LING BY THE WRITTEN WORD Mtrary Graduate School of Business Administration University of California Los Angeles 24, California V ' ltng tije Mrttten OTorb Celling tfje Written "THE pen is the tongue of the hand; a silent utterer of words for the eye." HENRY WARD BEECHER anbo Company "Furnishing a Specialized Advertising-Selling Service to Manufacturers, Wholesalers, Jobbers and Retailers" PHILADELPHIA, PA. 1918 ARRANGED AND PRINTED BY THE DANDO COMPANY PHILADELPHIA, PA. COPYRIGHT, 1917. THE DANDO COMPANY Bus. Admin. Library . Retrieving a Difficult Situation 7)3 A -> WE found that we had inherited a heavy overhead expense which included considerable interest on all debts and a high cost of production due to a limited distribution and small sales. "Through the efforts of Mr. Stephens, the president of the company , we were able to negotiate a comparatively small loan with which to finance our operations. The terms of the loan stipulated that interest and principal must be paid at the end of one year. The result of our analysis was to determine how we should use this money. "We found that the business was fairly well organized and equipped for production. Our greatest need was to increase sales. For example, our figures showed that if we should continue the business for another year, without in- crease in sales, our overhead expense would make us show a loss of twice the amount of the loan. "In view of that condition, it seemed evident thaf we should concentrate our energy on distribution, and we de- cided to spend the entire amount on advertising and sales promotion. Such a course meant putting all of our eggs into one basket making one big play to win or lose every- thing. We felt keenly the responsibility of our position. We experienced a nervous reaction at the thought of taking such a plunge. " That feeling influenced us to amend our decision, or rather, to defer definite action until we had slept over it. We agreed that if each man felt the same way in the morn- ing the decision would stand. We could see no other way out, and the die was cast. . "At the end of the first year we not only paid the loan, but showed a substantial profit beside" MR. LAMOUTTE The Ansco Co., Binghamton, N. Y. Contents PAGE INTRODUCTORY: . . . ... 13 The Business the key to achievement Achieving success by (A) Enhanced price, or (B) Volume of distribution How advertising quickens business building Mistakes of commission Advertising, a force that can destroy or create ADVERTISING DEFINED: . . . . 25 The written word is "advertising" Advertising methods discussed The big gap in advertising When and where the work of selling starts The "agency system" in advertising Unbalanced advertising Trade paper advertising Attention vs. result advertising THE MAIL ORDER BUSINESS: . . 35 What it really is Its province and limitations Some facts about claims made DOING BUSINESS BY MAIL: . 41 Something quite distinct from mail order business Getting leads [9! (Contents PAGE Helping the salesmen The salesman as one selling force and the printed word as another The ideal business combination What good sales literature can and cannot do Blending two great business forces VERSATILITY AS A BUSINESS- WINNING FORCE: ..... 49 Business prospers through expression The power of expression comes through different personalities Multiplication of business power THE DANDO COMPANY: .... 55 Its scope, service and province in relation to business building, advertising and sales Presentation, expression and impression ANALYSIS AND PLAN DEPARTMENT: 63 Presentation (the written word) Catalogue advertising The booklet Distribution of booklets Letters, "Inquiry-Bringers," "Selling Letters," "Follow-Ups" ADVERTISING PRINCIPLES: . . . 81 What nature teaches the advertiser [ 10] (Contents PAGE The blow in advertising The principle of natural growth Spasmodic advertising effort The house organ Its purview and province The selling feats one well-known house organ accomplished PERIODICAL ADVERTISING: . V Newspapers, magazines, technical journals Errors in advertising "Classified" advertising >/ Advertising in periodicals compared with advertising through the mails MANUFACTURER, WHOLESALER AND JOBBER: 107 A brief epitome of trade relationships DESIGN: , * I r 3 How it affects and supplements results What it is and what it accomplishes in modern merchandising PRINTING: 125 What good printing does and what good printers do [ II ] (Contents PAGE CONCLUSION: 131 Advertising should be based on coherent logi- cal plans supervised and controlled by one master brain to be successful The safe rule in advertising practice The fundamental value of analysis and plan in sales work A sound rule to follow in choosing advertising co-operation Advertising a trust responsibility in advertising [12 I Sntrotmctorp Stttrobuctorp WHY, then, the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. SHAKESPEARE. 3T has been said that the world owes every man a living. Apart from phys- ical or social cataclysms that at times sweep the earth, we must all admit that the world fulfills its trust. Of the thousands of millions who people it, there are practically none who, in normal conditions of time and place, do not contrive to live. The dole that keeps us fed, clothed and housed is not sufficient for the man who regards his life as an opportunity to search for, and possibly grasp, happiness. He knows that, in the main, happiness comes from ability to supply wants, and looking at the rich, portly old globe upon whose bosom he rests he sees that, while it owes him a living, it can give him a competence or fortune. He sees that he can acquire this competence or fortune (the means to happiness) through the activity he habitually follows which men term "his business," provided he plans and conducts it right. j j Introductory So, if he is wise, he will not regard his busi- ness as a necessary evil, to be escaped from as occasion offers, but as