When we started a class on Advertising Foundations this Fall, on the first day, I heard an interesting phrase, “Advertising is new in its methods but old in its ideas”. I had never thought of it this way. Through out my undergraduate years, every time I would try to design a campaign for a class project or for my internship, I would try to think up “new ideas”, little did I know that my basic fundamental itself were skewed. Through this first installment of readings, I have realized how true the above phrase is.
P.T. Barnum, back in the 19th century “fooled most of the people most of the time”, and claimed that “there’s one sucker born every minute”, while Lydia Pinkham’s marketing genius shook the world. But, it is interesting to note that the ideas are the same, while the methods were new.
Since I am interested in Copywriting as a potential career, I scrutinized our readings with an eye for information on copy and art work to some extent. It was fascinating to follow this journey from the mail-order catalogue which beautified the product and personalized the purchasing process to world famous advertisements and world famous advertising genius’ life stories. All with the same basic principle.
The story of Albert Lasker, as he told it, was most gripping. Lasker started out young in the advertising business and spend his life in it. He started out asking the most basic of all questions: “What is advertising?” Considering that it was the early 1900’s and the consumer was still being introduced to a lot of products, it was a question worth pondering about. But more important than that is another doubt: what situation led him to ask this question? Yes, the advertising world was fairly new, and advertisements themselves were still developing, but his quest to define advertising, so that he could master it, led him to the top of the profession. Lasker’s first discovery was that advertising is news. Working on that, but still not fully convinced, he met John E. Kennedy who explained to him in three simple words what advertising was; Salesmanship in print.
Looking back today, we can say that advertising is news and it is also salesmanship in print. Don’t we introduce our product to the consumer, sell it to him through our communication, persuade him that he really did always need it and inform him about his latent need and desire for it?
Or can we ask the same question today? What is advertising? Along with changes in the society, a lot other things and definitions have also changed, has the definition of advertising also changed? This leads us to ethics in advertising and where they stand today. Do we need to set out on another quest to know what advertising is today? But this is another tangent.
Coming back to copywriting and its evolution, all through undergraduate studying, we are taught about what a typical good advertisement should look like. Clean lines, attractive and relevant imagery and a few well suited, well placed and effective words. We are taught about how cluttering an advertisement turns the consumer off, and how too much information goes for the overkill. The concept could be bold or subtle, but the execution has to be classy and engaging.
On the other hand, advertisements at that time were copy heavy and full of information about the product. An advertisement would communicate everything about the product and the company to the consumer. This trend is evident from P.T. Barnum’s advertisements about his circuses and Lydia Pinkham’s advertisements regarding the vegetable compound to Lasker and Kennedy’s advertisement of the first washing machine. The advertisements at that time disseminated as much information on the product as possible, with a good usage of words. Today you say the least but communication the most. One evident example would be the early Kotex advertisements made by Albert Lasker and the some ads for the same brand in 1992.
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January 1921 |
March 1992 |
Images taken from http://www.mum.org/
The objective of an advertisement back in Albert Lasker’s time was to inform the public, educate them about the product and their need for it. Today we do not sell the product anymore, we sell the brand image. Back then, a print advertisement was probably the only way the company could talk to the public about the product. That was the only platform they had to reach the mass, before the store shelf. Hence, the advertisement would pack all the information it could, as effectively it could in the copy, which made the advertisements copy heavy. Today, because of the multiple media access that we have, internet, television commercials, books, magazines, newspapers, radio, outdoor media and various innovative methods used to advertise the product, the consumer is normally well educated about the product, its uses and various other information before he makes the purchase decision. This is, of course, not taking into count the on-the-spot purchase decision. Also advertising through guerilla promotions is another way of reaching the audience without them knowing about it. Advertising today is a lot like talking to the public and telling them what they need, without them realizing it. What we see in today’s advertisements are messages, direct words, which are supposed to attack the consumer when he is not thinking. It is soft sell more than the hard sell that was always used in early 1900’s.
Lasker’s Reason Why Advertising too was an insightful approach. One that works even today. This just emphasizes more on the original principle we started out with, “New in its methods, old in its ideas”. Reason Why as a fundament that backs an advertisement is one of the golden principles of time. Even today, when one sets out to make an advertisement, keeping in mind the change in audiences and their mindsets, the reason-why principle will apply perfectly. This is because this principle seeks to fulfill and identify the consumer’s need and in this industry, “Consumer is the King!!”
Lasker’s take on art in advertising is another thing worth exploring. His vehemence resistance to introducing art in his advertisements led him to lose a valuable account of Goodyear Tires but this experience opened him to some more philosophies. Also called as Common-Sense Advertising, Lasker had hit the nail on its head when he defined what a good advertisement was.
“The perfect advertisement is one which a good illustration tells in pictures what the headline tells in words, the layout is so arranged that the illustration unerringly accomplish that result.”
A lot of successful campaigns today are about using few but very effective words, with the perfect sync of sound, music, video, pictures and product placement. Thus Lasker’s Common-sense principle rings true in them.
Albert Lasker set about on the path of discovering the world of advertising almost 80 years ago. But all his discoveries, sojourns and his entire path match with the concepts of advertising even today. Even today, advertisements that have art work just for the sake of it would be considered useless. A lot of flutter with no reason makes no sense to anyone. Not the product, not the agency, not the company and definitely not the consumer.
The Lasker Story was definitely a great learning experience for me. As an aspiring copywriter, the advertisements made by Lord & Thomas under Lasker gave me food for thought. The evolution of copy in advertising suddenly makes a lot of sense. Through Lasker’s story itself one can see how advertisement went from Space selling to writing it like news to salesmanship in print and finally to the union between art and copy. There might have been a lot other contributors to this process too, but Lasker and his life, his work, his determination and his various policies stand apart. It his story that set my mind thinking about the difference in copy in the early 20th century and now.
Also, Albert Lasker was not a dishonest adman. When he was working on a campaign for President Roosevelt, he made it clear that he would consider betrayed if Roosevelt changed his principles. When he felt that an account did not require too much advertising money, he stated it directly without any qualms. Being the in the advertising industry does not mean that one has to be dishonest or deceitful, or spin around the truth. Tell it like it is, and sell it like it is, seems to be the way Lasker operated, and I do not see why the same philosophy cannot work today too. The insight I gained from reading, then thinking and then researching and writing about my reflection on The Lasker Story has been an absolutely enriching experience. One that I expect will give me a base once I am working in an agency and one that will give me a backing when I need answers or when I set out to find answers to any questions I might have about advertising.
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