Printers' Ink, January 4, 1893 (Volume 8, Number 1), Special New Year's Number
This special New Year's number, edited by John Irving Romer, opens with a San Francisco Examiner cover of sworn circulation figures and counts of ads printed against rival papers.
What it is
This special New Year's number, edited by John Irving Romer, opens with a San Francisco Examiner cover of sworn circulation figures and counts of ads printed against rival papers. Thomas L. James of the Lincoln National Bank explains how a bank's advertising should follow its location and customers, prefers newspapers to circulars, and describes courting women depositors. The centrepiece is "An Advertising Duel": Nathaniel C. Fowler Jr. and Wolstan Dixey each write a three-inch ad for a $3 shoe in Harper's Weekly and criticise each other's. Dixey uses the one-word headline "Shoes" and argues for fitting each ad to its medium; Fowler wants a bolder, indirect headline and a border. Joel Benton argues that style decides whether ads get read and that most are too long. Other pieces include M. Quad's comic Arizona Kicker, a swindler's confession, editorial notes, and the journal's fight with the Post Office.
Why read it now
The duel is the part to read slowly, because the same argument still runs. Dixey's rule that an ad must be seen, felt and remembered, and his case for shaping each ad to the medium and its readers, match the modern rule of building ads for each platform instead of resizing one. Fowler's point that a one-word category headline lets the reader who thinks he needs nothing skip the ad is an early statement of why benefit or curiosity headlines often beat labels, though the answer depends on the medium, as Dixey replies. Benton's claim that most ads are too long is opinion; direct-response testers such as Caples and Ogilvy later reported that long copy often outsells short when readers are interested. The editorial warning against agencies that inflate budgets and pick the wrong media still applies, and the confession of faked sign contracts and sworn circulation shows why advertisers fought for audited figures. Dated: the verse ads, and the bank's view of women as a curious new class. Use: write one ad in two versions for two channels and have a colleague criticise both before either runs.
Passages worth keeping
To be seen is the first duty of an advertisement ; next, to be felt, and, last, to be remembered.
الإعلان يمر بثلاث مراحل: أن يلفت النظر، ثم أن يلمس شعور القارئ، ثم أن يبقى في ذاكرته.
It is difficult to make an advertisement too plain, and it is easy to make it too ornamental.
البساطة نادرًا ما تضر الإعلان، أما الزخرفة الزائدة فتضعفه بسهولة.
The man who thinks he doesn't want shoes isn't liable to read about shoes
من لا يشعر بحاجته إلى المنتج سيتجاوز الإعلان إذا كشف العنوان موضوعه بكلمة واحدة، فالعنوان يجب أن يجذب غير المهتم أيضًا.
Nine-tenths of the advertisements are even now too long, and need a ruthless boiling down
يرى الكاتب أن معظم الإعلانات أطول من اللازم، وأنها تحتاج إلى اختصار صارم.
The temptation that an agency is under to induce an advertiser to make as large an appropriation as possible is great, but to yield is not the wisest nor the most far-sighted policy.
إغراء الوكالة بتضخيم ميزانية العميل كبير، لكن الاستسلام له يجعل العميل يكره الإعلان كله، فتخسره الوكالة على المدى البعيد.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
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