THE ART OF ADVERTISING. (From the Saturday Review.)

Otago Daily Times, Issue 126, 11 April 1862, Page 5

THE ART OF ADVERTISING. (From the Saturday Review.)

before the Commissioners for the Exhibition of next, year finally nllot all their available space, there is one candidate for whose elsiims a corner ought to be found. The Art of Advertising has reached to that grade of perfection that it has a right to a place, in any Industrial Exhibition. As a special product and ornament of the nineteenth century, it deserves honour at the hands of a liberal ami progio?sive Government. Two generations ago the art was in its infancy. It was confined to a few bald, prosaic announcements in the scanty newspapers of the lime. They were conceived without genius and executed without ingenuity. In the brief period that has i-ince elapsed the art appears to have advanced with rapid strides and almost reached its Augustan age. It will be difficult for future ages to surpass the ingenuity of a Twolvetrccs or the enterprise of a Hollow ay.' The balance-sheet of a defaulting conipany whic-h has recently been published betrays the astonishing fact that the charge for advertisements alone was considerably more than the whole capital sub-s-crihed. Surely, an industry to which our countrymen devote themselves so passionately deserves o place in the Exhibition. It would be necessary, of course, that the specimens should he divided according to the blanches of the art to which they may relate. We should suggest three compartments. It will be found, on consideration, that all the multitude of stratagems which the ingenuity of advertisers has devised may he divided into three classes, according' to the precise effect which it is designed to produce on the mind of the ndvertisee. The first and most rudimentary object of advertisement is to procure Ihe attention of possible customers. And in this hurrying, hustling age, even this limited .success is no slight achievement. What is the use of a small space in small type somewhere in one of the ninety-six columns of a. daily newspaper ') It is said that there are old maids resident in the suburbs who make_ it their mission in life to read the Times steadily through, from the first of the births to the publisher's r.ame at the end. But such old maids can have little time left for shopping ; and, therefore it is of no use advertising for them. Any advertiser who desires a prominence of a less negative character must betake himself to other agencies. The plan of sending circulars by post has been for many years adopted In the more energetic of the class. It is beautiful to watch the progressive capabilities of the art in this particular branch of it. At, first the simple sending by post did well enough, for it was some time before (he penny post had infected the public mind with that rage for correspondence which now afflicts the land. Human life was still long enough for a man to read all the letters he received. But after a time, this halcyon era passed away, and advertisers were driven to other expedients. As the number of circnlars multiplied and multiplied, the victims rebelled against the ever-growing task, and the circulars found tfieir way, with a scantier and scantier apology for a glance, straight into the waste paper basket. Some new device was necessary.. Ingenio.is superscriptions were invented, addressed to the various passions by which the receivers of letters might be supposed to be actuated. Some appealed to the commercial instinct by printing the awful words, " In Bankruptcy," in large letters on the envelope. This was a species of appeal which no tradesman, however strong in his philosophy, could resist, but it did not extend beyond tradesmen. A still more ingenious plan was, and still is, adopted in the case of those for whom the Court of Bankruptcy has no terrors. They are .judged to he amenable to the softer influences of flunkeyisre. Some great man's name lithographed in the corner is pretty sure to rivet the British householder's attention. Few people can suppress their pardonable curiosity to know what can bo the weighty matter which has induced a Lansdowne or a Russell to address them for the first time. "On Her Majesty's Service" is still more enticing-. It has been said that the passion for. place-hunting lurks in every heart. No one can resist the superscription which may possibly cover the announcement that modest merit has been unveiled at last. The most ingenious of all these contrivances is that "which consists in printing the words " Metropolitan Railway Notice," in bold official type, upon the envelope. It has been heartlessly practised upon those luckless householders who happen to live within a reasonable distance of the Metropolitan Railway. On such a man it acts with electrical effect. The ideas of navvies, tunnels, disturbance of foundations, setlement of walls, and a network of actions at law, with landlord, railway, and Board of Works, chase each other through his mind. The terror is too palpable, too substantial, to leave room for a suspicion. He breaks open the seal with feverish haste that he may know the worst as once, and it is more with afeeling of relief at what he has escaped than of irritation at being taken in, that he discovers that the terrible superscription covets nothing but a puffing haberdasher's price list. After having secured your victim's attention, the next step is, if possible, to fix yourself in his memory. The most approved mode of proceeding for this object ii to shape your advertisement in some quaint and fanciful form, which shall amuse him for a moment, and so escape being forgotten. Hoses —or rather, the humble bard who used to act as Moses' poet—will be ranked by future generations as the father of this department of the art. In its purely poetical aspect it nourished then wi'.h a splendour which has never been rivalled since Of the poetical advertisers of the present day, Mr. Harper Twelvetrees is probably tlie most distinguished. Yet there was a dignity in Moses' strains which we miss in his successor. What a world of simple pathos was there in this distich with which he was wont to close his Price List 01 Mourning : — Five minutes' time is all we ask To execute the mournful task. On the other hand, in Mr. Harper Twelvetrees' advertisement, there is a coarse realism which must make his Bug-destroyer for ever repulsive to every well-regulated mind : — Fat Bugs at midnight always prowl, And make you rise with hideous growl, Resolving that you'll be a buyer Oi Harper Twelvetrees' Bug-destroyer.'

