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Each early mariner in this sea mapped his own separate course.
There were no charts to guide him. Not a lighthouse marked a
harbor, not a buoy showed a reef. The wrecks were unrecorded, so
countless ventures came to grief on the same rocks and shoals.
Advertising was a gamble, a speculation of the rashest sort. One
man's guess on the proper course was as likely to be as good as
another’s. There were no safe pilots, because few sailed the same course twice.
The condition has been corrected. Now the only uncertainties
pertain to people and to products, not to methods. It is hard to
measur e human idiosyncrasies, the preferences and prejudices, the likes and dislikes that exist. We cannot say that an article will be popular, but we know how to sell it in the most effective way.
Ventures may fail, but the failures are not disasters. Losses, when
they occur, are but trifling. And the causes are factors which has
nothing to do with the advertising.
Advertising has flourished under these new conditions. It has
multiplied in volume, in prestige and respect. The perils have
increased many fold. Just because the gamble has become a science, the speculation a very conservative business.
These facts should be recognized by all. This is no proper field
for sophistry or theory, or for any other will-o'-the-wisp. The blind
leading the blind is ridiculous. It is pitiful in a field with such vast
possibilities. Success is a rarity, a maximum success an impossibility, munless one is guided by laws as immutable as the law of gravitation.
So our main purpose here is to set down those laws, and to tell
you how to prove them for yourself. After them come a myriad of
variations. No two advertising campaigns are ever conducted on lines that are identical. Individuality is an essential. Imitation is a reproach.
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