the sword through which he will reach the oyster of fortune he demands. Looking around him, he will see others who, once situated as he is, have won fortune, and possibly happiness, by realizing that their busi- ness was the tool, lever or sword through which they could achieve their desires. In the light of this idea, his business will no longer harness Mm for eight or ten hours daily, driving him to daily constant toil; he will harness his business eight or ten hours daily, driving /'/ to constant toil. A man's business is the steed upon which he may ride to success. The majority of men do not appreciate the possibilities of the horse they ride; it jog-trots, and they are content to so go eight hours daily, leaving it at the end of the day outside, neglected and forlorn, while they seek conviviality and good cheer at the way- side inn. If they spent the time they wasted, grooming their steed, putting it in good fettle, its jog-trot would soon develop into an easy canter, then [ 16] Introductory an exhilarating gallop, that, distancing erst- while business companions or competitors, would soon arrive at the destination where means and money and advantages abound. A few in every line of trade and manufacture are doing just this thing. A man can make a fortune out of pins if he sells enough of them. Business fortunes are made by selling low-profit goods in large volume or individualized service or goods at high profit. The man whose business hinges on himself must break through the rut and achieve for- tune by charging more than the conventional price. We see this illustrated, for example, in the physician; he gets nowhere in particular at $i a visit; physical limitations prevent him reaching fortune by that route. He must contrive in some way to make the number of visits he makes in a day yield him more money much more. The position of the man catering (with goods or services) to a limited constituency is very much the same. There is a conventional scale of prices for those goods in all probability, and, following that scale, he will never get rich because his possible field is not large enough. He must either discover (or create) new Introductory fields or (in the face of convention and custom) obtain higher prices. This is the business problem; hard as it is, it is very seldom as hard as it looks; hard as it may look to him, it is very seldom as hard as it looks to the outsider the intelligent, highly trained, specialized outsider whom we may perhaps be allowed to class as the business specialist a man who studies fundamental principles in lieu of being steeped in conven- tional methods a man whose strength lies in his imaginative and inventive faculties which enable him to see in any given situation far more than the average man sees. Of this more anon. The man whose business hinges on volume is faced with the problem of large distribution at low cost; he keeps within the conventional price scale and wins out by distribution methods that keep profits intact or increase them as the case may be. Uneeda Biscuits, Fairy and Ivory Soaps, Sapolio, Gold Dust and others are typical of this class. To an outsider breaking in, the problem looks hard, but is seldom as hard as it looks. [ 18 ] Introductory How '^Advertising Quickens 'Business 'Building Modern business methods are hardly a cen- tury old; before then business building was a slow process; a big reputable merchandising house was the work of several generations. Today a decade is sufficient for such houses to flourish. The cause stands revealed in the printing press; through it the miracle of popular education was achieved; on top of that came the modern miracle of merchandising. The man who a century ago was confined to the bound- aries of his city or suburb, today sells his mer- chandise to a state, nation or world; the man who a century ago had to wait while other people made his reputation now creates it for himself by and through the printing press, the printed word, the selling/or^ of advertising. Is this true? Ask yourself the question in the light of American commercial history in the light of the magazine pages spread before you in the light of the rating books of today giving the standing and wealth of the advertisers in those magazines in the light of the rating books of a decade ago showing where they stood when they [ 19] Introductory got their start where they were when they first realized the possibilities of the steed they were riding. To doubt the road is to doubt the evidence of physical facts. Today the man with the right product ', rightly presented by the right plan to the right class of people, has the audience that one hundred mil- lion souls are capable of yielding. Ordinarily that audience is (in his early ad- vertising stages) far too vast for him to even attempt to cover; ordinarily if he can but win the trade of a fractional part of that audience his business fortune is made. of (Commission We have said that to doubt the road is to doubt the evidence of physical facts. To this we might add that it is not the nature of the aver- age American to doubt physical facts; his trouble is not one of omission, but of commission. He sees the road clearly enough and has a very healthy conception of its physical existence; his single trouble is that he underestimates the diffi- culties in his path prior to the first advertising experiment and is awed by them afterwards. [20] Introductory He is like a child riding the business horse. Sears, of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Wrigley, of chewing gum fame, each set out to conquer the world with something like a ten dollar bill for capital and succeeded. He thinks he can do likewise and fails. He has used what they have used, the printed word. Their tool has failed him, hence it is condemned a conclusion as illogical as it is harmful. The abstract business horse, like its physical brother, has to be got into condition