Henry Haxton and Cecil Weatherly

“ It is indeed to the interest of the advertiser, as well as to the interest of the reader, that this independence should be preserved, for the worth of any journal as an advertising medium depends upon its possessing a bona fide circulation among persons who believe it to be a serious and honestly conducted newspaper. All advertisers know that the minor weeklies, which contain nothing but trade puffs, and are scattered broadcast among people who pay nothing for their copies, are absolutely worthless from the advertiser’s point of view. ”

“ When some American editors see fit to print a headline in letters as large as a man’s hand, and to begin half-a-dozen different articles on the first page of a newspaper, continuing one on page 2, another on page 4, and another on page 6, to the bewilderment of the reader, it can hardly be expected that the American advertiser should submit to any very strict code of decorum. ”

“ On the other hand, a great part of the advertisements in a daily newspaper have themselves an interest and utility not less than that possessed by the news. The man who desires to hire a house turns to the classified lists which the newspaper publishes day after day, and servants and employers find one another by the same means. The theatrical announcements are so much a part of the news that even if a journal were not paid for their insertion they could not be altogether omitted without inconvenience to the reader. ”

“ One reason for this is that the advertisements in an American magazine are printed on as good paper, and printed with as great care, as any other part of the contents. There are probably very few among American magazine readers who do not habitually look through the advertising pages, with the certainty that they will be entertained by the beauty of the advertiser’s illustrations and the quaint curtness of his phrases. ”

“ It is not to be supposed, however, that the receipts from the sale of a paper cover all its expenses and that the advertising revenue is all clear profit. The average newspaper reader would be amazed if he knew at how great a cost the day’s news is laid before him. A dignified journal displays no inclination to cry from the housetops the vastness of its expenditure, but from time to time an accident enables the public to obtain information in this connexion. ”

“ There is reason to believe that the English magazine publishers have erred gravely in taking what are known in the trade as “insets,” consisting of separate cards or sheets printed at the advertiser’s cost, and accepted by the publisher at a specific charge for every thousand copies. This system of insetting has the grave inconvenience that the advertiser finds himself compelled to print as many insets as the publisher asserts that he can use. ”

“ In the case of daily papers sold at the minimum price, it is not less obvious that the costliness of news service renders advertising revenue indispensable, for although these less important journals spend less money, the price at which they are supplied to the news agents is very small in proportion to the cost of their production. If, however, this thought be pursued to its logical conclusion, the advertiser must admit that he in turn receives, from those among newspaper readers who purchase his wares, prices sufficiently high to cover the cost of his advertising. ”

“ There are in London alone more than 350 advertising agents, of whom upwards of a hundred are known as men in a considerable way of business. The statements which from time to time find currency in the newspapers with regard to the total amount of money annually spent upon advertising in Great Britain and in the United States are necessarily no better than conjectures, but no detailed statistics are required in order to demonstrate what every reader can plainly see for himself, that advertising has definitely assumed its position as a serious field of commercial enterprise. ”

“ This general trading, which, on the one hand, seriously threatens the small trader, and on the other hand offers greater possibilities of profit to the proportionately small number of persons who can undertake business on so large a scale, becomes infinitely more formidable when the general dealer endeavours not only to attract the trade of a town, but to make his place of business a centre from which he distributes by post his goods to remote parts of the country. ”

“ The most striking difference between the periodical press of Great Britain and that of America is, that in the former country the magazines and reviews play but a secondary rôle, while in the United States the three or four monthlies possessing the largest circulation are of the very first importance as advertising mediums. ”

“ Yet if the owner of a house sees fit to paint advertisements upon his walls, his exercise of the jealously guarded rights of private property may not lightly be disturbed. For the most part, both law and public opinion content themselves with restraining the worst excesses of the advertiser, leaving many sensitive persons to suffer. ”

“ It is reasonable to suppose that as soon as the introduction of currency marked the abandonment of direct relations between purchaser and consumer an informal system of advertisement in turn rose to meet the need of publicity. At first the offer of the producer must have been brought to the trader’s attention, and the trader’s offer to the notice of the consumer, by casual personal contact, supplemented by local rumour. ”

“ Of late The Times, followed by almost all newspapers in the United Kingdom, has given the advertiser as great a degree of liberty as he really needs, and many experienced advertisers in America incline to the belief that the larger licence accorded to American advertisers defeats its own ends. The truth would seem to be that the advertiser will always demand, and may fairly expect, the right to make his space as fantastic in appearance as that allotted to the editor. ”

“ Every advertiser will naturally prefer a right-hand page to a left-hand page, and the right side of the page to the left side of the page; while the advertiser who most indefatigably urges his claims upon the agent will, in the long run, obtain the largest share of the favours to be distributed. To the merchant who inclines to consider advertising in connexion with the broader aspects of his calling, it may be suggested that a new channel of trade demands very serious attention. ”

“ It is possible, by lavish advertising, to go so far in this direction that the trade-mark of a certain manufacturer becomes synonymous with the name of a commodity, so that when the consumer thinks of soap or asks for soap, his concept inevitably couples the maker’s name with the word “soap” itself. In order that the poster may leave any impression upon his mind, it must of course first attract his attention. The assistance which the advertiser receives from the artist in this connexion is discussed in the article Poster. ”

