T

OO much retail advertising "goes by favor," which is one of the hardest criticisms that can be made of retail advertising. And it is this fact that gives occasion for an analysis which will show that what retail advertising needs is better organization for building upon a foundation of known facts in order that it may continue to be a leader in the great development of advertising that is taking place in this country.

Among the few failures with which I am familiar in the department store business, persistent exaggeration in their advertising was discernible, and they lost out because the people, more intelligent than the store managers, believed, refused to be "fooled all the time," and would not respond to the ads.

The retail merchant is the man who gets the money from the consumer.

The retailer is the man who cashes in on all the work of the manufacturer, the farmer, the wholesaler.

The retailer is the man who collects the peoples' money to pay the producer and who distributes the peoples' money back to the maker of the merchandise.

The retailer is the least considered of all advertisers in the "dope" that is being handed out by the advertising experts and the advertising press-and has probably less representation in the advertising clubs of America than any other class of advertisers. Yet the aggregate expenditure of the retailer for advertising in the 30,000 newspapers of America is greater than the advertising of any other class of advertisers.

The retail merchant and the newspaper are bound together in bonds of mutual interest which cannot be severed, and the manufacturer who ignores or attempts to override this affinity of interest whether in his selling or his advertising efforts, will come to grief.

The fact to which I want to call attention is that, while the retailer is the biggest and most important factor in the distribution of merchandise and in collecting the money from the people-while the retailer is the most important supporter of the newspaper press of

America, and his aggressive advertising bill is the biggest of any class of advertisers, the retailers' advertising is practically unorganized and receives less careful consideration in its copy and selection of mediums than does the advertising in so-called national mediums..

The national advertiser is not so efficiently organized either. The national advertisers who have their own data collecting systems, who know, right in their own shop, what are the conditions governing the proper placing of advertising in their various territories, are

rare.

But there is organization for these big advertisers, because the present system of advertising brokerage makes it profitable for somebody else to organize the collecting of facts on which to base successful campaigns.

Agency organization is getting better and better all the time, because it is getting more and more facts all the time. The strong agencies when uninfluenced by self interest or by personal bias, can, if they will, put enough science into a campaign today to almost insure results. At the best, so far as my observation goes the agency organization has given far too little attention to the retailer and his relations with the consumer.

But I seem to see signs that this error is being discovered and corrected, for the recent rapid growth of newspaper advertising by national advertisers, indicates that the or ganization on which he depends is getting closer to the people-through the people's ambassador, the daily newspaper.

The big department stores in all the larger cities have a so-called advertising organization, but except in very rare cases these organizations, as the advertising managers will bear me out, leave much to be desired.

Outside of one or two each in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago, my experience leads me to believe there is not a real advertising organization equipped to efficiently handle and get the most out of a big advertising appropriation in America's big department stores.

The advertising of these big stores has fallen

into a rut, and year in and year out is following the precedent of "what we did last year;" instead of probing and searching for data upon which to improve on last year.

One would naturally suppose that the local retail advertiser would be in such close touch with his field of operations that his waste would be infinitesimal as compared with the national advertiser. Yet, this is not so.

The large national advertiser supplements his own advertising organization with that of a modern agency, and pays 15 per cent in addition to his advertising appropriation for this agency's service.

The number of large retailers in the United States who spend 15 per cent of their advertising appropriation on its organization can be counted on the fingers of one hand, without touching any finger a second time.

I can illustrate this in part by relating my consideration with the ad manager of a New York retail store who visited me not long ago. Among other things, he said:

"I have lots of ideas for expanding the business of my house, but I don't propose them, because I'd either be killed or lose my job. To carry them out means work, and I have more work now than I can do and do well. If I proposed these things the boss would say: "That's a good idea, go to it; but he wouldn't give me the necessary extra organization to do it right. So, if I did it right I'd die from overwork in short order, and if I didn't do it right I'd get fired, so I let well enough alone. I used to work out ideas and get permission to execute them, but it cost me most of my salary for doctor's bills and vacations to recover from nervous prostration. Now when I get an idea that involves work or requires extra help, I just say 'never again,' and let it go at that."