prior to its long gallops successward. The goal aimed at, usually, cannot be reached in one spectacular ride, but by graded stages, carefully tempered to stamina and initial financial conditions. The average American breaking into adver- tising would do infinitely better if he would set out to conquer a county in lieu of a nation. That he may conquer a nation as a result of conquering a county in no sense alters the original specification. Advertising is an elemental force. Like all forces, it can make or break, build up or destroy. A man in advertising can lose a fortune as readily as he can make it. There are certain men possessing a certain degree of familiarity [21 ] Introductory with this force just as the engineer possesses familiarity with steam. These men, business specialists, have, through constant observation (their daily work), observed that this force, like all other forces, is subject to certain laws. These laws they have analyzed and classified. Their knowledge of the great force of adver- tising is not complete. There is much they would like to know that they do not know and much they are learning to know that they did not previously know, but they know enough (if of responsible caliber) to preserve those they serve from the evil effects of the force invoked if it is turned in the wrong direction, becoming a destroying in lieu of a creative element. Possibly, from what has been said, you, reader, will allow the following to stand as facts: 1 That each line of business furnishes examples of success. 2 That it is possible for you to emulate and perhaps duplicate these successes. 3 That a business conducted right does not drive, but is driven. 4 That resourcefulness, knowledge and skill is required to break through the conventional ruts of price and distribution. [22] Introductory 5 That these qualities exist and can be pro- cured and used. 6 That advertising is an elemental force capa- ble of making or breaking. 7 That all forces of this character are both creative and destructive and should be used under skilled guidance alone. 8 That while such guidance does not eliminate the possibility of failure (owing to unknown factors and laws peculiar to the science and not as yet mastered) it does eliminate to a very large degree the possibility of failure and does temper failure if it comes, to a point where it is not fatal. gtoberttstng Beftneb gfotoertteing Befineb WORDS will not fail when the matter is well considered. HORACE. E have spoken a good deal about advertising, and pos- sibly it is time to define what we mean by that term; in our judgment any- thing that assists to build up a business by the written word is advertising. Some people consider advertising as an- nouncements in newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. That is not our idea of it at all; a circular letter is an advertisement; so is a folder; so is a booklet; so is a personal letter, or a series of letters written personally or dupli- cating a "form." Newspaper and periodical advertising is sim- ply part of advertising in general a special branch of the science. Remember, please, when we speak of advertising we refer to anything that assists to build up the business by the written word. Our meaning will then be quite clear. There are a few thousand newspaper and magazine advertisers in the United States [27] ^Advertising ^Defined and a few million advertisers by other methods. The few thousand, owing to the workings of the commission system, have been given good at- tention in at least one important business-get- ting detail assistance to impress the name and assistance to get the inquiries the seeds from which spring sales. You, reader, may use the mails exclusively in getting business, or as an aid in getting busi- ness. You are advertising just as the news- paper or magazine man is advertising; your vehicle for getting business is different, that is all. The important thing is not so much the way of getting business as the business itself. The right method of advertising is an important problem in every business. Many are using news- papers when they should use magazines; many using magazines should be using trade papers. Many using trade papers should be using the mails. The advertising effort of many firms is, while successful, unbalanced one type or class of advertising at the expense of another the profits from magazines being absorbed by un- profitable trade or newspaper space or vice versa. Advertising at first glance seems quite a simple proposition, but, as we go into it, we [ 28] Advertising 'Defined / begin to see it is not nearly so simple as it looks; ultimately we realize it is really a very \ complex proposition requiring specialized study ^ and training. Possibly the big gap in advertising through which the most money drops exists between the inquiry and the sale. An advertising campaign in newspapers or magazines is started. Skilled advertising men, under the commission system, write and place the periodical advertisements, their reimbursement coming from the pub- lishers of these newspapers and magazines who pay them (or allow them a discount) approxi- mating 15 per cent, on the value of the space purchased. As a great rule (and properly), these an- nouncements are not calculated to sell direct, but to draw mail inquiries to the advertiser. Inquiries indicate preliminary attention and interest, and represent, in large degree, potential purchasers. If an average advertising campaign is ex- amined, it will be found that a great deal of money is expended in buying space and illus- trations to fill space bought. This money, as we have shown, brings the inquiry. [29] ^Advertising 'Defined The inquiry itself is neglected, comparatively speaking. In other words, it has been the experience of men who have analyzed average campaigns to find that letters answering in- quiries are written by cheap clerks and that the printed matter enclosed