The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-04-20
ART or ADVERTISING.

to be the matter of few minutes time
when a man began his business career
I or resumed it. There was certain
stereofyped form which never varied
s4The subscriber offered something for
sale at a new store" or an ''old stand
and hoped for a share of public pat
ronage." Bearing this. juiceiess adver-
tisement he called at newspaper Office
| and left it there; and perhaps the
/ stupid card stood for years in the
musty fellowship of other old stand"
ads. unread. uncared for and in a little
while unknown. 1t was in those times
the superstition grew up that adver-
Using does not pay.
The first signs of enlightenment came
| thirty or forty years ago in the cities
where competition drove business men
to announce bargains in the daily press.
AT once the trade columns began TO
grow interesting Previously handbilIs
had been used for all special advertis-
ing purposes; but handbills went out
slowly after the modern ad. came in
and as cities increased in size. Bar
gain-hunting brought constellation of |
eyes to bear upon the advertising |
broadsides ard as much interest was
shown in the morning store news by /
the women of family as was displayed
in the general news by the men.
The next development in the art of
bringing retail business ads. before the
public was wrought by John Wanna
maker in Philadelphia. He invented
the heart-to-heart talk. There was
nothing more attractive twenty years
ago in the Philadelphia press than the
two closely-packed columns of gossip
about the good things John wanamaker
had to sell. Everybody read; tens of
thousands bought. Ii
but public fancy now goes out to the
crisp, epigramniatic one with pictures
something like the kind, to use a local j
example, that is displayed by the Primo
beer brewers. The highest develop ]
nent of this type of advertising is seen (
IN the magazines; and often when one ]
Is tired Of too much John Brishen /
Walker or Jacob Riis or maidenly Ed !
weird Box on the reading side, he turns /
with relief to the absorbing pages of q
ads and follows them consecutively. e
There he always finds brightness, new t
IDEAS, a. cheerful optimism and pointers t
hat are worth his while. He keeps c
pace with invention and ingenuity and c
5 deity tickled by wit and humor and il
~ pictorial art which is quite as f
rood in its way as that of the Pencils r
md Remingtonss is in theirs. Indeed,
oune of the best of artists swing a A
rayon or two over an adj and are not III
shamed. lel
So great have been the returns from e
rtistic advertising that schools exist al
0 teach men and women how to write fe
akingly about store bargains and the q
Ike. A class of bright young people is p,
mployed by business firms to keep the
ubiic not only appraised of what they ]
ave for eale but on the qui vive to find
VI as soon as the morning paper comes eI
} the door. By such means the profits &C
business have been tremendously in- o.
reased and a new form of bread-win- II ~
ing created. lin
The philosophy of the change from "
d models of advertising rests upon PC
se facts that standing ad. soon gets -
, be as undressing as standing of
ece of news in a journal of the day; VI
nd that to attract the eye to trade co
they must be new and ~ -,
esh and readable. Business men who 10
, not read the same article twice in in
e news or comment of the paper have of
me to realize that the public does not &c
ad the same ad. very often in the he
lsiness columns. de