The remarks of my friend from New York illustrate the conditions under which nearly all the advertising of large stores in the big cities is ground out, and explains to a large extent its superficiality, monotony and lack of individuality.

population of the city in which he operated and to the Bible class antecedents of the merchant advertiser. With more or less fidelity this style has been maintained by his establishment ever since, although the Bible class championship belt has been wrested from general merchandise and is now monopolized by Standard Oil.

This heart-to-heart style, fitting only a certain ideal of business practice and a certain locality, has appealed to merchants all over the country as "good stuff." These merchants, viewing their growing cities and their own incidental growth, seem to be actuated by the spirit of that well-known heart-rending popular song, "Papa's Pants Will Soon Fit Willie;" and in their efforts to put on papa's pants, or to appropriate his style, unmindful of the difference of conditions in both their business practice and in their communities, they have put the stamp of burlesque on a very considerable portion of retail advertising.

Another false note under which much of this large retail advertising fails to vibrate the money-chord, may be summed up in the word, "Balance." Most of the advertising of large stores compresses into one large space, a dozen to three dozen, or even more, advertisements of different kinds of merchandise, running the gamut from cheese and fish to hand-made laces and diamonds.

Instead of a straight-out, eye-attracting and compelling ad (all under the one firm caption) for each of these departments, based on the response-meriting character of the offers; sensational where the price is unusual; straightforward and well displayed to attract the eye of that human group it is designed to reach, this advertiser first lays out a balanced diagram in which one cut must balance another cut, one department must balance another department, one space must balance another space. Then he proceeds to concoct copy which will fit these well-balanced cuts and spaces, his primary idea being balance, balance, balance, instead of "will it get the money?" I have known this idea to be carried to such extremes that it took the entire time of one assistant in an advertising department to see that every paragraph balanced every opposite paragraph, in number of words and lines, and in the writing of the original copy more time was consumed in counting words to the line than in calculating the responsive chord-hitting power of the words used.

The argument of this style of ad artist is that a well-balanced ad is pleasing to the eye,

and attracts by its typographical perfection. This is a good argument for a possible 5 per cent of the community, which 5 per cent hasn't nearly so much aggregate money to spend as the rest of the 95 per cent who would be moved by a more flaring and, therefore, more quickly comprehended appeal to their less cultured responsive chord.

The commonest fault, the error of habit most easily acquired and consequently most frequently met with in retail advertising, is the careless use of superlatives.

The carelessness in claiming that goods are "the biggest bargains ever offered," that this is the "greatest sale ever held," that "we are showing the largest stock in the city," "the most wonderful merchandising event in the city's history is about to transpire," that "this is the greatest and grandest aggregation of merchandise your eyes have ever beheld," or that "this is the mightiest movement of meritorious merchandise." Mark me, the careless use of these terms, the indiscriminate application of superlatives to merchandising incidents by no means warranting their use, is one of the commonest errors of retail advertising and one of the serious drawbacks to its striking of the responsive chords.

The old fable of the shepherd boy who cried "Wolf, wolf," just to see the natives respond, and who monkeyed around, ringing the changes on his cry of wolf until he had entirely killed the responsive chord in the people, whereupon the wolk actually did come and destroy, bears admirably upon this situation.

False generalities are more quickly perceived by more people than are false particulars. Grandiloquently announcements, false or exaggerated upon their face, will more surely and quickly destroy public confidence in an advertiser and will do more to dull the responsive chord than will the smaller, though no less reprehensible, claims of greater than a true value for particular articles advertised.

I have called attention to three points for criticsm of big store retail advertising. Copying a style that does not fit; undue importance given to balance, and carelessness of statement. These are trivial matters when viewed in the light that they are simply the details which prove the great and glaring fault of most big retail advertising.

This great and glaring fault is: Inefficient administration, due to insufficient expenditure for organization. It is the fault of the merchant behind the ad man who refuses to pay for

an organization fitted and able to employ and of get results from, every possible avenue profit.