with letter, and subsequent "follow-up," is incapable of its true work, ;. e. y that of turning the inquiry into a sale. The work of selling really starts after the inquiry is in. Inquiries represent neither orders nor cash only potential orders and cash. Here, then, is the big gap through which money drops. The advertising agency earns its com- missions when it buys the space and places the advertisements. Sometimes it is asked, in addition, to prepare the matter necessary to answer the inquiries springing from the adver- tisements. This, to the agency, represents an unwarranted "load" it is asked to carry. There is no remuneration for it; the incentive that did exist for the "placing" (the commission) does not exist for this. The work is not ap- proached in the right spirit. The various technical publications circulating among adver- tising agencies have admitted from time to [30] Advertising 'Defined time that the difference between the strength of the magazine announcements and the material prepared to answer inquiries from those an- nouncements is frequently fatal to the success of an advertising campaign. Personally speaking, we (The Dando Com- pany) consider it no more right to ask an ad- vertising agency to prepare the material to answer inquiries than it would be right to ask us to "place" advertisements without remunera- tion. Personally, we would refuse such a specification. It is to be regretted in the in- terests of sound advertising that many adver- tising agencies have not the courage to refuse when such a specification is insisted on by the advertiser. Unbalanced advertising of the worst character exists when the copy bringing the inquiries is strong and the letters and printed literature answering those inquiries is weak. It is not too much to say that the condition is not alone common, but (with a few notable exceptions) universal. When you want a man to give you satisfac- tion, pay him for what he does and do not ask him to do anything you do not pay him for. Advertising 'Defined Probably the next greatest gap through which dollars drop is that where the advertising an- nouncements themselves are weak. This usually occurs in trade publications. The publishers of most trade publications pay no commissions or discounts to advertising agencies. As a consequence, they do not seek trade journal advertisers. This results in "home-made" copy. In such instances, the advertiser doesn't get results from his trade paper and doesn't know whether it is doing him good or not. Practically, it is not, and the money expenditure, whatever it is, simply represents an unnecessary waste an unnecessary drag on profits. This condition occurs in another form when the advertiser, using magazines, does not seek inquiries, but relies on the consumer purchasing his goods through his local dealer. Such an advertiser, lacking knowledge of cor- rect advertising principles, is unable to differ- entiate between weakness and strength and usually O. K.'s an attention-winning advertise- ment in lieu of one that brings results. In such a case, we find the business supporting the advertising and not the advertising supporting the business. ^Advertising 'Defined A few exceedingly rich concerns can afford such ruinous publicity. The average business sinks beneath it into the "advertising grave- yard." A business man should know know the precise weakness and strength of the advertising he is doing, whether it is "publicity," "inquiry- bringing or "selling" copy. A self-styled salesman "advertising" the busi- ness, i. e.j talking it up, but not getting orders, would not last long. It is the business of advertising to be "profitable; "advertising" that isn't should be dismissed. [331 4Watl rber Jflatl HE t0Ao overlooks a fault invites the commission of another. SYRUS. "MAIL ORDER BUSINESS" is one that does its business exclusively by mail one that puts the entire burden of selling on the written word. There has been much written that is true about the mail order business, and much that is false; the subject will stand a brief study and analysis. As a matter of fact, the mail order business is the logical product of a large population, just as the cream in the bowl is the product of a large quantity of milk. We can carry the analogy on: the mail order advertiser really skims the cream in the shape of people common to any large group, suscep- tible to the written word to the point of allowing it to sell them. The mail order advertiser is continuously half and three-quarters selling a large number of [37] The tjKCail Order 'Business people to whom he never actually sells. Those he does sell to sustain him. He works on a large population, and this large population in turn yields him a sufficiently large number of susceptible people to be profitable. The mail order man must reach large groups of people through large circulations. At best, there is going to be tremendous wastage. Allowing for the wastage, his business is still profitable. The man who claims that a letter or booklet is as effective as a salesman ought to be laughed at or shown the door in accordance with your temperament. He is either a fool or a knave. To find the relative superiority of printed vs. verbal salesmen, you must convert your prob- lem into dollars. Spend a thousand dollars on a salesman and another thousand dollars on advertising literature under as nearly similar conditions as possible and then tabulate results, and you will have a pretty effective answer. You will then know whether it is most profit- able or most convenient to sell your product by male or mail. Remember these general facts: Take the names and addresses of a thousand people; cir- [38] The tJxCail Order business cularize them thoroughly and attractively by mail; a proportion will order. Now let a good salesman call on those thousand people with the same proposition; another proportion will order. This proves that the salesman