THE SOPHISTICATED SELL

Advertisers' Swing to Subtlety

ADVERTISERS in the U.S., in recent years, have filled newspapers, magazines and television screens with talking dogs and tattooed men, philosophical musings and the Piel Brothers. Though some of this procession represents the extremes of the huckster's art, the pattern reflects a basic shift in the philosophy of salesmanship that has influenced advertising from Madison Avenue to Madison, Calif, (pop. 400). The new pitch: sophisticated selling.

The new look and listen in advertising recognizes that the U.S. consumer in 1956 is bettereducated, better-traveled and better-paid than ever. Says a Cleveland merchandising manager: "There are no more yokels." Instead of bludgeoning the customer with razzle-dazzle headlines and ranting copy, admen are buttonholing him with quiet humor, soft talk and attractive art. On the heels of the hard sell spieler comes the shaggy dog who converses with Friend Joe on the merits of rum, and the shaggy Schweppesman who will drink anything plus tonic. Kangaroos sell airline tickets; giraffes promote Ethyl; Mr. Magoo plugs beer. Banks are using cartoons to encourage thrift. The low-key sell is not in itself new on the U.S. scene, e.g., JellO, Campbell's Soup and Coca-Cola have gentled readers for decades. But more and more advertisers are taking the position that an ounce of charm can be worth a pound of pressure.

One big reason for the change is the vastly increased barrage of U.S. advertising ($9 billion in 1955, v. $3.4 billion in 1946). Says a Los Angeles agency executive: "We are suffering from fatigue of believability." To revive the customer, admen are turning increasingly to sotto voce selling: the eye-catching picture, the self-deprecating cartoon, the chuckle. Says one character: "I was a 99-lb. weakling. Then I bought a Carrier Room Air Conditioner. I'm still a 99-lb. weakling but, boy, is my bedroom nice and cool!" In Atlanta a cartoon colonel declares: "I'd even go North for Southern Bread."

Does soft-selling sell? Manhattan's McCann-Erickson Inc., after spending $3,000,000 on a study of consumer psychology, now makes wider use of "situational" salesmanship aimed at creating soft-sell personality for the products it advertises. A recent consumer poll established that the average reader finds bragging headlines only 60% as effective as the copy that cajoles or informs. Says a veteran agency executive: "The kid glove can also pack a brick."

Some of the hardest-hitting kid-glove campaigns have been waged on small budgets. Among the most influential ads of the past decade, thanks to Baron George Wrangell of the black eye patch, have been the Hathaway Shirt series; for a modest $300,000 in four years, Hathaway boosted sales more than 65%. Other companies have used sophisticated advertising to transform a product's personality. Since Philip Morris Inc. decided to turn ladylike Marlboro into a "heman" cigarette, its ads have centered on a succession of tattooed male smokers; the brand has in less than a year on the national market become the No. 3 U.S. filter-tip (after Winston, Viceroy).

Some admen contend that the soft-sell approach can succeed only in limited luxury-class markets, that keenly competitive mass-marketed goods still demand fact-filled, reason-why copy. Says an old Madison Avenue slogan: "The more you tell, the more you sell." On the other hand, understated advertising has successfully sold many items, from dogfood to diapers, in mass-market fields where there is little discernible difference between competing products. Instead of lecturing readers on engine-ping, Standard Oil Co. (Ohio) diverts them with spaceship cartoons. George Gobel's fey, sophisticated humor has helped to build Dial soap into one of the three top-selling U.S. brands.

One reason why some admen still resist "smart" advertising is that it takes greater imagination and patience to captivate a customer than to clobber him. Even David Ogilvy, who dreamed up the Hathaway Shirt and Schweppes campaigns, was unable to work out a successful offbeat formula for Rinso. At times the determinedly soft-sell ads turn out merely limp. Nevertheless, some of the loudest drumbeaters in U.S. advertising have learned lessons from the velvet-voiced sophisticates. The work of top artists and crack color photographers is being used to a far greater extent than ten years ago--if only to dramatize the why-buy copy underneath. Black, blustering headlines are yielding to airy typography. Clinical claims ("Guard Against Throat-Scratch") are fast disappearing.

From multimillion-dollar consume-research programs, admen have officially established what people have known all along. As David Ogilvy expresses it: "The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife."

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