Advertising Information

An ad-writer, to have a chance at success, must gain full information on
his subject. The library of an advertising agency should have books on
every line that calls for research. A painstaking advertising man will
often read for weeks on some problem which comes up.

Perhaps in many volumes he will find few facts to use. But some one fact
may be the keynote of success.

This writer has just completed an enormous amount of reading, medical
and otherwise, on coffee. This to advertise a coffee without caffeine.
One scientific article out of a thousand perused gave the keynote for
that campaign. It was the fact that caffeine stimulation comes two hours
after drinking. So the immediate bracing effects which people seek from
coffee do not come from the caffeine. Removing caffeine does not remove
the kick. It does not modify coffee’s delights, for caffeine is
tasteless and odorless.

Caffeineless coffee has been advertised for years. People regarded it
like near-beer. Only through weeks of reading did we find the way to put
it in another light.

To advertise a tooth paste this writer has also read many volumes of
scientific matter dry as dust. But in the middle of one volume he found
the idea which has helped make millions for that tooth paste maker. And
has made this campaign one of the sensations of advertising.

Genius is the art of taking pains. The advertising man who spares the
midnight oil will never get very far.

Before advertising a food product, 130 men were employed for weeks to
interview all classes of consumers.

On another line, letters were sent to 12,000 physicians. Questionnaires
are often mailed to tens of thousands of men and women to get the
viewpoint of consumers.

A $25,000-a-year man, before advertising outfits for acetylene gas,
spent weeks in going from farm to farm. Another man did that on a
tractor.

Before advertising a shaving cream, one thousand men were asked to state
what they most desired in shaving soap.

Called on to advertise pork and beans, a canvass was made of some
thousands of homes. Theretofore all pork and bean advertising had been
based on “Buy my brand.” That canvass showed that only 4 per cent of the
people used any canned pork and beans. Ninety-six per cent baked their
beans at home.

The problem was not to sell a particular brand. Any such attempt
appealed to only 4 per cent. The right appeal was to win the people away
from home-baked beans. That advertising which, without that knowledge
must have failed, proved a great success.

A canvass is made, not only of homes, but of dealers. Competition is
measured up.

Every advertiser of a similar product is written for his literature and
claims. Thus we start with exact information on all that our rivals are
doing.

Clipping bureaus are patronized, so that everything printed on our
subject comes to the man who writes ads.

Every comment which comes from consumers or dealers goes to this man’s
desk.

It is often necessary in a line to learn the total expenditure. We must
learn what a user spends a year, else we shall not know if users are
worth the cost of getting.

We must learn the total consumption, else we may overspend.

We must learn the percentage of readers to whom our product appeals. We
must often gather this data on classes. The percentage may differ on
farms and in cities. The cost of advertising largely depends on the
percentage of waste circulation.

Thus an advertising campaign is usually preceded by a very large volume
of data. Even an experimental campaign, for effective experiments cost a
great deal of work and time.

Often chemists are employed to prove or disprove doubtful claims. An
advertiser, in all good faith, makes an impressive assertion. If it is
true, it will form a big factor in advertising. If untrue, it may prove
a boomerang. And it may bar our ads from good mediums. It is remarkable
how often a maker proves wrong on assertions he has made for years.

Impressive claims are made far more impressive by making them exact. So
many experiments are often made to get the actual figures. For instance,
a certain drink is known to have a large food value. That simple
assertion is not very convincing. So we send the drink to a laboratory
and find that its food value is 425 calories per pint. One pint is equal
to six eggs in calories of nutriment. That claim makes a great
impression.

In every line involving scientific details a censor is appointed. The
ad-writer, however well-informed, may draw wrong inferences from facts.
So an authority passes on every advertisement.

The uninformed would be staggered to know the amount of work involved in
a single ad. Weeks of work sometimes. The ad seems so simple, and it
must be simple to appeal to simple people. But back of that ad may lie
reams of data, volumes of information, months of research.

So this is no lazy man’s field.

This Chapter of Scientific Advertising was brought to you by
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© Copyright 2009, Laid Off and Laughing