Printers' Ink, January 1, 1896 (Vol. 14, No. 1)
The New Year's Day 1896 issue of Printers' Ink, a 72-page weekly "journal for advertisers" published by Geo. P. Rowell & Co., with George Kissam's street-car advertising on the cover.
What it is
The New Year's Day 1896 issue of Printers' Ink, a 72-page weekly "journal for advertisers" published by Geo. P. Rowell & Co., with George Kissam's street-car advertising on the cover. George J. Manson surveys New York's four dramatic papers and who advertises in each. John Chester argues that every advertisement needs editing and a proof; Joel Benton defends the teaching of advertising; John C. Graham reports a plan by Chicago dry-goods houses to own a one-cent daily and cut their own rates. The issue follows up the Printers' Ink Vase contest won by Charles F. Jones of Marshall Field, with Wolstan Dixey's runner-up and a profile of Charles J. Zingg. The editorial page prints the journal's own 1895 run, an average of 21,913 copies, and the San Francisco Examiner's fight over a rival's circulation claim. Charles Austin Bates's Department of Criticism takes apart a Kimball piano catalogue.
Why read it now
Read it for three arguments that have not aged. Bates quotes a 100-word Kimball sentence that nobody could paraphrase and concludes that grand, vague language may impress but does not sell. Plain-language research has backed that ever since, and his rule that a catalogue should work without a salesman beside it now applies to every landing page and sales deck. Chester's test, never print a claim you would not believe in someone else's advertisement, is a usable edit check. The circulation fights, a publisher printing its own run and the Examiner daring a rival to open its books, are the ancestors of audited reach and of today's arguments over platform-reported views. What has dated: street cars, contest vases and dry-goods syndicates, and the open self-promotion, since Rowell's firm publishes the journal and advertises its own agency on the back page. Use: take your longest product sentence, ask a colleague to say what it means in ten seconds, and rewrite until they can.
Passages worth keeping
It is not wise to put into your ad any statement which you would not believe yourself if you saw it elsewhere.
قبل نشر أي ادعاء اسأل نفسك: هل كنت ستصدقه لو قرأته في إعلان شخص آخر؟ إن كان الجواب لا فاحذفه.
The plainer you can make a statement in advertising, the better you make it. Whenever you use an involved sentence, you are lessening your chances of making a sale.
كلما كانت العبارة أوضح كانت أقوى، وكل جملة معقدة تقلل فرصة البيع لأن القارئ يضيع قبل أن يصل إلى المعنى.
A catalogue ought to be a salesman. It ought to tell a complete story in a convincing way.
الكتالوج الجيد يبيع وحده، فيروي القصة كاملة ومقنعة دون أن يحتاج إلى بائع يشرح ما فيه.
The circulation of a newspaper is expressed by the number of complete copies printed. What is done with the completed copies has a bearing only in fixing the value or character of the circulation.
حجم توزيع الصحيفة هو عدد النسخ الكاملة المطبوعة، أما مصير هذه النسخ فيحدد قيمة التوزيع ونوعه لا حجمه.
Make your store look busy. Do anything in your power to get the name of being a busy store, because business attracts business.
المتجر المزدحم يجذب زبائن أكثر، لأن الناس يميلون إلى الشراء من المكان الذي يبدو ناجحًا ومقصودًا.
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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