Printers' Ink, January 7, 1915 (Volume 90, Number 1)
A 96-page issue of the New York weekly, five months into the European war. The anonymous advertising manager of a large national advertiser explains how he made good: he found work others called impossible and did it, his department saves its own salaries, and each idea faces one test, "Will it sell the goods?" Crofut & Knapp puts pictures on hat boxes; Swoboda keeps instalment buyers paying with five or six personal letters each; W. B. Swann mines unedited customer letters and salesmen's talk for copy; Waldes & Co. kept advertising Koh-i-noor snaps when the war cut off shipments from Prague.
What it is
A 96-page issue of the New York weekly, five months into the European war. The anonymous advertising manager of a large national advertiser explains how he made good: he found work others called impossible and did it, his department saves its own salaries, and each idea faces one test, "Will it sell the goods?" Crofut & Knapp puts pictures on hat boxes; Swoboda keeps instalment buyers paying with five or six personal letters each; W. B. Swann mines unedited customer letters and salesmen's talk for copy; Waldes & Co. kept advertising Koh-i-noor snaps when the war cut off shipments from Prague. The Treasury taxes soaps such as Woodbury's and Palmolive as cosmetics because their ads promise beauty. S. Roland Hall answers whether to rerun the best ad or keep changing copy. American Huhn sells $150 packing against $25 rivals by mail, testing each folder on 200 names first.
Why read it now
Much of this issue reads as current practice. Swann's advice, get the raw customer letters and let the buyer's own words set the tone, is what copywriters now call voice-of-customer research. Waldes kept its ads running and sent its salesmen out while supply stopped and rivals spread rumours; later recession studies agree that brands holding their spend while competitors cut tend to gain share. The soap ruling shows a lasting rule: regulators classify a product by what its ads claim, as health authorities still do when they separate cosmetics from medicines. Hall's answer, that experience improves judgment but gives few fixed rules, and Huhn's habit of trying a folder on 200 names before a full drive, both point to testing over opinion. "Making the Truth Sound True" on expert testimony still guides B2B copy. Dated: the export article's talk of "occupying" markets vacated by war, and Harrington Emerson's claim that creating desires is advertising's great benefit. Use: before writing for a new client, collect 30 unedited customer messages or voice notes and build the headline from their exact phrases.
Passages worth keeping
In all our consultations there is one consideration that is paramount and only one. That is the question, “Will it sell the goods?”
كل نقاش بين مدير الإعلان ومدير المبيعات يُحسم بسؤال واحد: هل ستبيع هذه الفكرة المنتج؟
It is the last link in the advertising chain which is forged to interest the man, to create a desire to possess, and, finally, to make him a customer.
العبوة هي آخر ما يراه المشتري والمال في يده، فهي الحلقة الأخيرة التي تحول الرغبة إلى شراء.
wire for the originals, get the unexpurgated letters, dig through them and take it from me you'll find yourself face to face with the way to talk to the folks you are going to reach
اطلب رسائل العملاء الأصلية قبل تنقيحها، ففيها الطريقة التي يجب أن تخاطب بها جمهورك.
No one note would cause all the strings of this great human-nature harp to vibrate; we must sweep over the instrument.
الناس يشترون لدوافع مختلفة، فلا يكفي إعلان واحد بدافع واحد، ويجب تنويع الرسائل لتصل إلى كل فئة.
Merely telling the truth will not suffice: the truth must be cut to fit a large variety of conditions.
قول الحقيقة لا يكفي لإقناع القارئ، بل يجب عرضها بما يناسب ظروف كل فئة من الجمهور.
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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