Printers' Ink, August 12, 1896 (Vol. 16, No. 7), with The Young Man in Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins
A 64-page issue of Printers' Ink dated August 12, 1896.
What it is
A 64-page issue of Printers' Ink dated August 12, 1896. Page 6 reprints, from the July issue of Fame, Claude C. Hopkins's article "The Young Man in Advertising". Hopkins says the new trade drew thousands of untrained young men who thought advertising meant writing ads. The best-paid advertising men, he says, are business men who know how to create demand without waste, and some have never written an ad; he knows of one who earns three times the manager's salary. He predicts that dry goods ads will become catalogues of bargains, that specialty ads will become plain statements of fact, and that the mere rewriter of given facts will be underpaid. His advice: train in business and selling, not in newspapers or literature. The issue opens with W. W. Pasko's dictionary of advertising terms and also covers a Swift & Co. booklet, advertising buttons, eye-catchers and circus advertising.
Why read it now
The core claim holds up: the job is moving goods, and writing is one tool among several. Hopkins's own career bore it out, since he rose on sales results rather than style, and today's split between strategy, media, data and copy roles shows that a writer who only rewrites a brief is the easiest role to replace, now by software as well. His line that the advertising man's salesmanship can win thousands while the salesman talks to one is the seed of his later definition of advertising as multiplied salesmanship. What has dated: the forecast that ad writing would shrink to lists and plain facts. Brand and emotional work grew instead, and long-run effectiveness data favours it. The advice is also addressed to young men only, which reflects the trade in 1896, not the work. Pasko's glossary at the front is a useful record of terms such as adsmith and booklet. Use: when hiring a junior marketer, test business and sales judgment (what makes this product move, and how would you know) before testing writing.
Passages worth keeping
They saw only the visible part of it, and they considered that advertising consisted in writing ads, and that he who could write could advertise.
المبتدئون رأوا الجزء الظاهر من الإعلان فقط، فظنوا أن من يجيد الكتابة يجيد الإعلان.
They know that ad writing is but a small part of the problem.
أنجح رجال الإعلان يعرفون أن كتابة النص جزء صغير من المهمة، وأن الباقي فهم للسوق والبيع.
An advertising man must first of all be a business man and a salesman.
رجل الإعلان يجب أن يكون قبل كل شيء رجل تجارة وبائعًا، ثم يأتي بعد ذلك أي شيء آخر.
his salesmanship can win thousands while the salesman talks to one.
الإعلان بيع يصل إلى آلاف الناس في الوقت الذي يقنع فيه البائع شخصًا واحدًا.
The advertising of specialties is growing into plain statements of facts.
إعلانات المنتجات المتخصصة تتجه إلى عرض الحقائق بوضوح وبساطة بدل الزخرفة اللغوية.
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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