METHODS OF IDENTIFICATION 1. .Necessity of identification.—The pivot around which every advertising campaign revolves is the thing or things by which the public is to identify the article or the service advertised. This may be a name, a mark, a package, a slogan, or one or more of many other things. Whatever it is, it must have individu ality, and it must be repeated on the product and in the advertising. It has been said that the Royal Baking Powder Company has been offered $5,000, 000 (a million dollars a letter) for the right to use the name "Royal" in connection with baking pow der. The great value attached to this name is the result of two things: (1) Royal Baking Powder has always been sold in containers which prominently display the name; (2) the public thru advertising has been educated to look for the Royal Baking Powder can. If Royal Baking Powder had been sold in bulk, the public could not have identified it in the, grocery store, and all the advertising the company has done would have served no purpose. Identifica tion is one of the chief purposes of advertising. In a decision rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice McKenna said: "Advertising is merely identification and description. . . . It has no other object than to draw attention to the article to be sold." 2. Packages make advertising the beginning, most products were sold in bulk. Dur ing the last century, ingenious manufacturers have changed our entire method of purchase by introduc ing standardized articles which they have identified in ways different from those of competitors. Goods, formerly sold in bulk, had to be put in packages in order to be identified. We have seen one article after another finally put into a package and trade-marked. The seller of seeds had no opportunity to advertise until he put his seeds in packages. He could not stamp his name or his trade-mark on each individual seed. The fruit growers of the West have gone one step farther and have stamped the trade-mark "Sun kist" on the wrappers of their oranges. For a long time it was thought impossible to put oysters on the market in trade-marked form, but the Seal-Shipt Company has proved it possible. Fifty years ago some manufacturers of textiles sold their cloth in bolts with trade-marks pasted in paper on the outside.
Today many textile manufacturers weave the trade mark into the selvage.
Before a manufacturer begins to advertise, he should clearly study the different methods of identi fying his product, and of giving individuality to his advertising.
3. Methods of identifying the product.—There are three general methods of identifying a product, its wrapper, or the package in which it is contained: 1. By the use of a trade-mark or other individual design 2. By the use of a distinctive shape 3. By the use of a distinctive color.
Trade-marks are the means of identification most generally used. They are discussed in detail in the Text on "Advertising Principles." 4. Shape as a means of distinc tive shape for a product or its container is a commonly employed method of identification. Automobile manufacturers have largely used it. While trade marks are placed on the radiators, the hubs of the wheels and on other parts of automobiles, the average schoolboy can tell the name of almost any car, even when it is in motion, by its general lines and the in dividuality expressed in the shape of some prominent part, such as the hood.
The makers of Log Cabin Maple Syrup sell their product in tin packages shaped like a log cabin. While the shape is an inconvenient one from the stand point of packing it is very convenient from the stand point of identification.
One of the most interesting wars of modern times is being waged between rival manufacturers of shav ing soaps. It would take an expert to distinguish the difference in quality between many of the sub stances themselves. The contest in the rival adver tising campaigns rests almost entirely on the attrac tiveness and the convenience of the package. One manufacturer gets out a new and more convenient package in a distinctive shape, and the public swings to the use of that particular shaving preparation. Then another comes into the field with "We couldn't improve the powder, so we improved the box," and the trade swings back again. Next a campaign is based on "The box that locks," and this appeal, in turn, is matched by some other ingenious device of a com petitor.