Masters of Advertising Copy (RLE Marketing)

J. George Frederick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000082951
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

This book collects together pieces by significant figures in American advertising, including George L. Dyer, who at the time of his death left almost no other written record of his point of view. There is a substantial introduction by the editor, which interweaves the history of advertising with the history of the era of American industrial coming-of-age, touching not only on the impact of mass-production, but also the beginnings of corporate social responsibility.

VIII
The Research Basis of Copy

J. GEORGE FREDERICK. Born 1882; was reporter on a newspaper, became department store advertising man and wrote articles on advertising for Printers’ Ink. Went west to become a member of the Lord & Thomas staff during “reason why” propaganda, and edited magazine Judicious Advertising. Came to New York, joined Ben Hampton Agency and later was copy chief for Ward & Gow, subway advertising.

He then became managing editor of Printers’ Ink, when George P. Rowell sold the magazine and the new owners began to develop it. In 1910 he resigned to form the Business Bourse, International, a commercial research organization, of which he is still the head. For several years, he was editor in chief of Advertising and Selling Magazine. He is author of five business books, and many articles in Saturday Evening Post, Review of Reviews, etc.; and is prominent in the New York Sales-managers’ Club, New York Advertising Club, Commercial Standards Council, etc.

VIII
The Research Basis of Copy

By J. George Frederick

FROM the very first modernization of advertising copy—in the work, for instance, of Mr. Powers at John Wanamaker’s in the nineties—information was the keynote. The reputation of Wanamaker advertising, made conspicuous by its proved selling power, was a reputation for telling people the facts. The Wanamaker advertising was a rich education in the lore of merchandise, and the people liked it, because of Mr. Powers’ journalistic genius. For it was actual journalistic genius; the genius of reporting, of a “nose for news” and of making facts interesting. Mr. Powers was not an advertising genius in the sense of being a brilliant salesman or merchandiser, per se. He was an advertising genius in the sense that he demonstrated the selling power of information, as against mere clever plays upon words; and it is no distortion of history to say that Mr. Powers was probably the first modern advertising man. His work created the American department store era, and indirectly he inaugurated also a new era of advertising copy in all lines of business.

This new conception of copy had probably its severest test and most monumental triumph when it was applied to the mail-order field, for Richard Sears, founder of Sears, Roebuck & Co., carried Mr. Powers’ idea to its logical conclusion and built a great institution, which many others have successfully emulated. None of these has ever departed, nor likely will, from the principle that mail-order buyers tend strongly to “sell themselves” if you give them a logically complete battery of information. A good mail-order catalog is a veritable encyclopedia of facts about the goods it advertises. The more information, apparently, the better the returns from mailorder copy.

The building of advertising copy on information advanced into new developments as years went on and as the advertising men gave more and more conscientious attention to all the circumstances and conditions upon which the success of advertising depends. Newspaper, magazine, street-car, poster advertising, to stimulate sales through dealers, had to contend with all the loose links which occur in the chain from manufacturer to consumer; had to contend with distribution and sales organization conditions, questions of package, of prices, competition, sectional differences, dealer states of mind, consumer conditions. These matters require research for finer fractional adjustment to the market and sure success.

The writer of advertising copy has, therefore, gone through a cycle of development in relation to his data requirements before dipping his pen in ink. Once he sought merely to devise adjectives describing the goods, or concoct catch phrases. Then he sought to individualize the goods by specific differences; and later again he sought to attach to it the atmosphere of quality, and used subtle, indirect methods.

Finally an entirely new phase arrived—a merchandising phase—forced upon the attention of advertising men by the failures of many purely general publicity campaigns, or by the brilliant successes of more practical, skilful merchandisers who wrote their copy from a completely new angle—the selling plan. These merchandisers focused the advertising on a coupon; they turned periodical advertising into a mail-order and distribution-making tool; they stressed a new sampling or trial plan, a new sales plan for eliminating sales resistance in the reader’s mind. They made a working tandem of the sales force and the advertising; in short, they virtually made advertising a sales management, field operation, instead of the rather cloistered semi-literary performance it had been.

Once more, therefore, the advertising man changed character,—he had to become more of a merchandising man, with salesmanagement vision and genius. It took ten years to shake out of the advertising field the predominance of mere “word-slingers,” the men without business capacity. Advertising men of to-day are better business men, because the merchandising development in advertising compelled it. More advertising men are in consequence graduating to positions of sales-manager and higher up.

To advertise an article in a terrifically competitive field, in a complicated distribution situation, such as generally exists to-day, is no task for mere literary facility. The copy must be the apex of a solid base of merchandising plan, and it must be consciously written to aid that plan. It must be tailored to fit the campaign. It is for this reason that criticism of advertisements is conceded to be almost impossible without full knowledge of all the facts regarding the campaign and its aims and strategies. Like the iceberg, the visible part of the advertisement is but a small part of the real thing, and the visible part may look very unbalanced to the superficial critic until he sees the whole iceberg—the trade condition, the competitive, the consumer and the strategic situations. It is an absolutely naïve point of view to judge advertising as one would judge a story or a poem.

