحول سلع النوع الأول إلى سلع تُستبدل بسرعة.
A Copy Writer Can Be Creative, and He Can Be Critical, But Not at the Same Time
الكاتب يستطيع أن يبدع وأن ينقد، لكن لا يجمع الاثنين في جلسة واحدة، فالأفضل أن يكتب أولًا ثم يراجع بعين ناقدة.
The copy has no pressing selling urge.
في شراء كبير يخطط له الناس طويلًا، مثل أرضيات البيت، يكون النص هادئًا يبني الرأي على مهل بدل أن يضغط للشراء الآن.
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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