Herbert Kaufman

“ Trade grows as reputation grows and advertising spreads reputation.
If you are engaged in a line which is waiting for an advertising pioneer, realize what a wonderful chance you have of being the first of your kind to appeal directly to the public. You stand a better chance of leadership than those who have handicapped their strength, by permitting you to get on the ground before they could outstrip you. You gain a prestige that those who follow you, must spend more money to counteract. ”

“ Every dollar spent in advertising is not only a seed dollar which produces a profit for the merchant, but is actually retained by him even after he has paid it to the publisher.
Advertising creates a good will equal to the cost of the publicity.
Advertising really costs nothing. While it uses funds it does not use them up. It helps the founder of a business to grow rich and then keeps his business alive after his death. ”

“ The news columns tell you what you can expect out of the advertising columns. A newspaper always finds the class of readers to which it is edited. When its mental tone is low and its moral tone is careless depend upon it—the readers match the medium.
No gun can hit a target outside of its range. No newspaper can aim its policy in one direction and score in another. No advertiser can find a different class of men and women than the publisher has found for himself. He is judged by the company he keeps. If he lies down with dogs he will arise with fleas. ”

“ Advertising is breeding new giants every year and making them more powerful every hour. Publicity is the sustaining food of a powerful store and the only strengthening nourishment for a weak one. The retailer who delays his entry into advertising must pay the penalty of his procrastination by facing more giant competitors as each month of opportunity slips by. ”

“ Every time he influences a customer of a competitor he is not only irrigating 59–60his own field but is diverting the streams upon which a non-advertising merchant depends for existence. Men and women who live next door to a shop that does not plead for their custom will eventually be drawn to an establishment miles away because they have been made to believe in some advantage to be gained thereby.
The circulation of every daily is nothing less than a reservoir of buyers, from which shoppers stream in the direction that promises the most value for the least money. ”

“ The advertiser who does not let a day slip by without having his say, is bound to be heard and have his influence felt. Every insertion of copy brings stronger returns, because it has the benefit of what has been said before, until the public's attention is like an eye that has been so repeatedly struck, that the least touch of suggestion will feel like a blow. ”

“ The newspaper which outlives the rest does so because it was best fitted to—it had to earn the confidence of its readers—and keep it. It had to be a better newspaper than any other and better newspapers go to the homes of better buyers. Every bit of its circulation has the element of quality and staying power. And it is the respectable, home-loving element of every community—not the touts and the gamblers—toward which the merchant must look for his business vertebrae—he cannot find buyers unless he uses the newspaper that enters their homes. ”

“ The public does not want to know the man who owns the store—it isn't interested in him but in his goods. When an unadvertised business is sold it is only worth as much as its stock of goods and its fixtures. There is no good will to be paid for—it does not exist—it has not been created. The name over the door means nothing except to the limited stream of people from the immediate neighborhood, any of whom could tell you more about some store ten miles away which has regularly delivered its shop news to their breakfast table. ”

“ If two newspapers offer you their columns and one shows a distribution almost entirely within the city and in towns that rely upon your city for buying facilities, your business can digest all of its influence. If the other has as much circulation, but only one third of it is in local territory, mere bulk cannot establish its value to you—it's another case of the big steak—you pay for more than you can digest. That part of its influence which is concentrated where men and women can't get your goods after you get their attention, is sheer waste. ”

“ Newspaper advertising is to business, what hands are to a clock. It is a direct and certain means of letting the public know what you are doing. In these days of intense and vigilant commercial contest, a dealer who does not advertise is like a clock that has no hands. He has no way of recording his movements. He can no more expect a twentieth century success with nineteenth century methods, than he can wear the same sized shoes as a man, which fitted him in his boyhood. ”

“ Unless you take the lesson to heart, unless you realize the importance of advertising, not only as a means of extending your business but for defending it as well, you must be prepared to face the consequences of a folly as great as that of a duelist who expects to survive in a contest in which his adversary bears a sword twice the length of his own. ”

“ New neighborhoods for business are being constantly built up by men who have located themselves in streets which they have changed from deserted by-ways into teeming, jostling thoroughfares, through advertising irrigation.
The storekeeper who whines that his neighborhood holds him back is squinting at the truth—he is hurting the neighborhood.
If it lacks streams of buyers, he can easily enough secure them by reaching out through the columns of the daily and inducing people from other sections to come to him. ”

“ Advertising is not a luxury nor a debatable policy. It has proven its case. Its record is traced in the skylines of cities where a hundred towering buildings stand as a lesson of reproach to the men who had the opportunity but not the foresight, and furnish a constant inspiration to the young merchant at the threshold of his career. ”

“ Always remember that the advertising sections of newspapers are no different than farming lands. And it is as preposterous to hold the publisher responsible for the outcome of unintelligent copy as it would be unjust to blame the soil for bad seed and poor culture. Every advertiser gets exactly the same number of readers from a publisher and the same readers—after that it's up to him—the results fluctuate in accordance with the intelligence and the pulling power of the copy which is inserted. ”

“ And when a newspaper is not only able to boast of an honor roll of stores that have continued to appear in its pages for a stretch of decades, but at the same time demonstrates that it carries more business than its competitors, it has proven its superiority as plainly as a mountain peak which rises above its fellows. ”

“ It is not a question of your ability to stand the cost of advertising but of being able to survive without it. The thing you have to consider is not only an extension of your business but of holding what you already have.
Advertising is an investment, the cost of which is in the same proportion to its returns as seeds are to the harvest. And it is just as 12preposterous for you to consider publicity as an expense, as it would be for a farmer to hesitate over purchasing a fertilizer, if he discovered that he could profitably increase his crops by employing it. ”

