The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1916)

44 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD CONVENTION OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TALKING MACHINE JOBBERS— (Continued from page 43) buy five or six inches of space, single or double column. To get such ads. read, in other words to make people see them, is quite a healthy job. It is easier to overlook a mole hill than a mountain, and similarly it is easier to overlook a small ad. on a crowded page than it is to overlook a big one. So the right sort of typographical make up is doubly necessary for the use of small space. You must realize that every newspaper advertiser has the same tools to work with as every other advertiser; namely — type, ink, paper — and brains. All the different effects are gained by the same means under the limitations which are imposed by the mechanical processes of printing, and here is the essential fact. Almost the only chance for the small ad. is that it shall be different in appearance from the other ads. which surround it. Generally speaking, you will find that one of the best ways to make an ad. look "different" from the other fellow's is by cutting down your copy to one-half its usual length, and then I would suggest that you throw out one-half of what is left. Brevity is the thing to strive for, but not, of course, at the expense of sense. You must use enough words to make your message intelligible, but don't let even one unnecessary word creep in. Actually — when it comes to making your ads. stand out from all the rest, no one can help you very much at long range. It is eminently a job for the man on the spot. No one else is familiar enough with the appearance of the pages of a certain newspaper in a certain town. But— If you can't buy space enough to dominate the page you must — if your advertisement is to be read — make it "different" from the rest, and attractively different. Very well! The first and simplest way of making one ad. different from those which surround it is — naturally— by getting a contrast. I have said already, that most advertisers try to say too much. Obviously then, if you buy five inches, double column, and limit your copy to ten words, your ad. will be "different." That's one way. Of course, no one can say much in ten words, and I don't mean to seriously suggest that you should actually confine your copy in any such way. The point that I do wish to make, and make very strongly, is — that since the majority of people are averse to buying space and leaving it blank, that you, if you have courage enough to use lots of white space, will find that your advertisement does stand out from among the others. Next — if the advertisers of your town, generally speaking, have a tendency to use bold, black type so that the characteristic look of the page is black and heavy, you can make your advertisement look "different" by using a light silvery looking type which carries little ink. You will again get a contrast, and that contrast is the thing which catches the eye of the casual observer. Again, it can be done with cuts. Two artists will make a sketch of the same thing, but just as likely as not, they will make two entirely different looking sketches, because each one of them may use a different kind of pen stroke and each ma)' express black and white values in a different way. Franklin Booth's black and white sketches are totally different in character from those of Call or Paus, and it is quite possible to get sketches and cuts which have a strong touch of individuality all of their own. Here again, you see it would be possible to make your ads. catch the eye more quickly than if you used just the ordinary kind of cut. While I am on the subject of cuts, let me say that in my experience it is better to use no cuts, than to use poor ones. If you ever use a picture of any sort, be dead sure that it tells the story you want to tell, and suggests what you want to suggest. What's more, be sure that it does that unmistakably. It doesn't do any good to publish pretty pictures unless these pictures make the observer think along the lines that you want him to think. When you can do that — do it, by all means, for the quickest and most vivid impressions that can be carried to the human brain, are those that can be carried through the human eye. Another point to be considered in picture ads. or in the use of cuts, is this: Can you assume that everybody is interested in your advertisements? You can assume nothing of the sort. A type ad. has got to be read, or it will L. C. Wiswell and A. A. Trostler Getting the Air on the Hotel Traymore Balcony do you no good; whereas, a picture ad. only has to be glanced at. And so, other things being equal, the picture ad. is best. How much time does the average reader spend in reading advertisements? How much time do you? And you* being an advertiser yourself, probably spend twice as much time as the non-advertiser does. What happens is this. A man buys a paper to find out the news of the day. In turning over the pages he can't very well shut out the ads. entirely, but his eye only skims them over, and it is up to you to shoot the big idea into that casual reader's mind if you can. That's why the pic Starting Out to Give the Boardwalk the "O. O." ture ad. has so much drawing power and why brevity is so very necessary. I have dealt so far only with the question of how you can get attention for your advertisement. Volumes, of course, could be written as to the kind of copy you should use, but for the present I shall content myself with showing you some examples of ads. which were made over into better ones. I want to remind you that in making over these ads. I was careful to use the same borders, and as a general thing, the same type as were used in the originals. Personally, I should not care to use some of them myself, but I wanted to show that understanding the principles involved would improve the results. Here is an original advertisement published by a Victor dealer. I think you will agree with me that first it is a fairly good ad. for grand opera, but a comparatively poor one for the Victrola. Second: there are too many facts presented, and whenever that is the case, each one fact loses much of its value. There is no one suggestion which stands out prominently enough. I contend that the thing which should have been played up is the fact that grand opera is always available to people when they have a Victrola. In the made over ad. you will notice, too, that while we used the same cut, we changed the character of it. The reason for doing so is that broken lines, because of their incompleteness, attract the eye, especially in a newspaper page where the make up of the paper demands straight lines. Here are two more. The border used seems to me to be weak and meaningless, but I kept to the rules of the game, and used the same border in my own reconstructed ad. You will notice this original announces "A New Stock of Victor Records." Now that, of course, may be a matter of pride for the dealer, and in a way it is a matter of interest to the customer, but the thing to do is to emphasize what this new stock of records will mean to the customer in musical entertainment for him. Customers are not interested in a dealer's stock as such, but they are interested in what that stock represents to them. The next original advertisement is good if you read the whole ad., but until you do that, you would have no possible idea that its purpose was to advertise the Victrola. The word "Victrola" is not played up anywhere, and you must flash that word "Victrola" at people. People who read advertisements are divided into two classes. One — the larger class — has no interest in an ad. except in a purely casual way, and then it is a question of catching his interest on the fly. There is another smaller class of readers who are interested. When a man has got the Victrola "bug" in his system, he will read anything about it, but it is much safer in preparing advertising copy to figure that most people have no very specific interest. The word "to-morrow," the price and the dealer's name don't suggest anything of what the customer can enjoy through having a Victrola. Here in this reconstructed advertisement, you will see that with very little change as to copy and only slight changes as to typographical make up, the ad. has been made more effective, as a Victor ad. Here is one more sample. It is a sort of trick advertisement that I personally condemn. The man who prepared it had ingenuity, but it was misdirected. Think for a minute — when you start out to write an acrostic you have to make the words you use fit the acrostic rather than the idea you want to convey. That is obviously wrong. These are all the examples I have prepared. No one, of course, can do much with so big a subject in so short a paper, but I want in conclusion to say a word or so about quality. If you will show me the printed matter a man uses, I can tell you just about what sort of man he is. Doesn't that sound like a piece of idle presumption? It isn't. I can show you that it isn't in a moment. You can do the same thing. Haven't you often seen a bill head, a letter head or an advertisement that irresistibly brought to your mind a picture of a country grocery? And on the other hand, doesn't Tiffany stationery suggest Fifth avenue? Yes — and there are all manner of modifications in between. There is such a thing as a "quality look" in printed matter, and my advice to you is to get it — for you are handling a "quality" product that ranks with the great masterpieces of art or literature. Together — with the Victrola — we are doing for music what the printing press did for literature. There is a line of Omar Khayyam which reads : One wonders what the Vintners buy One-half so precious as the thing they sell. Those lines are no les« applicable to the Victor