Psychology

The com­pe­tent adver­tis­ing man must under­stand psy­chol­ogy. The more he knows about it the bet­ter. He must learn that cer­tain effects lead to cer­tain reac­tions, and use that knowl­edge to increase results and avoid mistakes.

Human nature is per­pet­ual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Cae­sar. So the prin­ci­ples of psy­chol­ogy are fixed and endur­ing. You will never need to unlearn what you learn about them.

We learn, for instance, that curios­ity is one of the strongest human incen­tives. We employ it when­ever we can. Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice were made suc­cess­ful largely through curios­ity. “Grains puffed to 8 times the nor­mal size.” “Foods shot from guns.” “125 mil­lion steam explo­sions caused in every ker­nel.” These foods were fail­ures before that fac­tor was discovered.

We learn that cheap­ness is not a strong appeal. Amer­i­cans are extrav­a­gant. They want bar­gains but not cheap­ness. They want to feel that they can afford to eat and have and wear the best. Treat them as if they could not and they resent your attitude.

We learn that peo­ple judge largely by price. They are not experts. In the British National Gallery is a paint­ing which is announced in a cat­a­log to have cost $750,000. Most peo­ple at first pass it by at a glance. Then later they get far­ther on in the cat­a­log and learn what the paint­ing cost. They return then and sur­round it.

A depart­ment store adver­tised at one Easter time a $1,000 hat, and the floor could not hold the women who came to see it. We often employ this fac­tor in psy­chol­ogy. Per­haps we are adver­tis­ing a valu­able for­mula. To merely say that would not be impres­sive. So we state — as a fact — that we paid $100,000 for that for­mula. That state­ment when tried has won a wealth of respect.

Many arti­cles are sold under guar­an­tee — so com­monly sold that guar­an­tees have ceased to be impres­sive. But one con­cern made a for­tune by offer­ing a deal­ers signed war­rant. The dealer to whom one paid his money agreed in writ­ing to pay it back if asked. Instead of a far-​​away stranger, a neigh­bor gave the war­rant. The results have led many to try that plan, and it has always proved effective.

Many have adver­tised, “Try it for a week. If you don’t like it we’ll return your money. Then some­one con­ceived the idea of send­ing goods with­out any money down, and say­ing, “Pay in a week if you like them.” That proved many times more impressive.

One great adver­tis­ing man stated the dif­fer­ence this way: “Two men came to me, each offer­ing me a horse. Both made equal claims. They were good horses, kind and gen­tle. A child could drive them. One man said, “Try the horse for a week. If my claims are not true, come back for your money.” The other man also said, “Try the horse for a week.” But he added, “Come and pay me then.” I nat­u­rally bought the sec­ond man’s horse.”

Now count­less things — cig­ars, type­writ­ers, wash­ing machines, books, etc. — are sent out in this way on approval. And we find that peo­ple are hon­est. The losses are very small.

An adver­tiser offered a set of books to busi­ness men. The adver­tis­ing was unprof­itable, so he con­sulted another expert. The ads were impres­sive. The offer seemed attrac­tive, “But,” said the sec­ond man, “let us add one lit­tle touch which I have found effec­tive. Let us offer to put the buy­ers name in gilt let­ter­ing on each book.” That was done, and with scarcely another change in the ads they sold some hun­dreds of thou­sands of books. Through some pecu­liar kink in human psy­chol­ogy it was found that names in gilt gave much added value to the books.

Many send out small gifts, like mem­o­ran­dum books, to cus­tomers and prospects. They get very small results. One man sent out a let­ter to the effect that he had a leather-​​covered book with a man’s name on it. It was wait­ing on him and would be sent on request. The form of request was enclosed, and it also asked for cer­tain infor­ma­tion. That infor­ma­tion indi­cated lines on which a man might be sold.

Nearly all men, it was found, filled out that request and sup­plied the infor­ma­tion. When a man knows that some­thing belongs to them — some­thing with his name on — he will make an effort to get it, even though the thing is a trifle.

