Gold Medal flour has spent a great deal of money in popularizing slogans. For several years the com pany based its sales efforts on the slogan, you think of flour, think of Gold Medal." Millions of dollars were spent to enforce this one command. After about ten years the company dropped the old slogan and introduced a new one, "Eventually—Why not now?" This phrase was put on the company's letterheads, on the sacks of flour and on every piece of advertising emanating from the company.
The Pillsbury Flour Mills Company is also a user of slogans. In 1916, this company undertook to cap ture the word "Because." The Pillsbury Company has spent large sums on the slogan "Because Pills bury's best." If anyone doubts the power of slogans to identify products, he has only to repeat to himself, "It floats," "Hammer the hammer," "Chases Dirt," "Ask the man who owns one," "One of the 57," and see if in every case he does not immediately remember the product with which the slogan is associated.
11. Typographical means of identification.—Some advertisers use a particular style of border thruout an entire campaign, and this border, immediately recognized by,the reader, helps to give character to, and identify the advertising even if the reader does not take time to read all the advertisement.
Some advertisers always use the same tone of back ground. This is particularly noticeable in the Gold Medal flour advertising. The gray background be comes a characteristic of the advertising and a definite means of identification..
Still other advertisers insist that all their ad vertising be set in the same style of type, or, if they are hand lettered, that the style of lettering be always the same. This is particularly noticeable in the Tif fany advertisements.
Many advertisers in striving for individuality, insist on the composition of all their advertisements being exactly the same. While the copy is changed, the cuts are always in the same relative position and there are usually the same general blocks of type. The Dodge Brothers automobile has been advertised in this way.
12. Individual style in illustrations and copy.— Some advertisements have all their advertising il lustrations made by the same illustrator. The illus trations by J. C. Leyendecker for the advertisements of Arrow Collars have given individuality to this ad vertising which is immediately recognized. Even when some other artist has been employed to illustrate the Arrow advertisements, he has been expected to follow the distinctive Leyendecker technique. It is thru methods such as this that an advertiser obtains "atmosphere" for his advertisements.
Uniformity in the style of the copy is also used to give character and distinction. Prince Albert to bacco was introduced by a decidedly distinctive copy style. Velvet tobacco has a different style which would probably be recognized and attributed to Vel vet Joe even if it should be copied by another ad vertiser.
13. Uniform proportions and colors.—While it is seldom advisable in any campaign always to use the same amount of space for all advertisements, some advertisers give their advertisements distinction by using space that has the same physical proportion. The public always sees advertisements of the same shape no matter what the size may be. Such adver tisements are called "telescope ads." While colors other than black and white can be used only by few advertisers in periodicals, color is often used as a method of identification in outdoor adver tisements. The Coca-Cola Company consistently
uses the same color for the background of its bulletin boards, and the Coca-Cola advertising is beginning to be recognized by this color combination.
14. Position in publications as a means of identifi cation.—Another way to identify one's advertising is to insist on its being placed always in the same po sition in a newspaper, or on the same page in a maga zine. Some advertisers take only back pages. Some take inside covers, and others take the first and second pages of all publications. The Big Ben advertising usually appears on the first inside page. People have begun to recognize the smiling face of Big Ben in this position. The advertising manager in planning this campaign contracted for space a year in advance in order to be able to secure this position.
15. Relative value of different methods of identifi cation.—With so many methods of identification at his command the advertiser is confronted with the problem of which to choose for his particular purposes. The problem requires individual analysis and judg ment. While it is possible to use many methods of identification in combination, it is difficult to display a name, a trade-mark, a slogan, a standardized border, a standardized style of type, and all the other dis tinguishing features of an advertisement without hav ing one overweigh the others. 'Which is the most im portant? The only satisfactory answer to this ques tion comes from tests of advertisements and sales over a long period of time and the comparison of these re sults with costs.
Cheney Brothers of South Manchester, Connecti cut, makers of silk, prepared a set of questions in re gard to nationally advertised products. These ques tions were asked of a number of men and women in the employ of the company in order to ascertain whether it is easier to remember an article when the firm name is emphasized, when the name of the prod uct is emphasized, when the trade-mark is empha sized or when a slogan is emphasized. The questions which were the basis of the test were: A.—What are the products manufactured by firms using the following names : Hamilton, Oneida Com munity, Welch, Peter's, Gillett, Ford, etc.
B.—What are the following products and who makes them: Bon Ami, Beaver Board, Nabisco, Pompeian, Big Ben, Prince Albert, etc.
C.--What are the trade-marks used by: Heinz, Old Dutch Cleanser, National Lamp Company, Skin ner's Satin, Beaver Board, etc.
D.—Who says: "Ask the man who owns one," "Good-bye, old hook and eye," "Hammer the ham mer," etc.
These tests showed that the question most generally answered correctly was the first, "What are the prod ucts manufactured by firms using the following names?" A fewer number of people could identify the slogans; still fewer could describe trade-marks; and the smallest number of all gave correct answers to the question, "What are the following products and who makes them?" This test was conducted on a very small scale, and the results cannot be accepted as establishing definite principles. Nevertheless, the test is interesting as indicative of the advisability of joining the firm name with the name of the product. In this test the answers of women were tabulated separately from the answers of men. In most cases there was little difference between the two sexes ; women, however, were found to remember slogans more easily than men.