Printers' Ink, May 1, 1919 (Vol. 107, No. 5)
A 168-page weekly issue.
What it is
A 168-page weekly issue. The piece filed here is Charles Austin Bates's memoir "Powers and the Beginnings of Advertisement Writing", written just after John E. Powers died. Bates recalls hearing around 1888 that Wanamaker paid a copywriter $10,000 a year, Powers's plain ads for Beecham's Pills, Murphy Varnishes and Macbeth's Lamp Chimneys, $15 paid for a short ad on a stationery box lid, and $100 a day for Scott's Emulsion copy. He ranks the first professionals as Powers, then Nat Fowler, Wolstan Dixey and E. A. Wheatley, credits Powers with honesty in advertising and George P. Rowell with system, and ends that understatement sells more than exaggeration. Also in the issue: Bruce Bliven on how firms learn late that customers are drifting away, a former city editor judging ads by news value, a copy chief's idea file, an Army recruiting booth, and a museum advertising a triceratops.
Why read it now
Bates's case for honesty is commercial, not moral: it spread because "it pays". Modern evidence mostly agrees. Readers discount obvious exaggeration, and a claim that proves false costs more in trust and repeat purchase than it gained in first sales. Understatement helps most where buyers have been burned before, which describes much of Gulf e-commerce today. The limits: this is a memoir, not a study, and the editors correct Bates's memory in a footnote. Plain copy is not weak copy; Powers's ads were plain but specific, and the specifics did the work. Bates's admission that he served clients rather than consumers is the useful warning in the piece. Bliven's article anticipates customer-feedback systems: bosses hear good news, and losses show up late. The city editor's test still works: would an editor print this ad as news? Use: rewrite your strongest claim at half its current strength with one checkable fact, and test it against the original.
Passages worth keeping
not because we are inherently virtuous, but because we have found that it pays.
المعلنون لم يلتزموا الصدق لأنهم أفضل أخلاقًا، بل لأن التجربة أثبتت أن الإعلان الصادق يربح أكثر.
I wanted to give my clients profitable service, but I fear I did not sufficiently consider the ultimate consumer. I believe Powers always did.
الكاتب يعترف بأنه فكر في ربح عملائه أكثر من مصلحة المشتري، بينما كان باورز يضع المشتري أولًا، وهذا ما جعله مؤسس المهنة.
Under-statement, in the long run, makes more sales than exaggeration.
الوصف الأقل من الحقيقة يبني ثقة تبيع على المدى الطويل أكثر مما تبيعه المبالغة.
It is perfectly possible for a business to start “slipping” in the estimation of the public, and continue to do so for a long time before the heads of the business hear about it.
قد تفقد الشركة مكانتها عند الناس مدة طويلة قبل أن يصل الخبر إلى إدارتها، لأن من حول المدير ينقلون له الأخبار السارة فقط.
They stop me, make me look and read, because they have news value.
الإعلان الذي يوقف القارئ هو الذي يحمل قيمة الخبر، أي شيئًا جديدًا أو إنسانيًا أو غير مألوف.
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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