A Little Nonsense Now and Then Indulged in by Some Business Men
A Certain Man fell ill. So he went to his physician and said: “Doctor, I am suffering acutely from hepatitis and I wish you to write me a prescription calling for eight half-grain tablets of mercurous chloride, which I wish to take every ten minutes until I have taken them all. And, while you are writing the prescription, 1 will borrow your instruments and test my blood pressure, heart action and temperature.”
Having made the tests and satisfied himself that the prescription was adequate, the Man proceeded on his way, but remembered that he had business with his Attorney. So he betook himself to the office of his Counsel, and, on being admitted, said: “Mr. Brown, I wish you to take charge of this libel proceeding which one of my neighbors has started because I called him an ‘Ignorant Idealist’ in a letter to the Sun. I wish you to prepare the proper pleadings. We will file a general demurrer which you will have set down for argument next Tuesday morning at 1 0 o’clock, and if we are not sustained we will admit and justify and go ahead to prove that Smith is an ‘Ignorant Idealist.’
And having concluded, thus, his business with his Counsel, the Man remembered that he must see his Architect. So he called on his Architect to explain that he desired to erect a Building. And just as he was about to draw from his inside pocket a complete set of plans and specifications, with various elevations, with every question of design, material and workmanship settled—
But it occurs to the teller of this tale that most of it never happened. Instead, the Man was quietly but firmly removed from his doctor’s office and in an ambulance conveyed to a Sanitarium devoted to the repair of Fractured Mentalities, which accounts for the fact that he was not able to visit his Dentist for the purpose of delivering instructions with reference to the placing of an inlay in a second molar, nor did he get to the office of his Oculist to arrange for the prescribing of a pair of minus spheres he had decided on as likely to remedy the presbyopiatic condition of his eyes.
Now this, of course, is all nonsense. And yet it is not altogether nonsense either, for there are many people who really believe that they are pursuing logical and proper methods in marketing products used in building by endeavoring to induce clients to tell Architects what to use and how to use it. Of course, no such procedure would suggest itself to any manufacturer whose product’s use depended altogether on the decision of a physician or a lawyer.
The real nonsense lies in the belief that Advertising to Consumers will compel Architects to specify materials in which their confidence has not been established.
Talks on Advertising—IV
by
THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT
A Certain Man fell ill. So he went to his physician and said: “Doctor, I am suffering acutely from hepatitis and I wish you to write me a prescription calling for eight half-grain tablets of mercurous chloride, which I wish to take every ten minutes until I have taken them all. And, while you are writing the prescription, 1 will borrow your instruments and test my blood pressure, heart action and temperature.”
Having made the tests and satisfied himself that the prescription was adequate, the Man proceeded on his way, but remembered that he had business with his Attorney. So he betook himself to the office of his Counsel, and, on being admitted, said: “Mr. Brown, I wish you to take charge of this libel proceeding which one of my neighbors has started because I called him an ‘Ignorant Idealist’ in a letter to the Sun. I wish you to prepare the proper pleadings. We will file a general demurrer which you will have set down for argument next Tuesday morning at 1 0 o’clock, and if we are not sustained we will admit and justify and go ahead to prove that Smith is an ‘Ignorant Idealist.’
And having concluded, thus, his business with his Counsel, the Man remembered that he must see his Architect. So he called on his Architect to explain that he desired to erect a Building. And just as he was about to draw from his inside pocket a complete set of plans and specifications, with various elevations, with every question of design, material and workmanship settled—
But it occurs to the teller of this tale that most of it never happened. Instead, the Man was quietly but firmly removed from his doctor’s office and in an ambulance conveyed to a Sanitarium devoted to the repair of Fractured Mentalities, which accounts for the fact that he was not able to visit his Dentist for the purpose of delivering instructions with reference to the placing of an inlay in a second molar, nor did he get to the office of his Oculist to arrange for the prescribing of a pair of minus spheres he had decided on as likely to remedy the presbyopiatic condition of his eyes.
Now this, of course, is all nonsense. And yet it is not altogether nonsense either, for there are many people who really believe that they are pursuing logical and proper methods in marketing products used in building by endeavoring to induce clients to tell Architects what to use and how to use it. Of course, no such procedure would suggest itself to any manufacturer whose product’s use depended altogether on the decision of a physician or a lawyer.
The real nonsense lies in the belief that Advertising to Consumers will compel Architects to specify materials in which their confidence has not been established.
Talks on Advertising—IV
by
THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT