He paid Mr. Howells $10,000 for his autobiography, and Mr. Curtis spent
$50,000 in advertising it. "It is not expense," he would explain to Bok,
"it is investment. We are investing in a trade-mark. It will all come
back in time." And when the first $100,000 did not come back as Mr.
Curtis figured, he would send another $100,000 after it, and then both
came back.
Bok's experience in advertisement writing was now to stand him in
excellent stead. He wrote all the advertisements and from that day to
the day of his retirement, practically every advertisement of the
magazine was written by him.
Mr. Curtis believed that the editor should write the advertisements of a
magazine's articles. "You are the one who knows them, what is in them
and your purpose," he said to Bok, who keenly enjoyed this advertisement
writing. He put less and less in his advertisements. Mr. Curtis made
them larger and larger in the space which they occupied in the media
used. In this way The Ladies' Home Journal advertisements became
distinctive for their use of white space, and as the advertising world
began to say: "You can't miss them." Only one feature was advertised at
one time, but the "feature" was always carefully selected for its wide
popular appeal, and then Mr. Curtis spared no expense to advertise it
abundantly. As much as $400,000 was spent in one year in advertising
only a few features--a gigantic sum in those days, approached by no
other periodical.
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