“ In the main, however, it is the advertiser who seeks the reader, not the reader who seeks the advertiser, and the care with which advertisements are prepared, and the certainty with which the success or failure of a trader may be traced to his skill or want of skill as an advertiser, show that the proper use of advertising is one of the most indispensable branches of commercial training. ”

“ The daily, weekly and monthly publications of the day are accustomed to look to advertisements for so large a part of their revenue that the purchaser of a periodical publication receives much greater value for his money than he could reasonably expect from the publisher if the aggregate advertising receipts did not constitute a perpetual subsidy to the publisher. ”

“ Another reason is that the American monthly magazine goes to all parts of the United States, while, owing to the time required for long journeys on even the swiftest trains, no American daily paper can have so general a circulation as The Times in the United Kingdom. In comparison with points on the Pacific coast, Chicago does not seem far from New York, yet, with the exception of one frenzied and altogether unsuccessful attempt, no New York daily has ever attempted to force a circulation in Chicago. ”

“ As the fairs of the middle ages, with the tedious and hazardous journeys they involved, gradually gave place to a more convenient system of trade, the 15th century brought the invention of printing, and led the Way to the modern development of advertising. The Americans, to whom the elaboration of newspaper advertising is primarily due, had but just founded the first English-speaking community in the western hemisphere when the first newspaper was published in England. ”

“ In respect of all these abuses it is a regrettable fact that unpopularity cannot be expected to deter the advertiser. If a name has once been fixed in the memory, it remains there long after the method of its impression has been forgotten, and the purpose of advertisements of the class under discussion is really no more than the fixing of a trade name in the mind. The average man or woman who goes into a shop to buy soap is more or less affected by a vague sense of antagonism towards the seller. ”

“ A trading company, which conducts its operations upon such a scale as this, can afford to spend an almost unlimited sum in advertising throughout the United Kingdom, and even the trader who offers only one specific class of merchandise is beginning to recognize the possibility of appealing to the whole country. ”

“ The most enthusiastic partisan of advertising Poster and sign advertisements.will admit that posters and similar devices are very generally regarded by the public as sources of annoyance. A bold headline or a conspicuous illustration in a newspaper advertisement may for a moment force itself upon the reader’s attention. In the French, and in some English newspapers, where an advertisement is often given the form of an item of news, the reader is distressed by the constant fear of being hoodwinked. ”

“ The business of advertising is of very recent origin if it be regarded as a serious adjunct to other phases of commercial activity. In some rudimentary form the seller’s appeal to the buyer must, however, have accompanied the earliest development of trade. Under conditions of primitive barter, communities were so small that every producer was in immediate personal contact with every consumer. ”

“ The purchaser, who is not asking for a soap he has used before, has some hazy suspicion that the shopkeeper will try to sell, not the article best worth the price, but the article which leaves the largest margin of profit; and the purchaser imagines that he in some measure secures himself against a bad bargain when he exercises his authority by asking for some specific brand or make of the commodity he seeks. ”

“ In connexion with this subject, it may be added that many readers habitually shake loose bills out of a magazine before they begin to turn the pages, and that railway stations, railway carriages and even public streets are thus littered with trampled and muddy advertisements. The old practice of distributing handbills in the streets is dying a natural death, more or less hastened by local by-laws, and when the loose bills in magazines and cheap novels have ceased to exist no one will be the loser. ”

“ The merchant who turns to these pages for practical suggestions concerning the advertising of his own business, can be given no better advice than to betake himself to an established advertising agent of good repute, and be guided by his counsels. ”

“ In America, where the weight of parcels carried by post is limited to 4 ℔., and where the private carrying companies are forced to charge a very much higher rate for carriage from New York to California than for shorter distances, the centralization of trade is necessarily limited; but it is no secret that, at the present moment, persons residing in those parts of the United Kingdom most remote from London habitually avail themselves of the English parcel post, which carries packages up to 11 ℔. ”

“ The gradual growth of markets and their development into periodical fairs, to which merchants from distant places resorted, afforded, until printing was invented, the only means of extended advertisement. ”

“ Small dealers in both countries have complained very bitterly of the competition they suffer from the general dealers and from stores made up of departments which, under one roof, offer to the consumer every imaginable sort of merchandise. ”

“ As the primeval man’s wolfish antipathy to the stranger of another pack gradually diminished, and as intercourse spread the infection of larger desires, the trapper could no longer satisfy his more complicated wants by the mere exchange of his pelts for his lowland neighbour’s corn and oil. ”

“ The best English and American journals have refused to lend themselves to this sort of trickery, and in no one of the best journals printed in the English language will there be found an advertisement which is not so plainly differentiated from news matter that the reader may avoid it if he sees fit to do so. ”

“ Members are recommended to make it known that there exists an active repugnance to the present practice of advertising disfigurement, by giving preference, in private transactions, to makers and dealers who do not employ objectionable methods, and by avoiding, as far as possible, the purchase of wares which, in their individual opinion, are offensively puffed. ”

“ The society aims at protecting the picturesque simplicity of rural and river scenery, and promoting a regard for dignity and propriety of aspect in towns—with especial reference to the abuses of spectacular advertising. ”

“ So that the reader is in the curious position of directly paying a certain price for his newspaper, receiving a newspaper fairly worth more than that price, while this price is supplemented by the indirect incidence of a sort of tax upon many of the commodities he consumes. ”