Do not mistake me. The newspaper advertising of most of the big stores gets results. It gets such good results that the merchant is satisfied in many cases and doesn't see the need of organization to get more results or get as good results through subsidiary mediums. One or two of the best newspapers to which he gives all his copy produce so much that he thinks he can afford to spend about half or a third of his appropriation as a favor to the struggling non-producers. And so, after spending practically all of his advertising appropriation with the newspapers that produce and the newspapers he wants to favor he is the victim of a little desultory of sporadic effort in the way of circulars, often indiscriminately mailed to he knows not whom, a few bundle "snipes" and a general inattention or listless indifference to the cultivation of his possibilities for subsidiary advertising.

And the reason for this lies in their unwillingness to pay the price for the organization necessary to do this work systematically, intelligently and right.

So now, here's the point, worth a fortune to the merchant who can grasp it and apply it. In every city of any considerable size, large enough to support more than one big general store, there's a chance for one store to outdistance all competition, to create and maintain for itself an impregnable position at the top, by spending 15 per cent or even 10 per cent of its advertising on an advertising organization which will investigate and sift and analyze and synthesize and tabulate and use, all the advertising possibilities of the town. There is a chance for one big store in every city to disregard the niggardly custom of working a single advertising man up to or beyond the limit of endurance, on a salary sometimes less than he deserves to take the advertising manager out of the category of "dead help"; and with a competent, merchandise knowing, keen analyzer of the responsive chord in every grade of human being at its head with just as many assistants and clerks as he needs to work out his problems and carry on his campaign. with the head of such an organization in closest touch with the department managers, the general management. the sales, sheets, the stock sheets, the profit sheets, the store service organization-and the merchandise itself, it would take but a short

time to make of such a house the undisputed leader in the city's retail business.

It would be interesting to note the change in the advertising of a house that had the nerve and the foresight to take this stand; to note in how short a time it would develop a tone of strength and assurance and find it possible to cease its interminable ringing of the charges on its bargains and its job lots; to note the spreading of its influence among more and more of the different classes in the community; to witness the awakening of the public's responsive chord in wider and wider circles like the ripples from a stone cast into the water; to see supremacy developed from mediocrity and increased profits keeping pace with increased volume.

This is no Utopian ideal nor visionary theory. It is as intensely practical as it is possible of accomplishment. But it is a call to one merchant in every town to wake up; to draw away from that "innumerable caravan" of those who "having ears hear not, and having eyes, see not," the big way to handle a proposition big with possibilities and to get the big money. But the department store is far from being the only retail advertiser worth considering. The specialty shop in dozens of linesclothing, hats, cloaks and suits, shoes, millinery, haberdashery, infants' wear, dry goods, drugs, stationery, trunks and leather goods, sporting goods, linens, lingeries, jewelry, china and glassware, carpets, and rugs, furniture, hardware, groceries and others are putting over an aggregate of local retail advertising far in excess of that of the department stores. These specialty shops are growing in importance as their advertising gives them prominence, and they are all the time giving the big store a bitter and harder run for their money. If the smaller shops could get on ahead of the big stores with an efficient, analytical, statistical, merchandising and copy organization there would be a quick change in the methods of retail advertising.

Individually, these specialty shops with their appropriations of $1,000 to $15,000 or $20,000, a year cannot each afford an organization like the big stores should have, but there is a way of giving them the benefits of organization which is now developing and will give them as good a chance to know what is the right thing to do, and to do it, as the best organization of the big store can provide.

Three kinds of retail advertising organiza

tions to my mind seem desirable and necessary. First-Proper organization and appreciation of the sphere of the advertising departments of America's big stores.

Second-Organization of the retailers in each community for the purpose of working with the national advertiser for mutually profitable results through national campaigns in local newspapers.

Third-Organization for the small retailer or specialty shop, to give him as good an advertising service as his big and overshadowing department store competitor.

The Buffalo Ad Club has appointed a "Grievance Committee" whose special mission will be that of encouraging clean and legitimate advertising. The committee is sending out a circular asking for support and encouragement, and taking a stand as follows:

"The Buffalo Ad Club stands for a clean house and a square deal. We have resolved to set ourselves now and always firmly against fraud, misrepresentation, exaggeration or anything else that is published and circulated with a view of exciting the interest of the public without giving them honest values for every dollar expended."

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