But in the more modern and more prosaic style of catch-advertisement, Mr. Twelvetrees is unequalled. His dialogues between Mrs. Scrubwell who does not, and Mrs. Thrifty who does, use his patent soap-, powder, arc models of the homely and tradefinanlike of composition. Where, however, humor is not at command, extreme audacity of statement has a. flavor of fun about if'which answers almost as well. Another composition by the same great master of advertising will illustrate the peculiar effectiveness of this style:—

THE EXTRAORDINARY EXCITEMENT pra-. vailing amongst all classes of Her Majesty's subjects respecting HARPER TWELVETREES' PATENT SOAP POWDER is daily increasingl. It is now regularly used with the greatest satisfaction at all the principal English, Continental, Colonial, and Provincial Public Institutions, Infirmaries, Asylums, Prisons, Union Houses, Hotels, and Educational Establishments, and has attained a celebrity altogether unparalleled throughout the Globe.

In fact, it is only necessary that-tho advertisement should make the reader laugh ; whether by means of its quaintness or its downright absurdity, matters little. Nothing, indeed, illustrated more strikingly Mr. Twelvetrees' skill in this particular than his management of his own candidature at Marylebone last spring. He saw at once, with a single glanco. that his only chance of the notoriety which is so useful in a metropolitan borough lay in the magic of his name; and so, to enhance the effect, he cleverly secured as his proposer a gentleman who, owing to the combined malignity of his sponsors and his ancestors, is known to the world as the Reverend Jabez Inwards.

But, after nil, the great object of advertising is not only to attract the victim's attention, or to obtain a place in his memory, but to secure his confidence its well. Tlie days for mere assertion have passed away. The public, warned by many mishaps, inr-ist upon evidence. It is of no use simply to asseverate, with many additional superlatives, that your article is the finest in the world, or that it is creating an extraordinary excitement among all classes of Hot Majesty's subjects. The public require testimonials to the fact. And the mere testimonials from mythical Browns and Robinsons, or suffering Mrs. Harrises, which are dated vaguely " Manchester," no longer carry the weight they possessed of old. What the public like to have is a voucher from some person' whose intelligence and morality are attested by the unerring criterion of his having a handle to his name. Before they buy' an article, they insist upon being satisfied that somebody with a title has bought it before them. The demand has produced a corresponding supply; and has called into prominence a section of the peerage who, but for this avenue to honour, might have languished into obscurity. If frequency of mention in contemporary literature is any test of celebrity, the ;Earl of Aldborough enjoyed a renown before which the names of Peel and .Russell pale. Another noble lord, who now represents an important midland county, won his early spurs in the lists of fame as sponsor to the merits of a popular corn-cutter. The blue ;ribbon of the advertising world is, of course, some connexion, however indirect, with Royalty. The palace groom or the palace laundress is more valnable even tlian a dyspeptic earl or a corn-afflicted viscount. IJven the testimonials of that mythical department which calls itself the Board of Green Cloth, and appears to have survived the wreck of ages for no other end than to puff west-end tradesmen, are proudly displayed as vouchers of commercial caste. But there are dangers which beset the advertiser in these lofty regions. The heights of the art are perilous and slippery. We regret to say that these exalted personages show a smartness in their dealings which we should not have anticipated in persons of their position. We do not refer merely to the comrades and decoy-ducks of " Peter Morrison, Manajring-direclor." A higher name is compromised. It pains \is to have to announce that there are features of shameful duplicity in the conduct of the Sovereign's laundress. At least, if she has behaved as a straightforward British laundress should do, she has been grievously belied. Wo refer to the great advertising contest which is known among the trade as the "Battle of the Storches." Her Majesty's laundress is naturally the umpire to whom all the competitors appeal ; and we. regret to Kay that she is in the habit of sending each of than successively away with the assurance that his; starch is the best she has ever used. At least, we find our old friend, Mr. Harper Twelvetrees, announcing, with his accustomed amplitude of style, tlnifc Urigg-;.' Australian starch is " used exclusively by lit Majesty's lace-dresser, by the laundress at Buckingham Palace, and by thousands of families throughout the kingdom." lint side by side with this triumphant assurance, almost in the next, column, we lead that " The ladies are respectfully informed that Glen field's patent starch 1.-, exclusively used in the lioynl laundry, and her Majesty's laundress says, that although shu luis tried other powder starches,' she has fbund none of them equal to the Glcniield." It is evident that, like Macheath, she could bo happy with either, .won; t'other dear stiffencr away. JJut this inconstancy, lo call it by no harsher name, must not goon. A certain license of enprice she has in virtue of her sex. But the season of flirtation must close at last. She must, make up her mind to take one orother of them for better for worse, for stifter for limper, for bluer ("or yellower. At least she must not tell both the suitors that they enjoy her exclusive favor. She has no right to expose the sensitive Mr. Twelvetrees to the suspicion of having possibly used an inaccuiate expression. As we observe that in another column in addition to all iiis other advertisements, ho adver tises to preach on Sunday evenings to the workin _ classes, his good name ought not, to he trifled with.

