Modern Advertising
Earnest Elmo Calkins and Ralph Holden, founders of the New York agency Calkins & Holden, wrote this 1905 volume in Appletons' Business Series as a full account of advertising as a business.
What it is
Earnest Elmo Calkins and Ralph Holden, founders of the New York agency Calkins & Holden, wrote this 1905 volume in Appletons' Business Series as a full account of advertising as a business. Thirteen chapters run from a definition and a short history (patent medicines, the early agents Palmer and Pettingill, Barnum, Sapolio's Spotless Town) through the channels of trade, magazines and newspapers, street-car cards and posters, the general advertiser, the advertising manager and the agency. The agency chapter walks through launching an invented Battle Creek breakfast food: coin a name, design the package, fix the price, set the appropriation, then plan the media. Later chapters cover Wanamaker-style retail copy, mail-order houses such as Sears, Roebuck, keyed ads and coupons, copy styles, jingles like Sunny Jim and Phoebe Snow, and printing details down to the agate line and the rate-card.
Why read it now
Several arguments have held up. The Sapolio sum in chapter VI, a dollar spent to win a five-cent buyer who repays it only by buying for years, is customer lifetime value before the term existed, and the rule beside it still stands: if the first purchase disappoints, no media budget buys the second. The chapter on the mathematics of advertising sets out keyed addresses, coupons and cost per reply, the base of all direct response testing. The authors also report the common view that people remembered Sunny Jim but not Force, the cereal he sold, an early case of the brand linkage problem that ad testing firms such as Ipsos still measure. What has dated: the claim that only coined words can be protected, and by copyright, when trademark law now protects ordinary words used for unrelated goods; the US-only view; and the hope that advertising would become an exact science. Use: before paying for a mascot or slogan, test whether people can name the brand from it, and key every offer so each channel's replies can be counted.
Passages worth keeping
The first advertisement appears in the magazines, but the second must be the goods themselves.
الإعلان يجلب الشراء الأول فقط، أما الشراء الثاني فيصنعه المنتج نفسه حين يفي بما وعد به.
It is easier to get a high price for the best goods than a ridiculously low price for inferior goods.
المنتج الجيد يعطي المعلن أشياء كثيرة يقولها، فيسهل تبرير سعره المرتفع، أما الرخيص الرديء فلا يجد ما يُقال عنه.
No one will question that the commission basis for handling an advertising account is illogical and unsatisfactory.
أصحاب الوكالة أنفسهم يعترفون بأن أجر الوكالة المحسوب نسبة من قيمة المساحة المشتراة نظام غير منطقي، لأنه يربط دخلها بالإنفاق لا بالنتيجة.
In other words, the attempt to make a symbol of “Sunny Jim” lessened the advertising for the article which was supposed to be exploited by the symbol.
الشخصية الإعلانية قد تشتهر أكثر من المنتج، فيتذكر الناس الرمز وينسون ما يبيعه.
If advertising ever becomes an exact science, the first thing the scientist will have to do will be to determine the respective merits of advertising that explains and advertising that exclaims.
السؤال الأهم في رأي المؤلفين هو الموازنة بين الإعلان الذي يشرح ويقدم الحجة، والإعلان الذي يلفت الانتباه بالصيحة والشعار.
What it teaches best
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