The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1914-09-15
Points on
Advertising
BY HERBERT KAUFMAN
I r
How to Write Advertising Copy


A skilled layer of mosaic works
with small fragments of stone-they
fit into more places than the larger
chunks
The skilled advertiser works with
small words-they fit into moro minds
than big phrases.
The simpler the language the greater
certainty that 1t will be understood by
the least intelligent reader.
The construction engineer plans his
grade-he works along the lines of
least resistance.
The advertisement which runs into
mountainous style Is badly surveyed
all minds are not built for high grade
thinking.
Advertising must be simple. When
it is tricked out with the jewelry and
silks of literary expression it looks as
much out of place as ball dress at
the Breakfast table!
The buying public is only interested
In facts. People read advertisements
to find out what you have to sell.
The advertiser who can fire the
most facts in the shortest time gets
the most returns. Blank cartridges
make noise, but they do not hit
blank talk, however clever, Is only
wasted space.
You force your statesmen to keep TO
solid facts-you don't allow them to
sell muslin with quotations from Omar
or trousers with excerpts from Marie
Corelli. You must not tolerate In your
printed selling talk anything that you
are not willing to countenance in per-
sonal craftsmanship.
Cut out clever phrases If they are
inserted to the sacrifice of clear ex-
charlottesville copy as you talk.
Only be more brief Publicity is cost
lier than conversation-rang in
price downward from $40 a line; talk
is not cheap, but the most expensive
commodity in the world.
Sketch in your ad to the stenogra-
pher. Then you will be SO busy "say-
ing 1t" that you will not have time to
bother about the gewgaws of writing.
Afterwards take the typewriter man
uscript and cut out every word and
every line that can be erased without
amitting an important detail. What
remains in the end is all that really
counted In the beginning.
Cultivate brevity and simplicity.
"Savon Francois" may look smarter,
but more people will understand
French Soap" Sir Isaac Newton's
explanation Of gravitation covers six
pages, but the schoolboy's terse and
homely What goes up must come
down" clinches the whole thing in six
words.
Indefinite talk wastes space 1t is
not 100 per cent productive. The copy
that omits prices sacrifices half it's
pulling power-it has a tendency to
bring lockers instead of buyers. 1t
often creates false impressions. Some
people are bound to conceive the idea
that the goods are higher priced than
In reality-others, by the same token,
are just as likely to infer that the
prices are lower and go away think
Ing that you have exaggerated your
statements.
The reader must be searched out by
the copy. Big space is cheapest be-
cause 1t doesn't waste a single eye.
Publicity must be or the offensive.
There are far too many advertisers
who keep their lights on top of their
bushel-the average citizen hasn't
time to overturn your bushel.
Small space is expensive. Like a
one-flake snowstorm, there is not
enough of it to lay.
Space is a comparative matter after
all. 1t is not case of how much is
used but how 1t is used. The passen-
gers on the limited express may real
lie that Jones has tackled a twelve
for stretch of five miles, but they are
going too fast to make out what the
shingles say; yet the two-foot letters
of Browns big bulletin board on top
of the hill leap at them before they
have chance to dodge it. And at
that 1t doesn't cost nearly so much as
the sum total of Jones' dinky display
Just SO advertisements attractively
displayed every day or every week for
a year in one newspaper will find the
eye of all readers, no matter how rap
idly they may be going" through the
advertising pages. and produce more
results than dozen piking pieces of
copy scattered through half a dozen
papers.