ABSTRACT
Simplicity in advertising has most to do with the printed message—the copy,—the last word in the advertising plan. However fine the product, clever the merchandising plan, shrewd the advertising committee, well selected the media, if the copy doesn’t measure up, then the rest tumbles, like a row of dominoes when the end piece falls. The simplest rules which gave advertising being are too often threatened by the smothering influence of abstract ideas, writer’s ego, and a far-fetched style which would never stand the across-the-counter selling test. If many a full page advertisement were written with the same painstaking care, and lack of unnecessary, fanciful trimming, as the sixty-line mail-order advertisement which must go out into the cold world and bring back its cost many times over, there would be far fewer “clever” ads and many more sales. Of course, a technical advertisement must keep its scientific feet on the ground.
