Advertising - selling the consumer
Early in the spring of 1910, Dr Willard R. Hotchkiss asked me to take an evening class in advertising at the School of Commerce which Northwestern University had just established. In a general way, I grouped the subject matter under ten heads, one of which was covered each week in a preliminary talk. This was supplemented by an informal discussion — my answers to questions put by the students.
The chapters which follow are based upon notes made at these classroom talks and from lectures delivered before the Universities of Chicago, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and Washing- ton. Advertising as a means of influencing human beings through groups presents its most interesting characteristics.
It is by comprehending the group spirit and working in harmony with it that the greatest achievements in advertising have been made. If this book shall serve truthfully and adequately to introduce the reader to a profession that is fascinating, constructive, and growing, it will have fulfilled its purpose.
This is the age of advertising. Within the memory of older men, the ambitious youth was urged to enter the church or the army, to study law or the sciences. Now business is generally recognized as a world-dominating science. It is becoming more and more intricate and complex, and constantly calls for a higher grade of intelligence.
In its elemental form, commerce is little more than the hewing of wood and the drawing of water, and trading in the simple things necessary to sustain a low order of physical life. It is only when it comes to grappling with our enormous wheat, corn, and cotton crops and the products of our mines and factories that it begins to demand and give substantial rewards for brain power which can organize equipment, devise ways and means and execute. In its crude state war does not call forth our admiration.
When it means butchery, it is hideous. It is only tolerable when it is the expression of the un-divided will — the group spirit — of a nation. When it is determined and reverent resistance to wrong, it is grand. In war, the mastermind is an incarnation of the national group spirit and the expression of its purpose. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Washington, and Grant understood the laws which hold human beings together in groups.
Some contents:
CHAPTER I
The Commercial Status of Advertising
Business is becoming a world-dominating science — Simplifies problem of production and distribution — fathers products of world and puts them in easy access to all — Advertising creates conditions and hab- its; produces demands by moulding the public mind — Incomes divide people into groups — Biggest advertising successes, articles of small retail value — Reaching the right group the problem of space buyers — Advertising must appeal to right group — Finding the right group a fundamental problem — Manufacturer can create buying groups by advertising — Advertising makes possible small capital and reduced selling cost — Group department store advertising most productive — Advertising not a material substance, but service to a group.
CHAPTER II
How Markets Benefit Both Consumer and Producer 16 The market based on the group — Professional services enhanced by the group — ^The group idea establishes banks — Marketing a young man's time — Price as a marketing factor — Buyer not an expert judge of intrinsic values — Disaster follows price competition — Quality and service competition beneficial — Salesman's judgment must be respected — Market control a money-making occupation — Cash lubricates the machinery of production and distribution — Publicity will correct all evils of market control — Consumers should prefer goods bearing the producer's trademark — Dangerous position of some manufacturers.
CHAPTER III
Salesmanship Is Service 28 Men succeed in the measure in which they can induce others to accept their views — Sales- manship entails permanent satisfaction to the buyer and a profitable compensation to the seller — Advertising is organized salesmanship — Service dominant in salesmanship — The successful salesman sells merchandise plus merchandising ad- vice and ideas — Advertising is service salesmanship directed at a group. — Advertising should create desires that benefit the consumer — The responsibility of the publisher to his subscribers — Censorship of advertising a necessary service.
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