Printers' Ink, March 21, 1929 (Vol. 146, No. 12)
A 216-page weekly issue dominated by the row over paid testimonials after Lucky Strike used the sea captain George Fried.
What it is
A 216-page weekly issue dominated by the row over paid testimonials after Lucky Strike used the sea captain George Fried. O. C. Harn of the Audit Bureau of Circulations opens it: he blames competition, not stupidity, for the abuse, rejects policing by publishers or the Better Business Bureau, and asks the agencies' and advertisers' associations to write a code. The piece filed here is Theodore F. MacManus's "This 'Bargain' Buncombe". Drawing on his early job writing a department store's daily page, he says barely 10 percent of the advertised prices were real bargains, that shoppers spot the real ones at once, and that chain and mail-order stores now hold the public's belief that they are cheaper. Other pieces: Roy Dickinson on Coolidge's quiet homecoming as a model for plain copy, frequent cheap mailings beating one costly broadside, and a bank advertising its own district.
Why read it now
MacManus's argument has held up. When every ad calls every price a bargain, the word stops working and shoppers learn to wait for the real ones. Research on reference prices and frequent promotions finds the same: constant deals train buyers to buy only on deal and weaken the regular price. His point that the chains won because people actually believed they were cheaper is the root of modern price-image work, where a store's name for value comes from a few visible prices and a steady policy, not from loud claims. What has dated is his hope that independents could fix this with better copy; the chains' edge was mostly buying power. Harn's testimonial debate ended in a way he did not ask for: regulators now require endorsers to be real users and paid endorsements to be disclosed, and in Saudi Arabia discounts themselves need a Ministry of Commerce licence. Dickinson's case for plain, quiet copy still fits. Use: review a month of your sale posts and cut every "offer" that is really the regular price.
Passages worth keeping
The young reporter quickly discovered that of a solid page full of price-items in the very nature of things not more than 10 per cent were really and truly significant.
في صفحة كاملة من الأسعار المعلنة لم يكن التخفيض الحقيقي إلا في عُشرها تقريبًا، والباقي أسعار عادية قُدمت على أنها صفقات.
Proof that the masses read newspaper advertising? Yes, but proof also that they discriminate
ازدحام المتجر بعد إعلان صفقة حقيقية يثبت أن الناس يقرؤون الإعلانات، ويثبت أيضًا أنهم يميزون الصفقة الحقيقية من المزيفة.
The greatest blessing which can come to any merchant is to have people in the mass actually believe that they will benefit in dollars or cents or quality by buying from him.
أثمن ما يملكه التاجر أن يصدق عموم الناس أن الشراء منه يوفر عليهم مالًا أو يعطيهم جودة أفضل، وهذه القناعة لا تُشترى بالادعاء.
To my mind misuse of testimonials comes primarily from the exigencies of competition and not at all because astute merchandisers have suddenly parted company with their brains.
إساءة استخدام الشهادات سببها سباق المنافسة الذي يجر المعلنين إلى المبالغة، لا أنهم فقدوا عقولهم فجأة.
In a nation full of shouters he was the plain man with the quiet voice.
حين يصرخ الجميع يلفت الانتباه من يتكلم بهدوء ووضوح، وهذا درس للإعلان وسط الضجيج.
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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