The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1905-07-28
ATREATISE
ON aDVERTISIHG .
BY ARTHUR MASTERS.

BY ARTHUR MASTERS.
The question often comes up, 'Does
advertising pay?''
This may be answered in two ways
yes, and no. For so many men adj
vertise in the wrong way that the re-
suits from their advertisements are
nothing more than if they had not
advertised at all; and this is not the
kind of advertising that the up to
date man wants to do.
Take the man who says. when the
solicitor comes around, that che
guesses he will put in an ad just to
see what it will do" and then allows
that one ad to stay in the paper the
entire year There are numerous
reasons why his advertising does not
pay him, and one could not expect to
have results from such q business
procedure. The average man who
reads the paper sees what is new and
catchy, and after seeing this adver-
tisement several times he would no
longer look at it, and the result
would be the same as if the merchant
had no advertisement in the paper at
all. He has nothing new to tell the
people: they soon fail to read his
''space," and his results from his adj
venture are soon nothing" This
man might just as well go back to
the "woods'' and not try to bring
new customers to his store, for he has
not got the right idea to start with.
He belongs to the category of men
who allow the other fellow with the
up to date method to get ahead of
him, and is to be pitied.
Possibly there is not a family in
existence that does not take some
paper or magazine, and if they will
look through it they will find plenty
of merchants who believe in telling
the people what they have for sale,
and on this principle they build up
their business.
Take the advertisements of the
great cereal manufacturers, for in
stance. Hardly any one has failed to
notice them, and this is just what
they want. One soon begins to Won
der what there is to this new food,
and from wonder to curiosity is a
short transition. Curiosity will make
a man do most anything, and he soon
wants to find out for himself if the
article is as good as the advertiser
says it is, so naturally he buys
package of the food and tries it.
That is what the company desired,
and they have made the sale. But
the goods must come up to the stand
ard, or the purchaser will not come
back for more.
Right here is one of the ''main-
strings'' of the successful advertiser.
He must not tell the people that he
has a certain article which is far su-
perior to anything in its line unless it
is really so, for if he does his business
is sure to suffer from ''skepticism.
The old saying of "fooling all the
people all the time" holds good here
as much, if not more, than any other
place. The reputation of a house is
hard to build, but certainly easy to
lose if one adopts such methods as
{" fooling" the people.
An advertisement must tell the
people what there is for sale, and
nothing more than that. When once
the public find out that the house adj
vertises only what it has, and does
not go beyond that, the trade will
come as perfectly natural result.
Does it stand to reason that such |
houses as John Wannamaker, R. H.
Macy & Co., Altmans, and others too
numerous to mention, would do such |
an amount of advertising as they do |
If it did not pay? One can
bring these successful houses nearer