Copy and Sketches
An advertising trade-mark is a great barrier to imitation and substitution.
An advertising trade-mark is a great barrier to imitation and substitution.
The first essential of a successful posting campaign is to have a good poster. A bad design will spoil the most alluring campaign ever outlined.
A figure is always attractive in a poster, because it carries with it a more-than-ordinary element of human interest. As an example of the comparative pulling powers of illustrations I have understood that the news-stand sales of the Saturday Evening Post are appreciably larger when they have on their front cover the picture of an attractive woman than when the design is more general and of less heart interest. If you have a trade-mark for your product that trade-mark shouldalwaysappear in your poster. It may be the central figure of the poster or it may be introduced incidentally, but it should be there in sufficiently prominent form to be noticed, for it is the constant repetition of a trade-mark that makes it valuable. Such world-wide characters as The Gold Dust Twins, The old Quaker of Quaker Oats, the little Uneeda Biscuit boy, the old darkey of Cream of Wheat and the Victor Talking Machine Dog would never have been worth the millions of dollars at which their owners prize them but for the fact that they have been ding-donged into the public day after day and month after month and year after year in the magazines, in the street cars, in the newspapers and on the bill-boards. I have heard well-known advertisers remark that they did not believe in reproducing one figure constantly in an advertisement, because the public would come to recognize it, say “Oh, that is so-and-so’s advertisement” and pay no attention to the story told in the wording. I believe this to be the greatest fallacy ever advanced, and to my way of thinking, an advertiser could have no better advertisement than one in which appears a trade-mark which the public instantly recognizes and comments upon. You can ring the changes on the design, the color of the background or the arrangement, even if your trade-mark is a set one not susceptible of changes in itself.
Where you have no trade-mark, my advice would be to get one.
It is also a pretty safe rule to introduce the package itself in each poster, where the latter is not closely identified with the trade-mark. To familiarize the public with your package means instant recognition when they see it on the dealer’s shelf, counter or floor space.
If possible, have your poster made by a poster artist, and not by a designer of newspaper or magazine advertisements. The proper handling and harmony of colors,as well as that broad poster-carrying effect can only be fully realized by the artist who has specialized in that field.
The poster should be judged from a distance, and should be made for carrying effect rather than close view. People do not stand close to a poster; it is read from a distance and should be made to be perfectly clear and readable thirty to forty feet away.
The poster will not carry a detailed story. An illustration of a figure, a picture of the product itself, the name of the product, a catch phrase or a single line of argument is about all the ordinary poster will stand. I do not agree, however, with the contention that argument cannot be given on a poster. On a series of posters a whole story can be told, because one argument can be driven home on each poster. The “reason why” feature of advertising can be applied to posting by the use of this method, and in the development of posting in the coming years the tendency to limit the copy for a poster to merely the name and trade-mark will be over-ruled.
Break up your type matter, having a portion appear above the design, another portion below or at the sides. This will relieve monotony, and make it easier for the eye to read what you have to say.
Avoid defacing the design of your poster by carrying lettering across any portion of it.
A poor poster is an abomination. Get the best that money will buy. The cost of posting is in the neighborhood of ten times the cost of the paper; hence a few cents more in the cost per poster is insignificant if it represents the difference between first-class and mediocre.
Have your poster attractive—in order to catch the eye and rivet the attention.
Have some element of reason and argument in your poster—in order to create the desire to buy.
Tell the truth in your advertising—not because honesty is the best policy, but because it is the only policy in successful business.
Tell the truth in your advertising—not because honesty is the best policy, but because it is the only policy in successful business.