must first be seen and read!"

He will also be told that "in the mass of reading matter surrounding your Advertisement your Space must be made more 'attractive' than the rest, in order to be seen and read by the largest possible number."

Now, at first sight this line of talk looks logical enough, but how does it dissect?

Suppose you have a pretty Maud Muller advertisement about your Hay, with a fancy border of Daisies all around it, and a delicate vignette of "the Judge looked back as he climbed the hill!"

You would certainly attract the attention of many more Readers with that advt. than with the bald caption of "Hay delivered, at $8.00 a ton."

But, the man who wants Hay is the only party you can get back the cost of your advertising from, and you can interest him more intensely with the Hay caption than with all the "Maud Muller" kind of advts. in the publication field.

And, you can afford to lose the "attention" of 400,000 Readers who have no use for Hay. if you can clinch sales for your fine hundred loads with the few people who do need it.

Observe that it is not necessary to "attract the attention" of every Reader in a 430,000 circulation, in order to sell 500 loads of Hay. But it is vitally necessary that you convince at least five hundred probable Purchasers that you have the kind of Hay they need, at the price they can afford to pay for it.

If an advertisement, in a circulation of 430,000, costs $60 and we have a profit of $1.00 per load on Hay, we need only sell one load each to sixty people in order to pay expenses.

But, if we "attract the attention" of 80,000 people by our advertisement, and sell only thirty loads of Hay to them, we would then be out $30, and must credit the balance of our Advertising investment to "General Publicity" - to "Keeping-the-Name-beforethe- People" - etc., in the vague hope that some other day these people may perhaps buy

Hay from us, if we then have it to sell.

That mistaken idea of "Attracting the Attention of the greatest number, for a given price," is what costs fortunes to Advertisers annually.

The striving to "Attract Attention" instead of striving to positively Sell Goods is the basis of all Advertising misunderstanding.

So long as "Attracting Attention" remains the aim of Advertisers, so long will the process of attracting it remain in the hands of Advertising Men who affect the Literary and Artistic attitude, rather than the plain, logical, convincing attitude of the Reason- Why Salesman-on-Paper.

And, great are the Advertising Writers' temptations to use "Attractive" copy at the expense of Convincing copy.

Because, great is the temptation to be considered "smart," "bright," "catchy," "Literary," "artistic," "dignified," "High-grade," etc.