Printers' Ink, November 8, 1928 (Vol. 145, No. 6), with Where Are We Going in Advertising? by Raymond Rubicam
A weekly issue of Printers' Ink dated 8 November 1928.
What it is
A weekly issue of Printers' Ink dated 8 November 1928. The filed article is Raymond Rubicam's address to the Association of National Advertisers at Atlantic City, "Where Are We Going in Advertising?". His points: business now trusts advertising, so agencies must earn professional standing and fight complacency; an agency needs one hard-boiled skeptic for every four optimists; no ad can save a product that has fallen behind; research should feed copy, but only better writers improve it; there is no formula, and special copy for special groups often beats one style for all. The issue also carries Bernard Lichtenberg on testing copy by results rather than opinions, Louis Cottin against "whipped cream" charm copy, a review of how Haldeman-Julius sold 100 million Little Blue Books partly by retitling them, the American Pulley money-back trial, and M. L. Wilson's 100 points for salesmen.
Why read it now
Rubicam's main claims hold. His warning that strong advertising cannot rescue a product that has fallen behind its market is standard practice now. The skeptic ratio is a joke with a real point: idea generation needs a filter. "Special copy for special groups" is what targeted digital ads do, and he adds the right caveat that some products are best sold with one idea for everyone. His line that research informs copy but cannot write it still stands. The strongest evidence in the issue is Lichtenberg's: 200 salesmen who follow up the Institute's ads could not rank ten tested ads by cost per order. Modern A/B testing keeps showing the same thing: people are poor at predicting which ad will win. The Little Blue Books retitling figures (Casanova rose from 8,000 to 22,000 copies a year) read like an early split test, but nothing else was controlled. Cottin's point that copy competes with stories full of action is still useful for feeds. Use: before a launch, run a small paid split test instead of polling the team.
Passages worth keeping
every advertising agency should have in its organization one good, hard-boiled skeptic for every four optimists.
الفريق المبدع يحتاج شخصًا يفحص الأفكار بصرامة، فالمتفائلون يولدون الأفكار والمتشكك يسقط الضعيف منها.
Mr. Kettering’s suggestion for better copy is more research. Mine would be better writers.
البحث يمد الكاتب بالمعلومات، لكن جودة الإعلان تأتي من كاتب أمهر لا من بحث أكثر.
Individuality being the essence of advertising, no copy style can be used for too many products and remain fully effective.
الإعلان يقوم على التميز، فإذا استُعمل الأسلوب نفسه لمنتجات كثيرة فقد أثره.
All these men are acquainted with the Institute’s advertising but not one of them was able to rank the ten correctly.
حتى المندوبون الذين يعرفون إعلانات الشركة جيدًا لم يستطع أحد منهم أن يتوقع أي الإعلانات حقق نتائج أفضل، فالرأي لا يغني عن الاختبار.
An important secret of successful titling is to be imperative, to insist in the very name of the book that the reader should have it
العنوان الناجح يخبر القارئ صراحة أنه يحتاج هذا الكتاب، بدل أن يكتفي بوصف موضوعه.
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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