The VTisbhaji Lunacy Case.—Mr. Windham liafe issued the following address, which is posted on the walls of the metropolis : —"To the people of Great Britain. I call upon you as an Englishman, and I appeal to both sexes and all conditions in life, to aid and assist me by your voice and influence, to protect me from a conspiracy to defraud mo out of my property, rights, and privileges, by those who ought to shelter and protect mo. You, I hope, have all read the startling disclosures only partially made in the Daily Telegraph. More will come, at all events, from affidavits obtained by extraordinary means. My immense property has been pro tain, confiscated, and upon the grounds that I aui a lunatic, although the eminent Drs. Tuke, Sutherland, Plancoek, Seymour, B.'ibington, Stevens, Gwynn, and others, have sworn i.m.lavits that I ani perfectly sane. The motives for this conduct and false accusation are very transparent, as by my death or lunacy my property will pass into the hands of my uiiclc, .Major-General Charles Ashe Windham, who has been the great mover, ■with others, in this false accusation, which, were they to succeed, would be to me far worse than death. The greatest murderer is to be tried with open doors, and his property is not confiscated until he is proved giilty. Mine is now confiscated, and the preliminaries of my trial were, contrary to my wishes, held with closed doors. It came upon me so suddenly that I am startled that any body of men and women could club themselves together to perpetrate such a great iniquity—that I appeal to you all to rally round me. Let your cry be 'Justice !' I ask no more. You or your flesh and blood may one day be similarly circumstanced. That no doctor's certificates can dooma man to everlasting imprisonment as a lunatic, for it takes a very short period for a perfectly save man to become insane with the appliances that can be brought to bear by well-paid officials of asylums. Numerous friends have proposed that a public meeting shall be held at the Freemasons' Tavern in the rst instance, where resolutions will be proposed and seconded. After that a monster meeting will be held in Hyde-park, in order to satisfy the wishes of thousands who have already expressed their determination to stand by me in this hour of peril. I now give you the names of those who liave signed the petition which is causing me this injury:—Major-General Charles Ashe Windham, 48, Eaton-place : Mr. H. Baring, 11, Berkeley-square; Marquis of Bristol, 6, St. James's square; Rev. Lord Arthur Harvey, flickworth Rectory, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk; Rev. Lord Charles ■ Hervcy, Great Chesterford, Essex ; Lord Alfred Hervey, Putney-villas,' Putney-heath ; the Countess of Listowell, Coneymore, Cork ; Captain Windham, R.N.; and Lady Cook, Croiner ; Robert Hook, 9, Arlington-street; Rev. Thomas Foley, Windhurst, Kent; Mr. and Mrs. Ilolley, Okehampton, Devonshire; Hon. Richard and Mrs. Hare, Stoke-park, Plymouth. The preliminary meeting will be immediately held at the Freemasons' Tavern, which will be announced by advertisement in the Daily Telegraph and other papers. In the meanwhile, I shall thank you all to send me your signatures, (by letter,) so that your names may be placed on a memorial, which will also be produced at the meeting for signature, and afterwards presented to the Queen, praying her gracious Majesty to use her royal prerogative to protect a sane subject of her realm from such, diabolical interferences. William Frederick Windiiax. FcUbrig-liall, Norfolk." — Liverpool A Ibion. The Uses and Advantages op-Going- to Church. —In a certain Highland glen a staunch Established Churchman was one day on Ms way home from church, and he met one of his Dissenting brethren. The latter asked the former if he got a good sermon from Mr. , to which the other gentleman gave the following rather strange reply :— " Indeed, sir, I did not expect to get a good sermon, but I went there fora certain reason." As a matter of course the reason was asked, after which the worthy gentleman continned—"Our congregation is a rather singular one, it is composed of three parts. The first division, of which I form a part myself, goes there to gain the favor of the factor; the second goes so as to get a general good name; and the the third goes there in order that it may pass a part of Sunday, since it is always considered to be a long day.— JSlgtn Courier*