CARLYLE compared Mankind to a flock of Sheep.
He said, “Stretch a rope across a country path, about a foot and a half from the ground. Then drive a flock of Sheep over it! When the Bell-wether (or leader) has jumped that elevated rope lower it to the ground and note what happens.”
Every sheep in the flock that follows will jump a foot and a half in the air over that same rope, though it now lies slack on the earth. They follow the Bell-wether blindly, – unreasoningly, – without regard to changed conditions.
They don’t jump for the same reason that the Bell-wether jumped, but because they say another Sheep jumped a given height, at a given spot.
Carlyle’s comparison fits the Advertising situation like a blister. There be flocks of Sheep innumerable in the Advertising field, Neighbour! When Sapolio used the “Spotless Town” jingles (merely to revive mental impressions created by previous logical advertising, the flock of Sheep ran amuck on jingles, regardless of the application to other purposes.
When “Uneeda Biscuit” appeared on the market to fill a colossal waiting demand for a fine-cent package, it was backed by an appropriation the mere volume of which must create a sensation with Retailers (whether it actually sold goods to Consumers or not).
This, in turn, was followed by a brood of inane trade-marks launched on the Advertising field after it and because of it. When “Ivory Soap” Publicity appeared on the scene, with its full pages of pretty pictures, and its Five per cent of Selling Effect, the Sheep concluded that, too, must be “the best ever” in Advertising, so they promptly got in line and leaped the imaginary rope.
Then we had an epidemic of empty catch-phrases, following hard upon “Good Morning! Have you used Pears’ Soap?” This, regardless of the fact that Pears’ much parodied phrase had a foundation of a hundred years in accumulated advertising to tide it over its period of mental aberration.
Where are these false Gods of Advertising today?
“Spotless Town” is off the map, and Hand Sapolio is now being advertised on the good old Reason-Why basis that built House Sapolio. The old-time brood of “Try-a-bita,” “U-want-a” and such other Uneeda chickens has gone home to roost long before the tolling of Curfew bell.
“Uneeda Biscuit” itself, with the millions of trust money behind it, can keep up the Publicity bluff better than it can afford to admit the mistake of starting it.
But there are unwilling admissions of a Change of Heart, in such of their advertisements as “The Food Value of a Soda Cracker,” and other recent “type” copy. Where is that meteor of General Publicity, “the Cremo Cigar,” which one-time flashed across the horizon of Adverising, with its million-dollar outlay for Bill-Board display in Newspaper space?
It, too, has gone into eclipse.
Study the Ivory soap advertising of the present and watch it for the future. You will find in it, month by month, less pointless picture, and more “Reason-Why,” though its Adverising Sponsors will hate to admit the change of attitude their later experience has compelled. Pear’s soap no longer says “Good Morning,” nor quotes, in place of it, any other catch-phrase. Yet, their once famous line is enshrined forever in the minds of old Fogy Advertising Men, who swear by the Pear’s catch-phrase but who never buy Pears’ Soap as a result of it.
Meantime such Stars in the firmament of General Publicity, have lighted the way to ruin for a few dozen flocks of Sheep who thought they were following reliable “Bell-wethers” when they were only following Fads.
And, every new Fad, started in a large way by any big Advertiser (who has money enough to burn a big Bluff, and pride enough to sustain that Bluff till he can quietly change his play), will be applauded, copied, and “advised” by those who do not themselves understand the Compass, and so must follow the lead of others as incapable as themselves.
But, “is there,” you ask, “any reliable Compass by which an Advertiser’s barque may be safely steered to success?” There is, Reader, a Guide practically as reliable to the Advertiser as is the Compass to the Mariner.
Its guidance in not based upon mere Opinion, nor on Guess-work, nor on blind following of the Blind. It is based upon carefully tabulated Results derived from Actual Tests made with different kinds of copy, in different mediums, compared year after year on scores of different Advertising propositions.
By this means the exact earning power of each piece of Copy, may be told by the number of Inquiries it produced for a given cost, and the number of direct Sales that resulted from the Inquiries.
Not only this, but the relative earning power of each publication is thereby accurately revealed by the Cost of Inquiries and Sales, through each particular medium in which the same copy is run, without regard to mere circulation claims.
The results from any one Mail-Order account using a given kind of copy, might only indicate the effectiveness of that kind of copy for that particular article.
This would afford no conclusive evidence as to how that kind of copy might work with a different sort of Mail-Order proposition, or in General Advertising. But, when a given kind of copy produces almost a uniform kind of Result for different Mail-Order accounts, and does it consistently for years, it means something definite and indisputable to Advertisers.
And, when the same kind of Copy is tried out in General Advertising, for goods sold through Retailers, with the same consistent sort of Result (judged by Records of
Comparative Sales in different, but equivalent territory), it, too, proves something definite and conclusive that Advertisers cannot afford to ignore, not matter how partial they may be to their own pet fads in Advertising or to friends in the Advertising business.
- Next chapter
- Chapter VI “Fortunes Wasted in following Will-o’-the-Wisps”
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- Chapter IV “Let There be Light”
