A rapid stream ran by the writers boyhood home.
The stream turned a wooden wheel and the wheel ran a mill. Under that primitive
method, all but a fraction of the streams potentiality went to waste.
Then someone applied scientific methods to that stream - put in a turbine and
dynamos. Now, with no more water, no more power, it runs a large manufacturing
plant.
We think of that steam when we see wasted advertising power. And we see it
everywhere - hundreds of examples. Enormous potentialities - millions of
circulation - used to turn a mill wheel. While others use that same power with
manifold effect.
We see countless ads running year after year which we know to be
unprofitable. Men spending five dollars to do what one dollar might do. Men
getting back 30 percent of their cost when they might get 150 percent. And the
facts could be easily proved.
We see wasted space, frivolity, clever conceits, entertainment. Costly pages
filled with palaver which, if employed by a salesman, would reflect on his
sanity. But those ads are always unkeyed. The money is spent blindly, merely to
satisfy some advertising whim.
Not new advertisers only. Many an old advertiser has little or no idea of his
advertising results. The business is growing through many efforts combined, and
advertising is given its share of the credit.
An advertiser of many years standing, spending as high as $700,000 per year,
told the writer he did not know whether his advertising was worth anything or
not. Sometimes he thought that his business would be just as large without it.
The writer replied, "I do know. Your advertising is utterly unprofitable, and
I could prove it to you next week. End an ad with an offer to pay five dollars
to anyone who writes you that he read the ad through. The scarcity of replies
will amaze you."
Think what a confession - that millions of dollars being spent without
knowledge of results. Such a policy applied to all factors in a business would
bring ruin in short order.
You see other ads which you may not like as well. They may seem crowded or
verbose. They are not attractive to you, for you are seeking something to
admire, something to entertain. But you will note that those ads are keyed. The
probability is that out of scores of traced ads the type which you see has paid
the best.
Many other ads which are not keyed now were keyed at the beginning. They are
based on known statistics. They won on a small scale before they ever ran on
large scale. Those advertisers are utilizing their enormous powers in full.
Advertising is prima facie evidence that the man who pays believes that
advertising is good. It has brought great results to others, it must be good for
him. So he takes it like some secret tonic which others have endorsed. If the
business thrives, the tonic gets credit. Otherwise, the failure is due to fate.
That seems almost unbelievable. Even a storekeeper who inserts a
twenty-dollar ad knows whether it pays or not. Every line of a big stores ad is
charged to the proper department. And every inch used must the next day justify
its cost.
Yet most national advertising is done without justification. It is merely
presumed to pay. A little test might show a way to multiply returns.
Such methods, still so prevalent, are not very far from their end. The
advertising men who practice them see the writing on the wall. The time is fast
coming when men who spend money are going to know what they get. Good business
and efficiency will be applied to advertising. Men and methods will be measured
by the known returns, and only competent men can survive.
Only one hour ago an old advertising man said to the writer, "The day for our
type is done. Bunk has lost its power. Sophistry is being displaced by
actuality. And I tremble at the trend."
So do hundreds tremble. Enormous advertising is being done along scientific
lines. Its success is common knowledge. Advertisers along other lines will not
much longer be content.
We who can meet the test welcome these changed conditions. Advertisers will
multiply when they see that advertising can be safe and sure. Small expenditures
made on a guess will grow to big ones on a certainty. Our line of business will
be finer, cleaner, when the gamble is removed. And we shall be prouder of it
when we are judged on merit.
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