exerts one kind of force and the printed word exerts another kind of force. Many interesting experiments may be made with such a list. It can be divided into two parts, one being canvassed by a sales- man and the other canvassed by mail. The results are interesting, particularly when re- duced to exact cost basis. The salesman can follow the literature or the literature can follow the salesman and results compared; when through, however, one basic principle will stand out: *A Salesman is One Force The 'Printed Word is ^Another A salesman will sell a man the printed word could not, and, vice versa, the printed word will sell a man the salesman could not. That is one thing to remember. The general rule is this: If you have a propo- sition or commodity of general appeal at a "fair" price, permitting a good profit, you [39] The to be used singly or in con- junction as individual conditions advise or indicate. The man restricted to territory, either by con- tracts or by capital, will, of course, have no need of magazines. He may use local papers advantageously. It isn't a simple matter to determine these things. It calls for specialized knowledge based on constant experiences. It is wise to seek specialized advice before reaching a final decision. [ 105] Jfflanufacturer, jobber anb Bcalcr Manufacturer, Mijole= staler, Jobber anfc Dealer THE conditions of conquest are always easy. We have but to toil awhile^ endure awhile^ believe always, and never turn back. SIMMS. UR heading opens a big subject far too big to be more than touched on here. Some thoughts occur to us in regard to it, however, that may have a useful trend in stimu- lating other thought. "Forcing" products on a dealer is not doing the thing right or working in harmony with success principles. A campaign worth while will seek the co-operation of the dealer. Co-operation can be sought either as dis- tributors or in a financial sense. The dealer should be sold on the merchandise just as effectively as the consumer. He should not be sold on price, but by conviction. He should consider your goods good goods. The dealer should be helped to send out of the front door the things you send in by the back door. [ 109 ] zJvCanufacturer, Wholesaler^ Dealers do not value advertising material, and waste it, simply because they have not been taught its true value as a business-winning tool to them. Teach the dealer advertising values. 'Dealers vs. Salesmen Dealers, as a great rule, are distributors, not salesmen. It is useless to expend salesmanship on them and not on the consumers around them. If you confine salesmanship to dealers, they will get "stuck" with your goods. You may do a good first business, but a bad last business. Consider the dealer's shop as you would con- sider it if it were a branch distribution house of yours. You would have your local manager compile names and addresses of surrounding consumers and you would work to send them to the branch. The dealer appears obstinate, but he is not. You must find why he appears so and reason with him. His seeming obstinacy will melt before the rays of self-interest if you can show them to him. Put into the dealer's mouth the same sales arguments as you put into the consumer's [ no] Jobber and 'Dealer brain. When each meet, they will naturally and automatically make the same points. The buyer's beliefs will be thus strengthened to the point of conviction. If capital is limited, pick a number of in- fluential dealers and create a demand for your goods around them. When the dealer feels this demand, he will automatically "stock up." Sale and distribution problems relating to the dealer are many and varied. Difficult as many of them look, they dissolve, as a rule, under common-sense thinking when backed by the requisite knowledge and experience. IT is not my periods I polish, but my ideas. JOUBERT. O far we have dealt with the import- ant elements of plan and copy in selling by the written word. Design is of related importance. The New Standard Dictionary de- fines the term as: "An arrangement of forms or colors, or both, intended to be executed in hard or pliable material. ... It may be (i) technical, to serve some useful purpose; (2) decorative , to beautify a useful object; (3) pictorial or artistic, to give lasting ex- pression to an ideal. "The adaptation of forms to spaces, ob- jects and materials; artistic invention." Broadly speaking, a designer plans the work another is to construct precisely as an architect plans a dwelling for a builder. The writer impresses the mind. The designer impresses the senses chiefly the senses of eye and touch and sound seeing, feeling and hearing. 'Design Design is the physical environment of crys- tallized mental thought. Copy is the man; de- sign is his dress. W. S. Jevons, in his little work on logic, tells of "Monsieur Jourdain, an amusing person in one of Moliere's plays, who expressed much surprise on learning that he had been talking prose for more than forty years without knowing it. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred," says Mr. Jevons, "might be equally surprised to hear that they had long been converting propositions, syllogizing, falling into paralogisms, framing hypotheses and mak- ing classifications with genera and species. "If asked whether they were logicians, they would probably answer, No! They would be partly right, for I believe that a large number of educated persons have no clear idea of what logic is. Yet, in a certain way, every one must have been a logician since he began to speak." Perhaps that little extract will assist in making it clear that, like Monsieur Jourdain, ninety-nine people out of a hundred are dealing in the elements of design without knowing it. Here is the typewritten message the writ- ten word. It is to be distributed to thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people. [ 116] 'Design A little reflection convinces us that economy will be