We cannot depend much in most lines on the active help of jobbers or of dealers. They are busy. They have many lines to consider. The profit on advertised lines is not generally large. And an advertised article is apt to be sold at cut prices.

The average dealer does what you would do. He exerts himself on brands of his own, if at all. Not on another mans brand.

The dealers will often try to make you think otherwise. He will ask some aid or concession on the ground of extra effort. Advertisers often give extra discounts. Or they make loading offers — perhaps one case free in ten — in the belief that loaded dealers will make extra efforts.

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Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them — not by arguments around a table. Go to the court of last resort — the buyers of your product.

On every new project there comes up the question of selling that article profitably. You and your friends may like it, but the majority may not. Some rival product may be better liked or cheaper. It may be strongly entrenched. The users won away from it may cost too much to get.

People may buy and not repeat. The article may last too long. It may appeal to a small percentage, so most of your advertising goes to waste.

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Most advertisers are confronted with the problem of getting distribution. National advertising is unthinkable without that. A venture cannot be profitable if nine in ten of the converts fail to find the goods.

To force dealers to stock by bringing repeated demands may be enormously expensive. To cover the country with a selling force is usually impossible. To get dealers to stock an unknown line on promise of advertising is not easy. They have seen too many efforts fail, too many promises rescinded.

We cannot discuss all plans for getting distribution. There are scores of ways employed, according to the enterprise. Some start by soliciting direct sales — mail orders — until the volume of demand forces dealers to supply.

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The product itself should be its own best salesman. Not the product alone, but the product plus a mental impression, and atmosphere, which you place around it. That being so, samples are of prime importance. However expensive, they usually form the cheapest selling method. A salesman might as well go out without his sample case as an advertiser.

Sampling does not apply to little things alone, like foods or proprietaries. It can be applied in some way to almost every thing. We have sampled clothing. We are now sampling phonograph records.

Samples serve numerous valuable purposes. They enable one to use the word “Free” in ads. That often multiplies readers. Most people want to learn about any offered gift. Tests often show that samples pay for themselves — perhaps several times over — in multiplying the readers of your ads without additional cost of space.

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Advertising is much like war, minus the venom. Or much, if you prefer, like a game of chess. We are usually out to capture others’ citadels or garner others’ trade. We must have skill and knowledge. We must have training and experience, also right equipment.

We must have proper ammunition, and enough. We dare not underestimate opponents. Our intelligence department is a vital factor, as told in the previous chapter. We need alliances with dealers, as another chapter tells. We also need strategy of the ablest sort, to multiply the value of our forces.

Sometimes in new campaigns comes the question of a name. That may be most important. Often the right name is an advertisement in itself. It may tell a fairly complete story, like Shredded Wheat, Cream of Wheat, Puffed Rice, Spearmint Gum, Palmolive Soap, etc.

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An ad-writer, to have a chance at success, must gain full information on his subject. The library of an ad agency should have books on every line that calls for research. A painstaking advertising man will often read for weeks on some problem which comes up. Perhaps in many volumes he will find few facts to use. But some one fact may be the keystone of success.

This writer has just completed an enormous amount of reading, medical and otherwise, on coffee. This is to advertise a coffee without caffeine. One scientific article out of a thousand perused gave the keynote for that campaign. It was the fact that caffeine stimulation comes two hours after drinking.

So the immediate bracing effects which people seek from coffee do not come from the caffeine. Removing caffeine does not remove the kick. It does not modify coffees delights, for caffeine is tasteless and odorless.

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Many things are possible in advertising which are too costly to attempt. That is another reason why every project and method should be weighed and determined by a known scale of cost and result.

Changing peoples habits is very expensive. A project which involves that must be seriously considered. To sell shaving soap to the peasants of Russia one would first need to change their beard wearing habits. The cost would be excessive. Yet countless advertisers try to do things almost as impossible. Just because questions are not ably considered, and results are traced but unknown.

For instance, the advertiser of a dentifrice may spend much space and money to educate people to brush their teeth. Tests which we know of have indicated that the cost of such converts may run from $20 to $25 each. Not only because of the difficulty, but because much of the advertising goes to people already converted.

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