In the same way it is found that an offer lim­ited to a cer­tain class of peo­ple is far more effec­tive than a gen­eral offer. For instance, an offer lim­ited to vet­er­ans of the war. Or to mem­bers of a lodge or sect. Or to exec­u­tives. Those who are enti­tled to any seem­ing advan­tage will go a long way not to lose that advantage.

An adver­tiser suf­fered much from sub­sti­tu­tion. He said, “Look out for sub­sti­tutes,” “Be sure you get this brand,” etc., with no effect. Those were self­ish appeals. Then he said, “Try our rivals’ too” — said it in his head­lines. He invited com­par­isons and showed that he did not fear them. That cor­rected the sit­u­a­tion. Buy­ers were care­ful to get the brand so con­spic­u­ously supe­rior that its maker could court a trial of the rest.

Two adver­tis­ers offered food prod­ucts nearly iden­ti­cal. Both offered a full-​​size pack­age as an intro­duc­tion. But one gave his pack­age free. The other bought the pack­age. A coupon was good at any store for a pack­age, for which the maker paid retail price.

The first adver­tiser failed and the sec­ond suc­ceeded. The first even lost a large part of the trade he had. He cheap­ened his prod­uct by giv­ing a 15-​​cent pack­age away. It is hard to pay for an arti­cle which has once been free. It is like pay­ing rail­road fare after trav­el­ing on a pass.

The other gained added respect for his arti­cle by pay­ing retail price to let the user try it. An arti­cle good enough for the maker to buy is good enough for the user to buy. It is vastly dif­fer­ent to pay 15 cents to let you try an arti­cle than to sim­ply say “It’s free.”

So with sam­pling. Hand an unwanted prod­uct to a house­wife and she pays it slight respect. She is no mood to see its virtues. But get her to ask for a sam­ple after read­ing your story, and she is in a very dif­fer­ent posi­tion. She knows your claims. She is inter­ested in them, else she would not act. And she expects to find the qual­i­ties you told.

There is a great deal in men­tal impres­sion. Sub­mit five arti­cles exactly alike and five peo­ple may choose one of them. But point out in one some qual­i­ties to notice and every­one will find them. The five peo­ple then will all choose the same article.

If peo­ple can be made sick or well by men­tal impres­sions, they can be made to favor a cer­tain brand in that way. And that, on some lines, is the only way to win them.

Two con­cerns, side by side, sold women’s cloth­ing on install­ments. The appeal, of course, was to poor girls who desire to dress bet­ter. One treated them like poor girls and made the bare busi­ness offer. The other put a woman in charge — a moth­erly, dig­ni­fied, capa­ble woman. They did busi­ness in her name. They used her pic­ture. She signed all ads and let­ters. She wrote to these girls like a friend. She knew her­self what it meant to a girl not to be able to dress her best. She had long sought a chance to sup­ply women good clothes and give them all sea­son to pay.

Now she was able to do so, with the aid of men behind her. There was no com­par­i­son in those two appeals. It was not long before this wom­ans’ long estab­lished next door rival had to quit.

The back­ers of this busi­ness sold house fur­nish­ings on install­ments. Send­ing out cat­a­logs promis­cu­ously did not pay. Offer­ing long-​​time credit often seems like a reflection.

But when a mar­ried woman bought gar­ments from Mrs. _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, and paid as agreed, they wrote to her some­thing like this: “Mrs. _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​, whom we know, tells us that you are one of her good cus­tomers. She has dealt with you, she says, and you do just as you agree. So we have opened with you a credit account on our books, good any time you wish. When you want any­thing in fur­nish­ings, just order it. Pay noth­ing in advance. We are very glad to send it with­out any inves­ti­ga­tion to a per­son rec­om­mended as you are.” That was flat­ter­ing. Nat­u­rally those peo­ple, when they wanted some fur­ni­ture, would order from that house.

There are end­less phases to psy­chol­ogy. Some peo­ple know them by instinct. Many of them are taught by expe­ri­ence. But we learn most of them from oth­ers. When we see one win­ning method we note it down for use when occa­sion offers.

These things are very impor­tant. An iden­ti­cal offer made in a dif­fer­ent way may bring mul­ti­plied returns. Some­where in the mines of busi­ness expe­ri­ence we must find the best method somehow.

About the Author

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