Advertising Was Once Just a Gamble, But Not Anymore… (Part 4)

We’ve already covered some of the most crucial concepts in advertising so far. 

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! You’re ahead of most people who never take the time to truly understand what makes advertising work.

Now, we’re about to go even deeper.

Being Specific

While advertising, we need to remember that generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. 

They leave no impression. 

One expects a salesman to put his best foot forward and excuses some exaggeration born of enthusiasm. 

But just for that reason, general statements count for little. And a man prone to exaggeration must expect that his every statement will be taken with some caution.  

But a man who makes a specific claim is either telling the truth or a lie. People do not expect an advertiser to lie.  

Specific facts, when stated, have their full weight and effect. The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific.

Let me show you what I mean:

Shaving soaps have long been advertised as “Abundant lather”, “Does not dry on the face”, “Acts quickly,” etc. 

One advertiser had as good a chance as another to impress those claims. 

Then a new maker came into the field. It was a difficult field, every customer had to be taken from someone else. He stated specific facts.

He said, “Multiplies itself in lather 250 times.” “Maintains its creamy fullness for ten minutes on the face.” “The final result of testing and comparing 130 formulas.” 

Perhaps never in advertising, there has been quicker and greater success in an equally difficult field. 

That was definite. It indicated actual tests. That man at once made a sensational advance in his sales.

One statement may take as much room as another, yet a definite statement be many times as effective. 

The difference is vast. If a claim is worth making, make it in the most impressive way. 

When you are talking to millions at enormous cost, the weight of your claims is important. Generality has no weight whatsoever. 

It is like saying “How do you do?” when you have no intention of inquiring about one’s health. 

Specific claims when made in print are taken at their value. All these effects must be studied. 

 Tell Your Full Story 

Whatever claim you use to gain attention, the advertisement should tell a story reasonably complete. If you watch returns, you will find that certain claims appeal far more than others.

Some advertisers for the sake of conciseness present one claim at a time.

Forgetting that, in one reading of an advertisement, one decides for or against a proposition. And that operates against a second reading. 

Once you get a person’s attention, then its time to accomplish all you can ever hope with. 

So present to the reader, once you get him, every important claim you have. 

The best advertisers do that. They learn their appealing claims by tests, comparing results from various headlines. Gradually they accumulate a list of claims important enough to use.

All those claims appear in every ad thereafter.

The advertisements seem monotonous to the men who read them all. A complete story is always the same. But one must consider that the average reader is only once a reader probably. 

And what you fail to tell him in that ad is something he may never know. 

In every ad consider only new customers. They have already read and decided. So never waste one line of your space to say something to present users unless you can say it in headlines.

Any reader of your ad is interested, else he would not be a reader. You are dealing with someone willing to listen. If you lose him now, may never again be a reader.

The most common myth you hear about advertising is that people will not read much. Yet a vast amount of the best-paying advertising shows that people do read much. 

But, whether long or short, an advertising story should be reasonably complete. 

You may simply be trying to change a woman from one breakfast food to another. She is wedded to what she is using. 

You have a hard proposition. If you do not believe it, go to her in person and try to make the change. Not to merely buy a first package to please you, but to adopt your brand. 

A man who once does that at a woman’s door won’t argue for brief advertisements. He will never again say, “A sentence will do,” or boast. 

Nor will the man who traces his results. Note that brief ads are never traced, every traced ad tells a complete story, though it takes columns to tell. 

Never be guided in any way by ads that are untraced. Take the opinion of nobody, the verdict of nobody, who knows nothing about his returns. 

Art In Advertising 

Pictures in advertising are very expensive. From one-third to one-half of an advertising campaign is often staked on the power of the pictures. 

Anything expensive must be effective, or else it involves much waste. 

Pictures should not be used merely because they are interesting. Or to attract attention. Or to decorate an ad. 

We have covered these points elsewhere. Ads are not written to interest, please or amuse.

You are not writing to please. You are writing on a serious subject the subject of money-spending. 

You address a restricted minority and use pictures to attract only those who might profit you. 

Some use large pictures, some use small, and some omit pictures entirely. The fact is that none of them uses expensive artwork. Be sure that all these things are done for reasons made apparent by results.

Any other advertiser should apply the same principles. Or if none exist that apply to his line, he should work out his own by tests. 

The pictures you use should not be odd, people don’t take a clown seriously in business or important matters. 

If you act foolishly or lack credibility, people won’t trust or support you. An odd picture may do you serious damage. One may gain attention by wearing a fool’s cap. But he would ruin his selling prospects.

You cannot afford to do that. Don’t sacrifice the attention that you want, to gain general and useless attention.

The picture must help sell the goods. It should help more than anything else could do in space, else use that something else. 

Many pictures tell a story better than type can do. 

Should every ad have a new picture? Or may a picture be repeated? Both viewpoints have many supporters. The probability is that repetition is a form of saving.

We are after new customers always. It is not probable that they remember a picture we have used before. If they do, repetition does not detract. 

The general rule applies. Do nothing to merely interest, amuse, or attract. Do only that which wins the people you are after in the cheapest possible way. 

Things Too Costly 

Many things are possible in advertising that are too costly to attempt. That is another reason why every project and method should be weighed and determined by a known scale of cost and result. 

Changing people’s habits is a very expensive business. A project which involves that must be seriously considered. 

To sell shaving soap to the peasants of Russia one would first need to change their beard-wearing habits. The cost would be excessive. 

Yet countless advertisers try to do such things that are almost as impossible. 

An advertiser at one time spent much money to educate people about the use of oatmeal. The results were too small to discover. All people know of oatmeal as a food for children, it has age-old fame. Doctors have advised it for many generations. 

People who don’t serve oatmeal are therefore difficult to get started. Perhaps their objections were insurmountable. 

Anyway, the cost proved to be beyond all possible returns. 

Many advertisers know facts like these and agree with them. They would not think of devoting a whole campaign to any such impossible object. 

Yet they devote a share of their space to that object. That is only the same folly on a smaller scale. It is not good business.  

No advertiser could afford to educate people, such things are done by authorities. But great successes have been made by reaching people already educated and satisfying their created wants. 

A soap may tend to cure eczema. It may at the same time improve the complexion. The eczema claim may appeal to one in a hundred while the beauty claims would appeal to nearly all. To even mention the eczema claims might destroy the beauty claim. 

For reasons like these, every new advertiser should seek wise advice. No one with the interests of advertising at heart will advise any dubious venture. 

They should be decided by actual knowledge, usually by traced returns. 

This points out a very important reason for knowing your results. Scientific advertising is impossible without that. So is safe advertising. 

So is maximum profit. 

Talk Soon,