Advt. of the Week

Soon after receiving last week's issue of Liberty, some of the 2,400,000 readers --perhaps one-third of them--turned to page 23 for the weekly list of Twenty Questions. The publishers know, but will not tell, exactly how many readers turned because they paid Dr. George Gallup, famed advertising researcher, to have his canvassers ring 1,000 doorbells every week and ask what features Liberty readers enjoy most. "Twenty Questions," a short version of the old "Ask Me Another" fad, won high rating.

When last week's puzzlers had finished grappling with the 20th question ("Is a porpoise a fish or a mammal?") and were about to turn to page 55 for the answers, they were arrested by still another question. It read: "What is the Priceless Ingredient of every product? (See page 55 for the answer)." In an instant the puzzlers saw that the 21st question was part of a half-page advertisement for Squibb Aspirin. On page 55 they learned not only that a porpoise is a mammal, but that "The Priceless Ingredient of Every Product is the Honor and Integrity of its Maker. . . ." In every issue of Liberty for 52 weeks E. R. Squibb & Sons' advertising will be thus hitched to Twenty Questions. Thus did printed advertising gingerly approach Radio's formula of commercial sponsorship of an entertainment feature.

The comparatively small advertising agency of Soule, Feeley & Richmond started it. The agency's first idea was that the advertiser should undertake full sponsorship of the entire feature, with some such caption as: "Squibb Presents . . . Liberty's well-known Twenty Questions," but Squibb deemed it too radical.

P:Last week Liberty announced with pride a net profit of $103,222 for the past five months, first profit ever shown by the magazine into which Publishers McCormick & Patterson are supposed to have sunk $12,000,000 before Bernarr Macfadden acquired it in April 1931.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.