Advertising should be judged only by the goods it is conclusively known to sell, at a given cost.
Mere Opinions on Advertising Copy should be excluded from consideration. Because opinions on Advertising are conflicting as opinions on Religion.
Forty per cent of all the people in the world are Buddhists, and are of the Opinion that Buddhism is the only true religion.
Twelve per cent of the world's people being Roman Catholics, are firm in the Opinion that the remaining 88 per cent are wrong, and sure of damnation accordingly.
Eight per cent of the world's people being Protestants believe that both the Buddhists and Catholics, and all others, are deplorably ignorant of the only true faith, which of course must be their own particular sect of Protestantism.
And, neither Buddhist, Catholic, nor Protestant, can convince the 2 per cent of Jews that their opinion is wrong and should be changed.
This is a side-light on the inconsistency of mere Opinion.
Religion must continue in the realm of Opinion, because no one can decide which Creed is right, and which wrong, till he dies and finds out the facts for himself. And no mere man who died has ever come back to Earth to settle the dispute.
But, it is different with Advertising, as it is with Mechanics or with Medicine, all three of which can be conclusively tested.
Many Advertisers, however, seem satisfied to spend their money on mere
Opinions about Advertising when they might have invested it on Evidence about Advertising.
These are the Advertisers whose business must die before they can be convinced that "General Publicity" (merely "Keeping-the-Name-before-the-People") is wrong and "Salesmanship-on-paper" right.
They blindly gamble in Advertising when they might have safely invested in it. If they were to buy any other kind of Service, except Advertising, they would demand tangible proof of its efficacy before they spent much money on it.
If they hired a Salesman, for instance, they would expect him to prove he was earning his salary by making a satisfactory Record on Sales.
They would not accept, for long, statements from him that he was "Making a General Impression on the Trade" for his salary.
Nor would they be satisfied with the statement that he was "Keeping-the-Namebefore- the-People" profitably enough to compensate for lack of Sales.