Every advertiser, however, cannot be an intensive advertiser. A man with a limited appropriation may find it more advisable to reach 20,000 people by using two magazines, each with a 10,000 circulation, than to reach only 15,000 by using two other magazines, each with a circulation of 10,000, but with a fifty per cent duplication. To advertisers of this sort, and also to advertisers who wish to cultivate their field intensively but who properly wish to control the de gree of intensity of their advertising efforts, the prob lem of duplication in circulation is an important one.
9. Extent of is much dupli cated circulation among all mediums. Scarcely any two mediums can be found, no matter how widely dif ferent they may be in kind and appeal, that do not show some duplication of circulation. It is estimated that there are not over 10,000,000'people in the United States who read the class of mediums technically known as magazines, and yet the total circulation of all magazines reported by the American Newspaper Annual for 1915 was 49,464,000. The number of people reading magazines is increasing fast, certainly much more rapidly than the population of the coun try. In 1905 the total circulation of magazines was 15,122,000, while in 1910 it was 25,512,000. The duplication of circulation is probably increasing at fully as fast a rate.
The most extensive investigation of the duplica tion. of circulation yet conducted was made under the auspices of the Association of National Adver tisers in the summer of 1914. It was found that the circulation of some magazines duplicate the circula tion of others to the extent of almost fifty per cent. For instance, the Ladies' Home Journal was found to duplicate with the Saturday Evening Post to the extent of forty-two per cent. The percentage of duplication in most cases, however, was very much lower than this.
A similar inquiry in regard to newspapers was made by Professor Walter Dill Scott among 4,000 business and professional men in Chicago. The re plies showed that: 14 per cent read but one newspaper 46 per cent read two newspapers 21 per cent read three newspapers 17 per cent read four or more newspapers 84 per cent read more than one newspaper.
The same advertisement seen in two or three news papers is certainly more effective than if seen in one, but some advertisers are convinced that it is not worth three times as much to have an advertisement seen in three papers, reaching largely the same readers, as it is to have it seen in one.
10. Subscription price as barometer of purchasing power.—Some people contend that the buying power of a consumer can be determined partly by the amount he pays for a periodical. It is maintained, for instance, that the buying power of readers of mag azines, as a class, is greater than the buying power of the average reader of a newspaper. This is prob ably true; there may be some people who hesitate to pay fifteen cents, or ten cents for a magazine, and yet they can and do pay a penny for a newspaper. It is probably true, also, that the readers of a three cent newspaper have a greater individual purchasing power than the average reader of a one-cent news paper. It is not safe to apply this principle too gen erally, however. Certain magazines sell for twenty five and thirty-five cents a copy ; possibly their readers represent greater average purchasing power than the readers of a ten-cent fiction magazine ; this is by no means certain, however, because ministers, teachers and others with relatively small incomes are found in large numbers on the subscription lists of the more expensive periodicals, while popular priced fiction cir culates as extensively among families of wealth as among the less well-to-do classes.
A better guide to buying power of readers than the cost of the periodical is a careful study of the con tents of the magazine or newspaper. This will usu ally enable the experienced advertiser to form a suf ficiently accurate picture of the type of reader to which it appears. Some publishers now prepare for advertisers carefully compiled statistics showing how many of their subscribers own automobiles, how many play golf, how many do this and how many do that.
Such statistics are helpful in suggesting purchasing power of subscribers.
11. Page rates per thousand.—Each publication fixes its own advertising rates on the basis of cost and demand. Some have attempted to establish a stand ard basis for so-called "standard" magazines, of a dollar per page per thousand circulation. A "standard" magazine is one with a type page five and one-half by eight inches in size. Most magazines were formerly of this size, altho the trend is now de cidedly toward a larger page. Even among the "standard" magazines there has never been uniform adherence to the standard rate. Everybody's, for instance, has sold space practically on the standard basis (ninety-two cents per page per thousand) , while the Atlantic Monthly has sold space for three dollars per page per thousand, and the Popular Mag azine for seventy-five cents.
Newspaper rates are even more variable than mag azine rates. Many newspapers with only a thousand circulation charge fifteen cents and more for a col umn inch, while some large metropolitan newspapers with circulation in excess of 100,000 charge as low as $1.40 a column inch.
12. The flat rate.—Practically all magazine space is sold at the same price regardless of the amount of space used. This is known as a "flat rate." Many of the' smaller newspapers also sell on flat rate; the larger newspapers, however, still have in many cases what are called "sliding scale rates." A sliding scale rate is based on the number of lines of space used by an advertiser during a year. The advertiser who uses only a thousand lines pays, perhaps, fifty per cent more per line than the advertiser who uses 20, 000 lines. Nevertheless, the tendency among large as well as small papers is to adjust their schedules on the flat rate basis; most advertisers prefer this arrangement, and the advertising agencies are de manding it.
Nearly all agricultural publications sell space on the flat rate basis. Trade, technical and class pub lications are still inclined to the sliding scale rate, and in this field the rates vary more than in any other.
Some newspapers have two rates, charging one to national advertisers (known in the newspaper field as "foreign advertisers") and another to local or re tail advertisers. In some cases the national rate is lower than the local rate, and in other cases it is higher.
13. Contracts for New York Asso ciation of Advertising Agents has established a uni form style of contract for purchasing newspaper space, which suggests the difficulties under which the advertising business has labored in the past and the policies which the agents' association believes will result in remedying them.
1. It is understood and agreed that the rate of this ,order is the minimum rate at which a contract for similar space and