Advertising & Selling Fortnightly, Volume 5 (May to October 1925)
Thirteen issues of the New York trade journal, May 6 to October 21, 1925, bound as one library volume.
What it is
Thirteen issues of the New York trade journal, May 6 to October 21, 1925, bound as one library volume. Frederick C. Kendall edits, with contributing editors such as Robert R. Updegraff, Kenneth M. Goode and G. Lynn Sumner. The articles are practical. Paul T. Cherington shows how cars, roads and electricity were changing the rural market. Sumner writes on the "law of averages" in mail returns, on running several ads in one magazine issue, and on how fast each medium delivers replies. S. H. Giellerup asks readers which ad would make them buy, then checks the answer against sales. W. R. Hotchkin traces sales lost at the store counter. On August 26 Charles Edison attacks the slogan "It pays to advertise"; Earnest Elmo Calkins answers on September 9. Agency and media ads, such as the Joseph Richards "Facts first" survey pitch, fill the rest.
Why read it now
The volume records advertising learning to measure itself, and most of that still holds. Sumner's mail test is the clearest case: a letter that needed a 1.5 per cent return pulled 1.6 per cent on 6000 names, then stayed between 1.4 and 1.8 per cent across 600,000. That is the logic of every scaled test today: prove it small, then roll out. His table of how fast each medium delivers replies is an early version of the lag curves used in attribution. Giellerup found that readers chose first the ad that advertising men ranked last, and it won on sales; the lesson that the audience outjudges the conference room still stands. Calkins gives Edison the right frame: advertising pays when it is done right, like any business. What has dated: asking people what they will buy is weaker than Giellerup hoped, since stated intent often differs from behavior; the keyed-coupon view ignores long-term brand effects; and the market data is 1920s America. Use: before approving a campaign, write down the minimum return that makes it pay, test on a small slice, and decide rollout from the numbers.
Passages worth keeping
The most remarkable thing about people is not that they are so different, but that so many of them are so much alike, so uniform in their actions.
الناس متشابهون في سلوكهم أكثر مما نظن، ولذلك تتكرر النسب نفسها في كل مجموعة كبيرة، وعلى هذا يقوم التنبؤ بنتائج البيع.
the real answer as to whether advertising pays or not is, that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't
يرى إديسون أن الإعلان قد ينفع وقد لا ينفع، وأن الحكم يحتاج إلى دراسة كل حالة بعواملها لا إلى التسليم بشعار.
Advertising pays when it is done right, and business pays when it is done right, and not otherwise.
الإعلان ليس مربحًا بطبيعته ولا خاسرًا بطبيعته؛ هو كالتجارة، يربح حين يُتقن ويخسر حين يُهمل.
The two answers were very different; the advertisement placed first by the public was placed last by the advertising men.
حين سُئل الجمهور وخبراء الإعلان عن أفضل إعلان جاءت الإجابتان متعاكستين، وأثبتت المبيعات أن الجمهور كان على حق.
They do a superb job all the way around the swing; but they don't have their eye on the ball at the point of contact.
المعلنون يتقنون مراحل الحملة كلها ثم يخسرون عند لحظة البيع نفسها، حين يقف المشتري أمام السلعة في المتجر.
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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