It would be well, at this stage, to refer to advertisement No. 4, which belongs to exactly the same class of advertisement as No. 3; but it makes an appeal—so far as style is concerned—to a different section of the public, and therefore has to be considered from that point of view. It will be seen that advertisement No. 4, referred to, is an advertisement placed by Eugene Sandow, the great physical culture expert. It immedi ately discloses that fact at the beginning or heading of the advertisement, and, on that account, will attract the attention of people who are in need of medical advice, who are not feeling particularly well, and are in a mood to read any advice which may be tendered to them ; so that this advertisement appeals directly to the class which are most likely to prove a profitable market for the advertiser we are now considering.
Like the Worthington advertisement, it would, in all probability, escape the notice of the majority of the readers of the papers, since there is no name displayed to any extent, although the name is displayed to a greater extent than in the advertisement for Worthington's ale; but since the majority of the readers of any given publication are not interested one way or another in physical culture or their health, their attention is valueless in any case; so that although their interest is lost, the advertiser does not suffer. People who are ill and ailing, therefore, and who are attracted by this advertisement, will read it because they wish it. There is no question of hiding the advertisement from them. They are not beguiled in reading what is presumably an article and then suddenly having the fact that it is an advertisement disclosed to them.
In all probability, therefore, such readers will read this advertisement to the end, and will receive a very valuable and lasting impression from it. The impression that the advertiser seeks to convey is that he can be of assistance to them in their general health, and his letterpress is written with that end in view. It, in all probability, is more likely to impress them than a hea71ly displayed advertisement, since it appears in the form of an article. This advertisement, therefore, though in exactly the same style as the Worthington advertisement, may be regarded as good copy, for the reason that the advertiser makes a special appeal to a special few people ; he discloses his object in the beginning of the advertisement, and his matter is likely to be read right through, because the readers who begin to read it are, in all probability, interested in that subject.
As he claims their attention to the extent that they will read a single column of matter regarding their general health, it is fair to assume that the strongest impression will be created by such an advertisement, and that a proportion of the readers will write to the advertiser direct and place themselves in communication with him, which is his real object in advertising.
These two advertisements form, in their comparison, a striking instance of copy which, although very excellent for one class of advertiser, is not profitable to another.
No. 5 is an example of what has been called a " reason why " advertise ment. This style was first brought into prominence by Mr. John E. Kennedy, au American advertisement writer of note, on the theory that every advertisement should be an actual reasoning salesman. Of his own theory Mr. Kennedy wrote as follows :— " Here brilliance in advertising fails utterly to produce results (sales) if it lacks conviction. Seeing, or admiring, or reading with interest an advertisement avails nothing in dollars or cents if it fails to convince.
We admire the clever person, or the clever advertiser, but that is no reason why we should trust our purse to them.
" Conviction in some form is three-fourths of good advertising, of the kind that has drawn bushels of coin from the people's purse, and can draw it to-morrow, as well as yesterday, or ten years ago.
"The other fourth of good advertising is more conviction in less space. Traced results have invariably shown that it is far better to repeat one single advertisement fifty times, if it be full of conviction, than to publish fifty different advertisements that lack as much convic tion, no matter how attractive, clever, or artistic they might be." The example shown is an advertisement by this writer which proved to be remarkably successful to the advertiser who used it. It will be seen that the advertisement leaves nothing to chance. Its one and sole object is to directly sell the article it advertises to the reader.
In this and many other instances the Kennedy theory was proved to be absolutely correct; but it cannot be said that this style of copy would be a wise one to adopt for all articles. It must be borne in mind that this particular advertisement appealed mainly to people who lived in country towns, and were not within reach of a store or city where they could purchase their supplies. Moreover, the subject-matter was an interesting one to most housewives, as the purchase of a washing-machine, which would enable them to get through their weekly washing at less cost and less trouble, was naturally an interesting subject to them. They, therefore, would be prepared to read all that the advertiser had to say about his goods. In fact, they might be in a position of really waiting to be told all the advertiser had to say, and were in that position of mind to give a very quick and receptive response to the advertiser's proposition. The impression created by this advertisement, in the first instance, is nil—that is, like advertisement No. 4, it depends upon the number of people who read it before its value can be ascertained. Although it is quite possible that a large number of people who read the papers in which this advertisement appeared never saw it at all, it is equally certain that those people who did see it would be impressed very favourably, on account of the goods advertised, for the advertise ment certainly carried absolute conviction to their minds and thereby produced a great result. It may be safely assumed, therefore, that this style of " reason why " copy would be the best style of copy to exploit an article that appeals to people living away from cities, and who were particularly interested in the article which the advertiser was seeking to sell; but, at the same time, it cannot be held, that because this style of copy sufficed for that class of advertisement, it would serve to profit ably advertise an article which was sold, every day all over the country, to all kinds of people, who bought supplies from the retailer in his stores. A great deal depends upon public interest in a proposition. It would be unreasonable to expect, for instance, that any one would read such a long and to an extent technical advertisement about an ordinary cake of toilet soap which costs 4d. or 6d.; and it must be remembered that when an advertisement is not read it is of no value at all, and, if it displays no name, those who do not read the advertisement through get no impression of any kind whatever.