ADVERTISING is just Salesmanship-on-paper.
It is a means of multiplying the work of the Salesman, who writes it, several thousand-fold.
With the salary paid a single Salesman it is possible, through Advertising, to reach a thousand customers for every one he could have reached orally.
It is also a means of discovering, and developing, new customers where they were not previously known to exist.
These facts are mentioned here because few Business Men have a correct idea of what true Advertising should consist of.
To start with the wrong point-of-view, on an advertising campaign, is to grope, experiment, and speculate, with an appropriation which should have been invested as intelligently as in merchandise.
True Advertising is just Salesmanship multiplied.
When we multiply nothing by ten thousand we still have nothing as a result.
When we multiply a pretty picture, or a catch-phrase, or the mere name of a firm, or article, a thousand times we have comparatively nothing as a result.
But when we multiply one thousand times a good, strong, clearly expressed Reason-Why, a person should buy the article we want to sell, we then have impressed, through advertising, one thousand more people with that reason than if it had been told verbally to one person by the same salesman.
Of course, cold type usually lacks the personal influence of the Salesman and, because of this even Salesmanship-on-Paper needs to be stronger - more convincing and conclusive than Salesmanship need be by word of mouth.
Besides, when we multiply anything a thousand fold, at a large expense for the mechanical process of doing so, it is wisdom to see that the thing to be multiplied is as nearly perfect as we can get it.
Nothing multiplied by one thousand costs just the same for the mechanical expense of multiplying it, but the net result is nothing - less that expense.
This is why so many Advertising Campaigns fail.
Because, the Good Folks who spend their money for Space have no definite idea of what should occupy it.
When we clearly understand that Salesmanship alone should fill it, we all know, in a general way, what that means, though each of us might go about it in a different way.
Salesmanship-on-Paper means convincing Readers that they should buy the article we want to sell.