served by printing it. We then (if handling the job ourselves) begin to ask our- selves a thousand and one questions: What type will I use? what paper? what size? what color of paper? what color of ink? what cover? Will I make it a folder or a booklet? etc., etc. We have, in addition, to consider two things we want to accomplish: We want to do that work economically and we want to do it so that it makes a favorable impression on the senses of the prospective customer in whose hands we will place it. It looks like the old clash of cheapness vs. quality. Recollecting the importance of a favor- able impression^ it looks as if we must forget price and insist on quality. Recollecting the importance of cash, it looks as if we must forget quality and insist on price. The printer, in either case, can be made to give us what we want. Here is one function of the designer; he steps in and shows that reasonable economy is not incompatible with good design. By reason of his knowledge, he may produce for you a [ 'Design design that will give a most favorable impres- sion at one-fifth of the cost you would have been under had you sought to obtain that identical impression. Dirt has been defined as "matter in the wrong place"; wrong design is simply that, "materials in the wrong place." We must not lose sight of the fact that the object of design is to create through the senses a favorable mental impression. It is not the province of design to create an impression of cost. Neither is it necessarily its object to create a merely artistic impression. Its object is to create a favorable mental impres- sion an impression that helps to sell. We probably have all experienced the sensa- tion of talking to another party before a silent third party who, in some way, we know, has an influence on us both. To our mind, the import- ance of design lies in its undoubted power to subconsciously add another message to the text. This may be made clearer by the words of our chief of copy staff; he said: "I have repeatedly contended that the right message, scrawled with a piece of [ 118] ^Design charcoal on the back of an oyster shell, will produce results. That is putting copy to work under most difficult conditions and demonstrating its power to overcome them, precisely as the personality of a man will eventually overcome the handicap of ill- fitting, shabby or slovenly clothing. "But why call upon copy to demonstrate its power under stress and handicap? In an experimental way that may be useful, but in business matters we must, like the straight line, take the shortest distance between two points, and arrive from attention to action by the route that causes us the minimum of friction and trouble, otherwise profits will be lost to our client. "In this light, design is of supreme im- portance. It is perhaps unnecessary for me to say that I have witnessed on countless occasions the supreme importance of design. Let me cite a few examples: "The firm was old, reliable and respon- sible; it did its business with what may be termed 'Dutch thoroughness* and con- ducted it with Quaker-like honesty. "It was my privilege to prepare a series of [ 'Design mailing pieces for this firm some twenty in all. This involved conveying the necessary message in twenty different installments or parts. "Responsibility, age, reliability was, of course, one of my most forceful points; yet, I deemed, others had precedence of them. I opened the campaign from a different angle; yet, to my amazement, when the first five pieces of the series came to me from the designer's hands, he had, in some subtle, baffling way, impregnated and en- vironed the presentation with just those elements age, responsibility and relia- bility. He had literally encompassed my message with another a silent voice of marvelous power. "Some years prior to this, before I knew the firm, my first contact with it came through a letter I received from them, the letter head (as I subsequently learned) be- ing from the hands of the same designer (Mr. J. Frank Eddy). I remember the letter talked of one thing and the design of the letter talked eloquently of another age, responsibility, reliability. Accustomed, as [ 120 ] ^Design I am to analyzing and expressing my feel- ings, it took me some time to realize what was talking to me outside of the letter it- self. I finally succeeded in placing that, but when I in turn went after the method by which the result had been achieved I failed. Nothing was patent. The effect was too subtle for that. I failed because I lacked the necessary skill and technical knowledge to know how physical things had been handled. I failed because I was a writer, not a designer. Back of the effect were years of painstaking study, backed, undoubtedly, by a natural faculty. This and kindred things represented its fruits. "I consider design of supreme importance in presentation by the written word. It is a very hard thing to adequately describe. It broods over copy like holiness broods over a stately cathedral; like thoughts of religion and God spring from the grandeur of the mountain or the loveliness of the valley." We all feel the power of design because we all strive for it. That we do not succeed in T^esign getting it is the fault of our training and not of ourselves. As Jevons says: "It may be asked: If we cannot help being logicians, why do we need logic books at all? The answer is that there are logicians and logicians. All people are logicians in some manner or degree; but unfortunately many people are bad ones, and suffer harm in consequence." So we are all designers in some manner or degree. The mistakes that flood the mails prove, however, that most people are bad designers. They strive to gain favor and achieve cost. They miss what they aim at -favorable impres- sion. In business that is paramount. Its presence makes and its absence breaks. The Dando Company, realizing the importance of design in copy, has secured