Life — May 24, 1906 — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

How Large Shall Your Poster Be? OU are in business, Mr. Outdoor Adver- tiser, tosell your goods at a profit. % Each time you lower your selling cost, you increase your profit in direct ratio. It has been conclus- ively demonstrated that the surest way for the outdoor advertiser to decrease this selling size of his poster space. This ma: a radical s! it’s the truth, To confirm this you have only to look on the billboards and notice the posters of successful advertisers whose goods are known in every household. The more successful the adver- tiser, the larger the space used. This large space is not used sim- ply because of the prosperity of the advertiser, but on the contrary the advertiser has become prosperous, because of the size of the space he has occupied. A pond contains just so many fish. You can Jand a few of these fish, one by one, with a hook and line. But the man who is making a business of it and is not spending his time and money for the pleasure it gives him USES A NET. He cleans the pond at one sweep while the other man is baiting his hook. The same principle applies in Out- door Advertising. An occasional customer can be influenced by the unimpressive small poster. F But it takes a large poster to pre- sent your proposition so attractively that it will land the multitudes. * * * We will admit that we have an axe to grind in suggesting this large space to you, Mr. Outdoor Adver- tiser—but it’s YOUR AXE. Mind you, we don’t say increase your posting appropriation—merely increase your space. For our experience has proved that it will be far more economical to you, and will lower your selling cost beyond belief, to use say 12-sheet posters in four towns in preference to using 4-Sheet posters in twelve towns. In either event, you would be putting up the identical number of sheets and your posting expense would be the same. To be most effective from a selling standpoint a poster must be large enough, strong enough and attractive enough to gain the attention of the passing multitude in WHOLE not in part. And attention once attracted, the space used must be sufficiently large to contain the meat of your selling point in type large enough to be easily read by the crowd on the street cars, the passers in carriages, and by the man on the other side of the street. The smaller the space used, the narrower is its radius of usefulness— the influence of the small poster is bounded by feet instead of blocks. And even if strong enough in design to compel the attention of the man in the carriage or across the street, the text-of the small poster cannot be read, and its effect from an advertising standpoint is entirely lost. eo 8 6 But space alone, no matter how large, will not in itself induce sales. Nor will this space profitably sell goods if devoted solely to an illustration, no mat- ter how striking or artistic that illustration may be. For unless the space is large enough to reinforce the illustration with a convincing selling argument in few words and large type, no desire can be created in the mind of the reader, and no sales can result. The logical place to look for this con- centrated conviction in poster and street car copy is the modern Advertising Agency, whose ness it is to economically sell goods through the medium of printers’ ink. With the one exception of Lord & Thomas, however, no advertising agency, company or individual is equipped with a special copy force devoted exclusively to the preparation of Posters and Street Car Cards designed primarily to sell the great- est amount of goods at the least expense. Other agencies either attempt to utilize their newspaper or magazine copy force for this purp Or, on the other hand, turn over the preparation of this copy to color printers who are no more qualified to produce adver- tising copy which will economically sell goods tha he man who lays the founda- tion qualified to produce the architect's plans from which he works. For the color printer is an artist—no more, no less. Lord & ‘thomas alone have had the nerve and foresight required to equip a special Outdoor Copy Department at an expense of over $30,000, qualifi the same experienced service in the prep- aration of convincing Poster and Street Car Advertising which is expected and de- manded on advertisements which are to appear in publications of general circula- tion. This trained service—the only exclusive specialized service of its kind in Ameri is at your command without added expense to you, Mr. Outdoor Advertiser, if you want it. It will cost you no more to have your Posters and Car Cards prepared by Lord & Thomas’ trained poster copy men than it does now to have them prepared by color printers. Space on billboards or in street cars will cost you the same no matter from whom you buy it—whether from Lord & Thomas, or direct, or through any other authorized agency. The posting systems bear the expense of this service—not you. Because they recog- nize that in proportion as you succeed through Bill Board or Street Car advertis- ing, to just that extent will it mean success for them, We are about to issue a series of small books (cloth bound) covering advertising papers, magazine and outdoor—in ue of the information and data this series contains cannot be measured by the price they were intended to sell at— $4.00—but we will gladly send them free to any interested advertiser. LORD & THOMAS EsTaBLISHED 1873 Largest Advertising Agency in America Annual Volume Placed for Clients CHICAGO Approaching $4,000,000.00 NEW YORK comicbooks.com