“‘THINK’ — A NEW AD COLUMN,”
Newspaper News and Advertising News, April 18, 1969, p. 1.

A bright new advertising column will bow in in the next issue of Newspaper News on May 2.

It’s called “Think” and is written by John Singleton, national communications director of Singleton Palmer Strauss & McAllan Pty. Ltd.

Singleton is one of Australia’s most talented creative executives, with some top campaigns to his credit. Before becoming a director of SPS & M, he was national creative director for five years of Berry Currie Advertising.

In the past 12 months he has spent extended periods with leading overseas agencies.

“Think” will be both provocative and constructive and will appear in Newspaper News each fortnight.

Make sure you read it in Newspaper News starting on May 2.

*****
“‘THINK’ BOWS,”
Newspaper News and Advertising News, May 2, 1969, p. 1.

John Singleton, the author of a bright, new, authoritative fortnightly column makes its debut in this issue of Newspaper News.

Called “Think”, the column will take a critical but constructive look at the Australian Advertising scene.

Singleton, who is national communications director of Singleton Palmer Strauss & McAllan Pty. Ltd., is one of Australia’s top creative talents, with some outstanding campaigns to his credit.

He has also spent extended periods with leading agencies overseas.

His first column, which discusses the basics of advertising, appears on page 10 of this issue.

*****
John Singleton, “Do Admen Know the Rules?,”
Newspaper News, May 2, 1969, p. 10.

Rules are made to be broken, but first you must know the rules.

Except, it would appear, in advertising.

Today is the day of the clever headline and the brilliant layout.

Today is the day of graphic design and magnificent typography.

And today is the day of the ad that doesn’t sell.

Could it be, could it possibly be, because the people playing the game haven’t taken the trouble to learn the rules?

Now I have a pretty big opinion of our agency and the effectiveness of the work we do.

But the editor has stipulated that I must not (in this column) discuss our agency or our work for our clients.

Therefore I must turn elsewhere to find the work and the rules which demonstrate my point.

So, doubtless suffering mightily by comparison, I would like to look at the type of advertising coming out of the hottest agency in the U.S.A. and see just what Mary Wells is doing that our agencies aren’t doing.

Forget the turn of phrase, and the strength of the layout. These are tools. Available to all selling ideas.

First, always first, we must find: the idea that sells.

Mary Wells finds them. The coloured aeroplanes; the Alka Seltzer stomachs (done at Tinker before she opened); the straight-out product comparison between the new, unknown (Javelin) with the known, market-leader (Mustang).

Look at the ideas behind the brilliant translations.

That’s what this business is all about: Selling ideas.

And surprise, surprise, Mary Wells is proving it almost half a century after the rules were set down by Claude Hopkins and John Caples.

Let’s re-read their principles:

In 1923 Claude Hopkins wrote:

  1. “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.”
  2. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.
  3. Ad-writers abandon their parts. They forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.
  4. “Don’t try to be amusing. Money spending is a serious matter.”
  5. “Whenever possible we introduce a personality into our ads. By making a man famous we make his product famous.”
  6. “It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five to ten times over.”
  7. “Some people say, ‘Be very brief. People will read but little.’ Would you say that to a salesman? Brief ads are never keyed. Every traced ad tells a complete story. The more you tell the more you sell.”
  8. We try to give each advertiser a becoming style. He is given an individuality best suited to the people he addresses. To create the individuality is a supreme accomplishment. Never weary of that part.
  9. Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. Actual figures are not generally discounted. Specific facts, when stated, have their full weight and effect.”

In 1932, John Caples wrote 16 formulas for writing headlines. It is surprising how many of Mary Wells’ most successful campaigns follow his “rules”.

Or is it so surprising?

  1. “Begin your headline with the words ‘How to’.”
  2. “Begin with ‘How’.”
  3. “Use the announcement headline ‘Announcing’.”
  4. “Begin with ‘New’.”
  5. “Begin with ‘Now’.”
  6. “Use one word ‘patent medicine headlines’ to seek out small markets of inherent interests: ‘corns, haemorrhoids’, etc.”
  7. “Begin with ‘Which’.”
  8. “Use self-profit headlines ‘Make money at home, etc.’.”
  9. “Use ‘Free’.”
  10. “Using ‘Amazing’ in your headline.”
  11. “Begin with ‘Wanted’.”
  12. “Begin with ‘At last’.”
  13. “Begin with ‘This’.”
  14. “Begin your headline with ‘They laughed’.”
  15. “Begin with ‘To’.”
  16. “Offer advice.”

Certainly times have changed. And certainly you can break the rules.

But if everyone, like Mary Wells, would learn the rules before they broke them, we would not see so much money being thrown away on campaigns based on form rather than content.

In 1923 Claude Hopkins was paid a yearly salary equivalent these days to A$575,520.

And I have a feeling that the greatest rewards will continue to go to those who “seek sales, rather than applause”.

*****
John Singleton, “Ads lack good selling ideas,”
Newspaper News, May 16, 1969, p. 8.

Since I wrote my first column on the pure basics of this business, I have been chastised by many of the most famous names in Australian advertising.

“You are teaching your grandmother how to suck eggs,” they say.

“It’s all very well, these mail order principles, but everyone knows them today.”

“Today there are greater problems than ever there were in the days of Caples and Hopkins.”

“Today there are problems of marketing beyond the comprehension of the mail order giants of the past.”

And so the quotes continue …

For a while I started to think that maybe my critics had a point. Maybe everyone did know the basics.

Maybe I should take a closer look at the advertising happening here.

Maybe it was better than I thought.

So I picked up a copy of the good old Weekly Women’s and all my doubts were gone.

Australian advertising today is still every bit as lousy as it ever was.

In the whole issue (dated May 14) I could find only seven advertisements which were based on a potent selling idea.

The rest were apparently barren of any selling idea at all.

A collection of the advertisements from that issue are shown here. [Note to Economics.org.au readers: I have decided not to bother reproducing the images.]

I do not intend to judge them.

Rather I ask you to judge them and deduce the selling idea on which they are based.

The difficulty of this task will prove my point.

And having made it I intend in this column, to suggest methods which can ensure our advertising is made more effective: by being part of a meaningful selling idea.

I intend to do this because I honestly believe that today we are breeding a race of ad-makers with absolutely no idea of their real selling function.

They seek applause instead of sales and finish up with neither.