Page:EB1911 - Volume 01.djvu/270



The preparation of advertisements for the periodical press has within the last twenty years or so become so important a task that a great number of writers and artists—many of the latter possessing considerable abilities—gain a livelihood from this pursuit. The ingenuity displayed in modern newspaper advertising is unquestionably due to American initiative. The English newspaper advertisement of twenty years ago consisted for the most part of the mere reiteration of a name. An advertiser who took a column’s space supplied enough matter to fill an inch, and ingenuously repeated his statement throughout the column. Such departures from this childlike method as were made were for the most part eccentric to the point of incoherence. It may, however, be said in defence of English advertisers, that newspaper publishers for a long time sternly discountenanced any attempt to render advertisements attractive. So long as an advertiser was rigidly confined to the ordinary single-column measure, and so long as he was forbidden to use anything but the smallest sort of type, there was very little opportunity for him to attract the reader’s attention. The newspaper publisher must always remember that the public buy a newspaper for the sake of the news, not for the sake of the advertisements, and that if the advertisements are relegated to a position and a scope, in respect of display, so inferior that they may be overlooked, the advertiser cannot afford to bear his share of the cost of publication. Of late The Times, followed by almost all newspapers in the United Kingdom, has given the advertiser as great a degree of liberty as he really needs, and many experienced advertisers in America incline to the belief that the larger licence accorded to American advertisers defeats its own ends. The truth would seem to be that the advertiser will always demand, and may fairly expect, the right to make his space as fantastic in appearance as that allotted to the editor. When some American editors see fit to print a headline in letters as large as a man’s hand, and to begin half-a-dozen different articles on the first page of a newspaper, continuing one on page 2, another on page 4, and another on page 6, to the bewilderment of the reader, it can hardly be expected that the American advertiser should submit to any very strict code of decorum. The subject of the relation between a newspaper proprietor and his advertisers cannot be dismissed without reference to the notable independence of advertisers' influence, which English and American newspaper proprietors authorize their editors to display. Whenever an insurance company or a bank goes wrong, the cry is raised that all the editors in Christendom had known for years that the directors were imbeciles and rogues, but had conspired to keep mute for the sake of an occasional advertisement. When the British public persisted, not long ago, in paying premium prices for the shares of over-capitalized companies, the crash had no sooner come than the newspapers were accused of having puffed promotions for the sake of the money received for publishing prospectuses. As a matter of fact, in the case of the best dailies in England and America, the editor does not stand at all in awe of the advertiser, and time after time the Money Article has ruthlessly attacked a promotion of which the prospectus appeared in the very same issue. It is indeed to the interest of the advertiser, as well as to the interest of the reader, that this independence should be preserved, for the worth of any journal as an advertising medium depends upon its possessing a bona fide circulation among persons who believe it to be a serious and honestly conducted newspaper. All advertisers know that the minor weeklies, which contain nothing but trade puffs, and are scattered broadcast among people who pay nothing for their copies, are absolutely worthless from the advertiser’s point of view. The most striking difference between the periodical press of Great Britain and that of America is, that in the former country the magazines and reviews play but a secondary rôle, while in the United States the three or four monthlies possessing the largest circulation are of the very first importance as advertising mediums. One reason for this is that the advertisements in an American magazine are printed on as good paper, and printed with as great care, as any other part of the contents. There are probably very few among American magazine readers who do not habitually look through the advertising pages, with the certainty that they will be entertained by the beauty of the advertiser’s illustrations and the quaint curtness of his phrases. Another reason is that the American monthly magazine goes to all parts of the United States, while, owing to the time required for long journeys on even the swiftest trains, no American daily paper can have so general a circulation as The Times in the United Kingdom. In comparison with points on the Pacific coast, Chicago does not seem far from New York, yet, with the exception of one frenzied and altogether unsuccessful attempt, no New York daily has ever attempted to force a circulation in Chicago. The American advertiser would, therefore, have to spend money on a great number of daily papers in order to reach as widespread a public as one successful magazine offers him.

There is reason to believe that the English magazine publishers have erred gravely in taking what are known in the trade as “insets,” consisting of separate cards or sheets printed at the advertiser’s cost, and accepted by the publisher at a specific charge for every thousand copies. This system of insetting has the grave inconvenience that the advertiser finds himself compelled to print as many insets as the publisher asserts that he can use. The publisher, on the other hand, is somewhat at the mercy of too enthusiastic agents and employes, who estimate over-confidently the edition of the periodical which will probably be printed for a certain month, and advertisers have had reason to fear that many of their insets were wasted. The added weight and bulk of the insets cause inconvenience and expense to the newsdealer, as two or three insets printed upon cardboard are equivalent to at least sixteen additional pages. Some newsdealers have further complicated the inset question by threatening to remove insets unless special tribute be paid to them; and with all these difficulties to be considered, many magazine publishers have seriously considered the advisability of altogether discontinuing the practice of taking insets, and of confining their advertisements to the sheets they themselves print. In connexion with this subject, it may be added that many readers habitually shake loose bills out of a magazine before they begin to turn the pages, and that railway stations, railway carriages and even public streets are thus littered with trampled and muddy advertisements. The old practice of distributing handbills in the streets is dying a natural death, more or less hastened by local by-laws, and when the loose bills in magazines and cheap novels have ceased to exist no one will be the loser.

Advertisements in the weekly press are on the whole more successful in England than in America. A few American weeklies cope successfully with the increasing competition of the huge Sunday editions of American daily papers. But even the most successful among them—a paper for boys—has hardly attained the prosperity of some among its English contemporaries in the field of weekly journalism.

The merchant who turns to these pages for practical suggestions concerning the advertising of his own business, can be given no better advice than to betake himself to an established advertising agent of good repute, and be guided by his counsels. The chief part that he can himself play with advantage is to note from day to day whether the agent is obtaining advantageous positions for his announcements. Every advertiser will naturally prefer a right-hand page to a left-hand page, and the right side of the page to the left side of the page; while the advertiser who most indefatigably urges his claims upon the agent will, in the long run, obtain the largest share of the favours to be