A Memory System
That Yields Results
“I am a believer in Advertising,” says a well-rounded architect, “and a constant reader of Advertisements, but there is one thing about them that gets tiresome to me,—the constant reiteration of the same thing. Why don’t Advertisers find new things to say and new ways of saying the old things?”
Perhaps it is true that some Advertisers permit their argument to become monotonous. Perhaps it is true that some Advertisements halt and stutter for lack of adequate power of expression. But there is another side to this question.
Every year the business and professional men of the United States spend millions on Aids to Memory.
Someone has a new memory scheme and they buy it. Someone has a new kind of mechanical reminder for use on their desks and they buy it. They pay salaries to private secretaries and clerks in droves—to help them remember. They must remember,, and half the time they can’t. All the diaries and calendar pads and other devices in the world do not win the everlasting battle with memory and its failures.
What has this to do with the question? Nothing, except that Iteration and Reiteration are merely methods of making you remember. And when they have become monotonous to you, you have reached the point where you can not forget, try as you may. The methods have succeeded.
Consider all the brands, trade marks and trade names that are filed away in your memory. Would you part with them? Could you get along without them? How did they get there, so firmly fixed that you remember them when you seem unable to remember anything else?
Every one of them was pounded home by repetition, reiteration,—by monotonous, continuous, everlasting, tiresome saying over and over of the same thing.
And every one is an asset to you.
Talks on Advertising—V
by
THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT
That Yields Results
“I am a believer in Advertising,” says a well-rounded architect, “and a constant reader of Advertisements, but there is one thing about them that gets tiresome to me,—the constant reiteration of the same thing. Why don’t Advertisers find new things to say and new ways of saying the old things?”
Perhaps it is true that some Advertisers permit their argument to become monotonous. Perhaps it is true that some Advertisements halt and stutter for lack of adequate power of expression. But there is another side to this question.
Every year the business and professional men of the United States spend millions on Aids to Memory.
Someone has a new memory scheme and they buy it. Someone has a new kind of mechanical reminder for use on their desks and they buy it. They pay salaries to private secretaries and clerks in droves—to help them remember. They must remember,, and half the time they can’t. All the diaries and calendar pads and other devices in the world do not win the everlasting battle with memory and its failures.
What has this to do with the question? Nothing, except that Iteration and Reiteration are merely methods of making you remember. And when they have become monotonous to you, you have reached the point where you can not forget, try as you may. The methods have succeeded.
Consider all the brands, trade marks and trade names that are filed away in your memory. Would you part with them? Could you get along without them? How did they get there, so firmly fixed that you remember them when you seem unable to remember anything else?
Every one of them was pounded home by repetition, reiteration,—by monotonous, continuous, everlasting, tiresome saying over and over of the same thing.
And every one is an asset to you.
Talks on Advertising—V
by
THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT