The common method of employing teaser adver tising is to display a puzzling statement or question. This may, and commonly does, border on the bizarre or grotesque, as in the forerunner of a series of breakfast food advertisements which asked, "'What did the woggle-bug say ?" It may seek to place the reader, in imagination, under the stress of some un usual or thrilling environment. It may take the form of a rhythmic jingle, as in the street-car card an nouncing: "We should worry, we should care; we'll be there, we'll be there! Where?" This was used to precede an advertisement for an amusement park.
One of the most striking advertisements employing suspense was the series featured by the Sterling Gum Company. Individual advertisements feature six points of the product in detail. For guessing the seventh point, a first prize of $1,000 was offered. prizes ranged from $500 down to a box of 10 five-cent packages of gum. The announcement stating the condition under which prizes were to be awarded said in part: From Maine to California, from Texas to Hud son Bay, millions of people have been asking, "What is the seventh point in Sterling Gum?" In practically every town, city and village in the United States and Canada, the published six points of superiority have brought Sterling Gum fast growing popularity.
But the seventh point still remains a riddle. Point 7. What? 13. Favorable advertisement may attract attention and yet utterly fail -to interest the prospective customer. If his attention will lead him to look upon the thing advertised with disfavor, it is of no value. An umbrella over the driver of a garbage wagon may be a conspicuous place upon which to advertise, but it would hardly attract favor able attention to a brand of men's hats. A man cut ting himself with a razor will not attract attention of a favorable sort either, as this idea will not further any contemplation if that special razor is the article ad vertised.
Attention, then, is valuable only if an advertise ment suggests an attitude that is favorable to a con sideration of the 'goods. This sort of attention leads to interest.