Conceding, then, the modern need and use of research, before writing advertising, what are the angles of research used, the type of data which a fully modern advertising writer uses?

Data Questions for Advertisers

The need for copy data starts with the first contact with the advertiser and is best exemplified in this preliminary stage by a system of questions for the advertiser to answer. The following series of questions represents perhaps a more elaborate set of data than may be needed in the average case, but it has the merit of being inclusive. It is, of course, for general advertisers, and is most useful for advertising agencies, who can keep it on file systematically to enable different copy writers to have ready access to it.

Nature of business.

Proposition you wish to push (give details as fully as possible).

Description (if some specific article, describe fully).

How long has article been on the market?

How, when and where did the marketing of this product start?

How put up?

Do you sell the wholesaler?

When does he buy?

In what quantity?

Prices and discounts to wholesalers.

Do you sell retailers direct? In what quantity?

When does retailer buy?

Prices and discounts to retailer.

Do you sell consumer direct? In what quantity?

When does consumer buy?

Prices and discounts to consumer?

Do you sell through canvassers?

How do you secure them?

When does canvasser buy?

In what quantity?

Prices and discounts to canvassers?

Do you grant exclusive territory? (If so, give details.)

Do you cooperate in pushing the sale of your goods? (Describe in detail just what you do for wholesaler, retailer, or canvasser.)

Do you employ traveling salesmen? How many?

On whom do your salesmen call?

Give territory goods sell in?

Give sources from which inquiries emanate?

How many inquiries do you receive a year?

What percentage order your goods?

What season is best for your business?

After you get an inquiry, how do you handle it?

Have you ever put out a systematic Direct Advertising Campaign?

How was it handled and of what did it consist? (Give complete details—nature of pieces and the returns in inquiries and orders.)

Do you issue a catalog?

How many times do you follow up an inquiry by mail?

How many letters do you send a prospect? How many circulars?

What postage, one or two cent stamp?

Is article to be advertised Trade Marked? (If so, attach print of Trade Mark.)

How is Trade Mark shown on article?

Is Trade Mark registered?

Are any special inducements or concessions made to wholesaler, retailer, consumer or canvasser? If any, describe them.

Do you give free trial to consumer?

What are conditions of free trial?

Do you offer samples?

If so, how are they distributed?

What competition have you?

Give total annual sales during the past five years.

How much may present sales be increased without interfering with your present manufacturing facilities?

What goods do you manufacture besides those to be directly advertised?

Are they marketed through the same channel as those about to be advertised?

What other lines can be added to advantage?

By what method do you keep record of inquiries, sales, etc., resulting from your advertising?

What mailing lists have you on hand now?

How new are they?

How are they obtained?

How many names do they contain, and what classifications?

What facilities have you for handling the detail work of an advertising campaign, such as office devices, help, etc.?

What advertising literature have you on hand at present?

About what amount would you appropriate for a campaign?

What previous advertising has been done, and average cost per year?

What class of media were used?

What has been the average cost per inquiry?

What has been the average cost per sale?

What is the amount of your average sale?

What is your margin of profit?

What has been the sales history of the product?

(a) with regard to selling plan;

(b) with regard to road men;

(c) with regard to direct selling;

(d) with regard to retail outlets and dealer and jobber policy;

(e) with regard to schemes and special plans;

(f) with regard to analysis of market, class of people, profit, etc.;

(g) with regard to territorial work.

What has been the advertising history of the product?

(a) with regard to the appropriation spent;

(b) with regard to med...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• A Symposium
• Table of Contents
• I Am the Printing Press
• Preface
• Introduction
• Words are the Working Tools
• I. Advertising Copy and the Writer
• II. The Advertising Writer Who Is Bigger Than His Ad
• III. Human Appeals in Copy
• IV. The Underlying Principles of Good Copy
• V. Emotion and Style in Advertising Copy
• VI. Some Lessons I Have Learned in Advertising
• VII. Copy — Good, Bad and Indifferent
• VIII. The Research Basis of Copy
• IX. Axioms of Advertising
• X. Copy First
• XI. Making Advertisements Read
• XII. Copy Dont’s
• XIII. Wanted — By the Dear Public
• XIV. Advertising Copy and the So-Called “Average Woman”
• XV. Believable Advertising
• XVI. Looking at Copy and Looking Into It
• XVII. The Human Side of It
• XVIII. Copy That Is and Isn’t
• XIX. The Sales Power of Good Copy as Demonstrated in Book Advertising
• XX. The Copy Writer’s Work Bench
• XXI. The Psychology of the Printed Work
• XXII. Simplicity in Advertising Copy
• XXIII. What Makes Good Retail Copy
• XXIV. The Art of Visualizing Good Copy
• XXV. Old and New Days in Advertising Copy