Printers' Ink, January 7, 1891 (Vol. 4, No. 1), Special New Year's Number
The special New Year's number that opened the fourth volume of Printers' Ink, 80 pages with an announced run of 59,000 copies.
What it is
The special New Year's number that opened the fourth volume of Printers' Ink, 80 pages with an announced run of 59,000 copies. The cover is an N. W. Ayer & Son ad comparing the businessman who waits for trade to a brave hoping the Ghost Dance will bring back easy hunting. Inside are signed essays by working advertisers: H. C. Brown on pictures in advertising; a profile of Artemas Ward of Sapolio and his piece on the shift from rural to urban America (4 per cent in cities in 1780, 25 per cent in 1890); William Henry Baker on writing from the reader's side, quoting John E. Powers; George R. Kennedy's four-point creed of simplicity; O. J. Gude on starting small and testing; W. W. Pasko on readable type; Powers on the business primer; and pieces on theatrical ads, maps and directories nobody reads, and free sample copies.
Why read it now
This issue is a fair cross-section of how advertising men argued in 1891, and much of it still applies. Baker and Kennedy both say write for the buyer, in the buyer's words, and ignore what rival writers think; Powers adds that plain, true copy with a little humour beats shop exaggeration. Research on processing fluency and plain-language testing agrees, and it is the most useful lesson here. Gude's method, put a limited amount into a small territory, watch the result, and reinvest only what the public pays back, is the test-and-scale routine of paid media today. The claim that free-circulation media are worth a fraction of paid ones is rougher; targeted free distribution can work. Ward's urbanisation argument fits the Gulf, where most people live in a few large cities. Dated parts: blanket faith in newspapers, and Kennedy's advice never to revise a first draft. To use it, take one live ad, rewrite it in the words your buyers use in the store or on WhatsApp, and test it against the current version in one small market.
Passages worth keeping
He doesn't know how to write from the reader's point of view.
مشكلة التاجر حين يكتب إعلانه أنه يكتب من زاويته هو، لا من زاوية القارئ الذي سيشتري.
Throw away altogether shop emphasis and shop exaggeration. Let it be tame and commonplace, but true and with a touch of humor now and then.
اترك مبالغات المتاجر وتضخيمها، واكتب بلغة عادية هادئة لكنها صادقة، مع شيء من الدعابة أحيانًا.
An advertisement ought not to try to do much more than get the reader's attention and respect.
مهمة الإعلان أن يكسب انتباه القارئ واحترامه، أما التفاصيل فمكانها الكتيب الذي يطلبه القارئ بعد ذلك.
Forget that there are other merchants within a thousand miles of you, or a writer within ten thousand, and write for the people alone whom you want as regular buyers at your store.
انسَ التجار المنافسين والكتّاب الآخرين، واكتب فقط للناس الذين تريدهم زبائن دائمين في متجرك.
Watch carefully the effect of your investment. If good results come from it, you are not far from the right track. If results do not come, seek the reason.
راقب أثر كل مبلغ تنفقه، فإن جاءت النتيجة فأنت على الطريق، وإن لم تأتِ فابحث عن السبب قبل أن تنفق المزيد.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.