The Strand Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3 (March 1891)
The third issue of The Strand, March 1891.
What it is
The third issue of The Strand, March 1891. It opens with an etching of the infant Princess Royal drawn and printed by Queen Victoria in 1841, part of a series called Pictures with Histories. Features cover the rise of the birthday card (Tennyson declined a thousand guineas for twelve birthday poems), humour in the House of Commons, a night with the silent Carthusian monks, Stories of the Victoria Cross told by the men who won it, and facsimile manuscript pages from William Black, Walter Besant, Bret Harte and Grant Allen. Fiction includes Pushkin's The Snowstorm, Grant Allen's Jerry Stokes and The Voice of Science. The ads include a Mother Seigel's Syrup page told as one woman's illness and cure, Frazer's Sulphur Tablets boasting sales that rose from 81,760 to 412,000 packets on free samples, a page of Harness belt letters, and an organette offer that ends on May 1st, 1891.
Why read it now
Read it for three ad forms that still work and one that should not be copied. The Mother Seigel's page is a story lead: a named woman in a named town, a doctor who admits he is puzzled, a friend who recommends the syrup, a cure within a week. It even answers the objection that the remedy is only something advertised. Research on narrative transportation (Green and Brock, 2000) finds that absorbed readers argue back less, which is why the form lasts. Frazer's turns sales figures into proof of merit, and the organette seller sets a hard deadline. The editorial side teaches too: Victoria Cross stories in the winners' own words and facsimile manuscripts are first-hand proof, the same pull that makes founder and customer videos work now. What has dated: the syrup and the electric belts were patent remedies whose claims would not pass a health regulator today, and letters 'selected from thousands' are not evidence. Use: write your best customer case as a story with a name, a place, a turning point, and the doubt the customer had before buying.
Passages worth keeping
They said that because it was advertised, not because they knew for themselves.
الشهادة ترد على شك القارئ في كل ما يُعلن عنه، فتجعل الرفض المسبق هو الخطأ لا الإعلان.
A Big Business Built up on Free Samples.
العنوان يقدم العينات المجانية سببًا للنمو، ويليه رقم المبيعات دليلًا على أن المنتج يبيع نفسه بعد التجربة.
The following interesting letters are selected from the thousands which The Medical Battery Company (Limited) have received from the grateful multitude who have been restored to health by simply wearing one of Mr. Harness' Electropathic Belts.
الإعلان يعرض رسائل العملاء كأنها باب مراسلات في المجلة، ويؤكد أنها مختارة من آلاف، وهذا دليل اجتماعي لا دليل علمي.
The public, although they don't know it, have to pay two or three profits
المتجر يشرح رخص سعره بأنه يبيع مباشرة من المصنع، فيكشف للقارئ تكلفة الوسطاء التي لم يكن يراها.
THIS OFFER IS ONLY TO MAY 1st, 1891.
العرض محدد بتاريخ انتهاء واضح، فيدفع القارئ إلى الطلب الآن بدل التأجيل.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original wellcomecollection.org
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