Printers' Ink, January 1, 1902 (Vol. 38, No. 1)
The first 1902 issue of Printers' Ink, the 66-page Rowell weekly, with an all-type Philadelphia Record advertisement on the cover claiming 185,000 circulation.
What it is
The first 1902 issue of Printers' Ink, the 66-page Rowell weekly, with an all-type Philadelphia Record advertisement on the cover claiming 185,000 circulation. The lead article, "Schools of Advertising", canvasses New York agencies on the new correspondence schools: Artemas Ward of Sapolio calls their teaching worthless, Charles Austin Bates says a hard-working plodder can learn the trade, and the editor advises study, practice and criticism instead of a thirty-dollar course. "The Sentence-Paragraph" praises one-sentence paragraphs. John H. Sinberg reports Philadelphia jewelers' white-space cards and interviews E. St. Elmo Lewis on his evening advertising course at Peirce School. Other pieces cover the Anglo-American "Tobacco War" in Britain, a London writer's case for judging papers by how closely they are read, a reader's challenge to the American Newspaper Directory's circulation ratings, "The Simple Paragraph" against crowded display, and editorial notes on seasonal timing.
Why read it now
Read it for its arguments about copy and measurement. "The Simple Paragraph" says an ad exists to be read, and that crowded display, stale phrases boxed in borders, defeats that. Usability research on how people scan pages supports the same plain structure: one headline, short paragraphs. The London writer who would pay more for 300,000 pro-Boer readers who read every line than for twice as many who skim anticipates today's attention metrics, and his wish that advertisers would trace results by quality of circulation is still the right demand. The editorial that rejects "the time to advertise is all the time" for seasonal goods is half right: modern planning, following Ephron's recency work, keeps a brand present through the year and adds weight at peak demand. What has dated: the tobacco war's patriotic lines and ruinous price cutting, and the dismissal of advertising schools, now that marketing is taught everywhere. Use: take your current ad, strike every phrase a competitor could also print, and rebuild it as one headline and one plain paragraph.
Passages worth keeping
The ads that stand out there are almost invariably paragraphs. They require no display, for they are meant to be read.
الإعلانات التي تبرز في الصحف الكبرى فقرات بسيطة لا زخرفة فيها، لأنها كُتبت لتُقرأ لا لتُزيَّن.
But I will tell you what is a test every time, and that is, the attention with which the paper is read.
المقياس الحقيقي لقيمة الصحيفة للمعلن ليس عدد نسخها فقط، بل مدى الانتباه الذي يقرؤها به جمهورها.
Advertising is a whole, just as life is a whole. You can teach a man arithmetic, but you cannot teach him how to make his salary last a week.
الإعلان حكم متكامل لا قواعد متفرقة، ويمكن تعليم القواعد لكن حسن التقدير في الموقف الحقيقي يأتي بالخبرة.
The best advertiser is he who accurately defines the ebb and flow of demand for his goods, timing his advertising to such purpose that he will take advantage of both.
المعلن الأذكى يعرف متى يرتفع الطلب على سلعته ومتى ينخفض، ويوقّت إعلانه ليستفيد من الحالتين.
A style that translates useless words into fair white space can never be wrong.
كل كلمة زائدة تحذفها تتحول إلى مساحة بيضاء تريح العين، وهذا الأسلوب لا يخطئ.
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
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