Things Too Costly

Many things are pos­si­ble in adver­tis­ing which are too costly to attempt. That is another rea­son why every project and method should be weighed and deter­mined by a known scale of cost and result.

Chang­ing peo­ples habits is very expen­sive. A project which involves that must be seri­ously con­sid­ered. To sell shav­ing soap to the peas­ants of Rus­sia one would first need to change their beard wear­ing habits. The cost would be exces­sive. Yet count­less adver­tis­ers try to do things almost as impos­si­ble. Just because ques­tions are not ably con­sid­ered, and results are traced but unknown.

For instance, the adver­tiser of a den­ti­frice may spend much space and money to edu­cate peo­ple to brush their teeth. Tests which we know of have indi­cated that the cost of such con­verts may run from $20 to $25 each. Not only because of the dif­fi­culty, but because much of the adver­tis­ing goes to peo­ple already converted.

Such a cost, of course, is unthink­able. One might not in a life­time get it back in sales. The maker who learned these facts by tests make no attempt to edu­cate peo­ple to the tooth brush habit. What can­not be done on a large scale prof­itably can not be done on a small scale. So not one line in any ad is devoted to this object. This maker, who is con­stantly guided in every­thing by key­ing every ad, has made remark­able success.

Another den­ti­frice maker spends much money to make con­verts to the tooth brush. The object is com­mend­able, but altru­is­tic. The new busi­ness he cre­ates is shared by his rivals. He is won­der­ing why his sales increase is in no way com­men­su­rate with his expenditure.

An adver­tiser at one time spent much money to edu­cate peo­ple to the use of oat­meal. The results were too small to dis­cover. All peo­ple know of oat­meal. As a food for chil­dren it has age-​​old fame. Doc­tors have advised it for many gen­er­a­tions. Peo­ple who don’t serve oat­meal are there­fore dif­fi­cult to start. Per­haps their objec­tions are insur­mount­able. Any­way, the cost proved to be beyond all pos­si­ble return.

There are many adver­tis­ers who know facts like these and con­cede them. They would not think of devot­ing a whole cam­paign to any such impos­si­ble object. Yet they devote a share of their space to that object. That is only the same folly on a smaller scale. It is not good busi­ness.

No one orange grower or raisin grower could attempt to increase the con­sump­tion of those fruits. The cost might be a thou­sand times his share of the returns. But thou­sands of grow­ers com­bined have done it on those and many other lines. There lies one of the great pos­si­bil­i­ties of adver­tis­ing devel­op­ment. The gen­eral con­sump­tion of scores of foods can be prof­itably increased. But it must be done on wide co-​​operation.

No adver­tiser could afford to edu­cate peo­ple on vit­a­mins or ger­mi­cides. Such things are done by author­i­ties, through count­less columns of unpaid-​​for space. But great suc­cesses have been made by going to peo­ple already edu­cated and sat­is­fy­ing their cre­ated wants.

It is a very shrewd thing to watch the devel­op­ment of a pop­u­lar trend, the cre­ation of new desires. Then at the right time offer to sat­isfy those desires. That was done on yeasts, for instance, and on numer­ous anti­sep­tics. It can every year be done on new things which some pop­u­lar fash­ion or wide­spread influ­ence is brought into vogue. But it is a very dif­fer­ent thing to cre­ate that fash­ion, taste or influ­ence for all in your field to share.

There are some things we know of which might pos­si­bly be sold to half the homes in the coun­try. A Dakin-​​fluid ger­mi­cide, for instance. But the con­sump­tion would be very small. A small bot­tle might last for years. Cus­tomers might cost $1.50 each. And the rev­enue per cus­tomer might not in ten years repay the cost of get­ting. Mail order sales on sin­gle arti­cles, how­ever pop­u­lar, rarely cost less that $42.50 each.

It is rea­son­able to sup­pose that sales made through deal­ers on like arti­cles will cost approx­i­mately as much. Those facts must be con­sid­ered on any one-​​sale arti­cle. Pos­si­bly one user will win oth­ers. But traced returns as in mail order adver­tis­ing would pro­hibit much adver­tis­ing which is now being done.

Costly mis­takes are made by blindly fol­low­ing some ill-​​conceived idea. An arti­cle, for instance, may have many uses, one of which is to pre­vent dis­ease. Pre­ven­tion is not a pop­u­lar sub­ject, how­ever much it should be. Peo­ple will do much to cure trou­ble, but peo­ple in gen­eral will do lit­tle to pre­vent it. This has been proved by many disappointments.

One may spend much money in argu­ing pre­ven­tion when the same money spent on another claim would bring many times the sales. A head­ing which asserts one claim may bring ten times the results of a head­ing which asserted another. An adver­tiser may go far astray unless he finds out.

A tooth­paste may tend to pre­vent decay. It may also beau­tify teeth. Tests will prob­a­bly find that the lat­ter appeal is many times as strong as the for­mer. The most suc­cess­ful tooth paste adver­tiser never fea­tures tooth trou­bles in his head­lines. Tests have proved them unap­peal­ing. Other adver­tis­ers in this line cen­ter on those trou­bles. That is often because results are not known and compared.

A soap may tend to cure eczema. It may at the same time improve com­plex­ion. The eczema claim may appeal to one in a hun­dred while the beauty claims would appeal to nearly all. To even men­tion the eczema claims might destroy the beauty claims.

A man has a relief for asthma. It has done so much for him he con­sid­ers it a great adver­tis­ing pos­si­bil­ity. We have no sta­tis­tics on this sub­ject. We do not know the per­cent­age of peo­ple who suf­fer from asthma. A can­vass might show it to be one in a hun­dred. If so, he would need to cover a hun­dred use­less read­ers to reach one he wants. His cost of result might be twenty times as high as on another arti­cle which appeals to one in five. That exces­sive cost would prob­a­bly mean dis­as­ter. For rea­sons like these every new adver­tiser should seek for wise advice. No one with the inter­ests of adver­tis­ing at heart will advise any dubi­ous venture.

Some claims not pop­u­lar enough to fea­ture in the main are still pop­u­lar enough to con­sider. They influ­ence a cer­tain num­ber of peo­ple — say one-​​fourth of your pos­si­ble cus­tomers. Such claims may be fea­tured to advan­tage in a cer­tain per­cent­age of head­lines. It should prob­a­bly be included in every adver­tise­ment. But those are not things to guess at. They should be decided by actual knowl­edge, usu­ally by traced returns.

This chap­ter, like every chap­ter, points out a very impor­tant rea­son for know­ing your results. Sci­en­tific adver­tis­ing is impos­si­ble with­out that. So is safe adver­tis­ing. So is max­i­mum profit.

Grop­ing in the dark in this field has prob­a­bly cost enough money to pay the national debt. That is what has filled the adver­tis­ing grave­yards. That is what has dis­cour­aged thou­sands who could profit in this field. And the dawn of knowl­edge is what is bring­ing a new day in the adver­tis­ing world.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

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