“ The combination of stability and progress is the strongest virtue that a newspaper can possess. Only the fit survive—reputation is a difficult thing to get and a harder thing to hold—it takes merit to earn it and character to maintain it. There is a vast difference between fame and notoriety, and just as much difference between a famous newspaper and a notorious one. ”

“ Personal ability as a close purchaser and as a clever seller, doesn't count for a hang, so long as other men are equally well posted and wear the sword of publicity to boot. They are able to tie your business into constantly closer knots, while you cannot retaliate, because there is no knot which their advertising cannot cut for them. ”

“ In other words, by appearing in print every day, you are able to get the benefit of the impression created the day before, and as each piece of copy makes its appearance, the result of your publicity on the reader's mind is more pronounced—you mustn't stop short of a knock-down impression.
Persistence is the foundation of advertising success. Regularity of insertion is just as important as clever phrasing. The man who hangs on is the man who wins out. Cato the Elder is an example to every merchant who uses the newspapers and should be an inspiration to every storekeeper who does not. ”

“ Just as a manufacturer is always eager to install his choicest stocks in a store which has earned the respect of the community, just so a retailer should be anxious to insert his name in a newspaper which has earned the respect of its readers. ”

“ The merchant who doesn't advertise is pretty much in the same position as that in which Japan stood when her eyes were opened to the fact that times had changed. The long range publicity of a competitor will as surely destroy his business as the cannon of the foreigners crumbled the walls of Satsuma. ”

“ Advertising has made thousands of men rich, just because they recognized the possibilities of utilizing the newspapers to bring 58streams of buyers into neighborhoods that could be made busy locations by irrigation—by drawing people from other sections.
The successful retailer is the man who keeps the stream of purchasers coming his way. It isn't the spot itself that makes the store pay—it's the man who makes the spot pay. Centers of trade are not selected by the public—they are created by the force which controls the public—the newspapers. ”

“ Therefore, the respectable newspaper can always be counted upon to produce more sales than one which may even own a larger circulation but whose distribution is in ten editions among unprofitable citizens.
You can no more expect to sell goods to people who haven't money, than you can hope to pluck oysters from rose-bushes.
It isn't the number of readers reached, but the number of readers whose purses can be reached, that constitutes the value of circulation. It's one thing to arouse their attention, but it's a far different thing to get their money. ”

“ What goes into a newspaper largely determines the class of homes into which the newspaper goes. An irresponsible, scandal-mongering, muck-raking sheet is certainly not supported by the buying classes of people. It may be perused by thousands of readers, but such readers are seldom purchasers of advertised goods.
It's the clean-cut, steady, normal-minded citizens who form the bone and sinew and muscle of the community. It's the sane, self-respecting, dependable newspaper that 101enters their homes and it's the home sale that indicates the strength of an advertising medium. ”

“ Advertising does not require faith—merely common sense. If it is begun in doubt and relinquished before normal results can be reasonably looked for, the fault does not lie with the newspaper nor with publicity—the blame is solely on the head of the coward who retreated before he was defeated. ”

“ A window on a 41–42crowded street, in the best neighborhood, where prosperous persons pass continually, is more desirable, than one in a cheap, sparsely settled neighborhood. An advertisement in a newspaper with the most readers and the most prosperous ones, possesses a great advantage over the same copy, in a medium circulating among persons who possess less means. It would be foolish for a shop to build its windows in an alley-way—and just as much so to put its advertising into newspapers which are distributed among “alley-dwellers.” ”

“ The new advertiser is especially prone to misjudge between amusing and convincing copy. A humorous picture may catch the eyes of every reader, but it won't pay as well as an illustration of some piece of merchandise which will strike the eye of every 78buyer. Merchants secure varying results from the same advertising space. The publisher delivers to each the same quality of readers, but the advertiser who plants flippancy in the minds of the community won't attain the benefit that is secured by the merchant who imprints clinching arguments there. ”

“ The American people don't want to be humbugged and the merchant who figures upon too many fools, finds himself looking into a mirror, usually about a half hour after the sheriff has come to look over the premises.
Don't imitate. Advertising is a special measure garment. Businesses are not built in ready-made sizes. Copy which fits somebody else's selling plans, won't fit your store without sagging at the chest or riding up at the collar. Duplicated argument and duplicated results are not twins. Your policy of publicity must be specially measured from your policy of merchandising. ”

“ Every day in the advertising world is another day and has to be taken care of with the same energy as its yesterday.
The quitter can't survive where the plugger has the ghost of a chance.
52Advertising doesn't take the place of business talent or business management. It simply tells what a business is and how it is managed. The snob whose father created and who is content to live on what was handed to him, can't stand up against the man who knows he must build for himself. ”

“ A dealer in precious stones would be foolish to open up in a tenement district, and equally short-sighted, to tell about his jewelry in a newspaper largely distributed there. Out of ten thousand men and women who might see what he had to say not ten of them could afford to buy his goods. These ten thousand readers would be mass without muscle. He could make them willing to do business with him, but their incomes wouldn't let them become customers. ”

“ An advertising medium must be judged in the same way. The fact that it has age to its credit isn't so important as the age of its advertising patronage. Whenever a daily continues to display the store talk of the same establishment year after year, it's a pretty sure sign that the merchant has made money out of that newspaper, because no publication can continue to be a losing investment to its customers over a stretch 88of time, without the fact being discovered. ”