a master of the craft. He takes the finished written word and environs and frames it with knowledge and art that gives to it another property and quality that enhances selling force to a remarkable degree. By and through him, the physical materials that comprise the art of printing are brought into right relationships, the resultant being a [ 122 ] ^Design physical product correct in technique "matter in the right place." Such work brings personality and atmosphere to a line of advertising, uniting it through artistic resemblance into an immediately recog- nizable "family group," bringing elements of permanency and dignity, without which the finest copy is heavily handicapped. I 123 ] printing printing MANY persons feel art, some understand it; but few both feel and understand it. HlLLARD. E have now covered three sides of the selling struc- ture, /. e.j plan, copy and design. We now come to O the fourth and final side- printing. Printing multiplies and crystallizes plan, copy and design. The finished product demonstrates whether we have got the thing we aimed to get, or something else. Design is too subtle, too ethereal a thing to obtain through verbal specification ; it demands reproduction and crystallization under the im- mediate observation of the designer. The realization of an ideal is difficult enough at best; it becomes practically impossible where artist and artisan cannot work under conditions where the closest supervision and co-operation exist. Realizing the importance of printer super- vision to both copy-writer and designer, The [ 127) 'Printing Dando Company has installed, in its own build- ing, under the constant supervision of the Design Department, one of the most complete and efficient printing plants available in the city of Philadelphia a plant capable of phys- ically creating and delivering any style and quantity of printed material judged appro- priate to the presentation in hand.* Design may call for the simple, chaste or severe, or for the ornate, florid or elegant- whatever the demands in color, size or individ- ualized shape or form the Dando plant can efficiently fill them. Through every stage, the printing is watched by experts to the finished form, so that it may emerge from the presses in finished Jorm per- fect from a printing standpoint. The thing desired is obtained. The mental conception is realized in the final product. There * This element in direct advertising has been given liberal discussion by printers for a long time job printers, big printers, little printers, good printers, artistic printers, cheap printers, "dear" printers and other brands of the craft. The Dando Company, seeking to reduce the abstract to the concrete and substitute proof for claim, will send (by express) a chest of printed specimens (weight, approximately 100 pounds) any- where in the United States upon the reasonable request of any reliable business house. [ 128 ] ^Printing are no disappointments. We see (if necessary through painstaking experimentation) a press sample of what we want before the presses multiply it. We repeat, this is the only safe way to pro- cure the largest measure of perfection to ap- proximate an ideal final judgment of the first press proof rests neither with printer nor client, but with designer. If it is the thing he has mentally conceived and worked towards, it goes through; if it is not, the presses stop till it is. And we see to it, as the work goes through, that each impression is equal in every respect to the first press impression. Every copy of the entire run is equal to the first few copies you see. Uniformity of product is a difficult thing to get in printing. It costs money at the presses. There each copy is checked and inspected. You could not possibly inspect every copy and every page of copy on a large run. Responsible men in the press room should do that for you. It is, invariably, done in the Dando plant, where good work is a habit. [ 129 ] Conclusion Conclusion THE best way to come to truth being to examine things as they really are, and not to conclude they are, as we fancy of ourselves or have been taught by others to imagine. LOCKE. 3N taking the reader through all the stages incident to plan, copy, design and printing, we trust it has become clear that the Dando organization offers a complete service to men who rely, wholly or in part, on the written word to sell their products or their services. You may visit this organization, and, without moving from your chair, be in instant touch with all the men, all the facilities, all the ideas necessary to help you in your sales problem. A connection with the Dando organization renders "shopping" both unnecessary and ill advised. Advertising should be a coherent, logical thing under control and supervision, from the start on, of one master brain. Unity of aim and purpose always brings the best results. Advertising is far too big and too complex a subject to be more than touched on in the i 133 1 (Conclusion pages of a business book such as this. The Dando literature of advertising is stupendous, but it appears neither in booklets nor books; it is created and perpetuated daily in advisory service to clients. A book may crystallize today's ideas, but not those of tomorrow. Advertising methods are constantly being changed by nation-wide and world-wide conditions. Specialized problems in selling must be interpreted in the light of these changes. The only safe rule in advertising practice is that which rules in medical practice an individual study of each separate business problem in the light of the most recent knowl- edge and experience. A firm seeking a better business experience had best not come to us with worn-out policies and methods to which they require us to fit copy. The proper course is to begin with Analysis and Plan from thence to copy, from thence to design, and from thence to printing. It is a highly advisable thing, even when it is practically certain that modern methods and ideas prevail, to allow a review of what is being done under Analysis and Plan, because, in our experience, "copy" is strengthened by the I 134 ] (Conclusion emphasis given to data by this independent and preliminary review. In the entire history of the Analysis and Plan Department, during which the methods, ideas and selling policies of many great commercial houses have been reviewed, there has occurred but three instances where we could conscien- tiously report that conditions found were beyond our power to improve. When we find such a desirable condition, we are exceedingly glad to say so; we would like to be able to say it much oftener than we do. A firm about to enter business will logically benefit by arranging for our entire service. Firms already in business can, in all probability, reap an equal benefit. That, at least, has been our experience. Business relationships do not necessarily in- volve Analysis and Plan, but experience con- firms us in our desire to earnestly recommend it. Our departments are independent, one of the other, at option of our client. He is not neces- sarily bound to carry out what we recommend through us. In other words, the first trans- action is paid for and involves no subsequent obligation. [ 1351 (Conclusion Many firms use our Analysis and Plan De- partment without copy. Others instruct us to prepare copy without preliminary analysis and plan; others use the services of our design and printing organizations without reference to plan or copy. Each division is complete in itself, ready to give each client what he needs. Those who have hitherto ordered printing without design will be agreeably surprised at the effects we can give, at relatively low cost, with the two forces combined and working in unison, as in the Dando plant. Spasmodic advertising effort, while frequently resultful and gratifying, so far as it goes, con- tains, by its very nature, no element of con- tinuous progress. A good business ought to be progressive. It has a journey to go. Its goal is success a success equal at least to leaders in its line perhaps a success that will eclipse them. A business should not be subjected to a shunt- ing process; it should roll forward smoothly on the steel rails of progress under the impulse of continuous advertising power. An alliance with an advertising house should be sought with this [ 136] (Conclusion end in view. In searching for such a house, the cool-headed business executive will look past the enthusiastic but ignorant, the clever but designing, the wordmonger and claim- smith, and demand, for the responsible business task, the services of responsible people. This rule, which is a sound rule, will eliminate much of the perplexity that will otherwise exist in choosing advertising co-operation. Responsibility, in our eyes, has a double meaning. There is property and moral respon- sibility; property responsibility is good in law for what it says it will do no more or no less. Moral responsibility carries a lively sense of duty to one's fellow man. A "property-responsible" dentist may kill the nerve of a sound tooth to save himself time and trouble in filling; a morally responsible dentist would not do that, but would preserve the live tooth, if necessary, at the cost of the patient's nerves, and, perhaps, his patronage. Advertising, as we have endeavored to show, is an elemental force or power as capable of wreaking harm as good. In the delicate and complex work of applying this force to a busi- ness organization, we feel, to the full, the truth [ Conclusion of those words of the great Disraeli, "All power is a trust; we are accountable for its exercise." The captain of a great steam vessel has lives and enormous property value in his charge. He has reached a position of responsibility and trust because of a careful, conservative tempera- ment that worked to avoid accident. His freedom from accident procured him the repu- tation that made him captain of the vessel he commands. Had he been otherwise, a series of accidents would have caused him to be regarded as "unsafe" or "unlucky," and he would have captained no such ship. A business such as ours is built on our clients. It succeeds as they succeed and fails as they fail. Self-interest, if nothing else, demands that a great organization move with the utmost care and caution in dealing with the sales problems of those it serves. // becomes what it is by that process. The Dando Company has been established in business in the city of Philadelphia nearly half a century; it owns its own building and plant, and has a staff of half a hundred people; it invites, prior to business negotiations, a careful investigation of its moral and financial [ 138 ] Conclusion . * , oeo.eeo *, 000,000 TkE GXPAHD NATZONJU. BANK 'The Dan do Company has been know to this Bank for a long time* They hare been in business for nearly half a century and we cogr sider then thoroughly reliable, able and willing to honorably carry out any contracts they under- take. Yours CJIA/8. "39 (Conclusion responsibility, and will gladly assist to the extent of its ability in aiding any investigation it is desired to make in this direction through bank, trade and commercial references. May we, as a parting word, be allowed to again emphasize the fact that creative business advertising is the continuous application of an elemental force; that the force remains con- stant, but the methods of using it are changed by the march of circumstances; that the right kind of advertising alliance is made on the permanent footing and basis that anticipates these changes and evolves new ideas and methods to meet them or further them as they arise. Continuity of effort and versatility in effort comprise the two basic levers that lift a business to affluence and prosperity. Keep the levers busy till you "arrive." THE DANDO COMPANY 34 SOUTH THIRD STREET PHILADELPHIA, PA.