Roger Hicks is Back From the Front

Recently, I was looking at some advertisements from 1939. Lancelot Vining endorsed Ilford Selo HP2, with the 'remarkable speed of 31 degrees Scheiner' (ISO 80). GB Equipments imported Multifax enlargers, 'Made by the Czechs, and the designers of the famous Bren gun!' Dassonville Charcoal Black projection papers were 'Available again! As used by the foremost American exhibitors'. 'Genuine unused Zeiss Ikon Contax I cameras', complete with 5cm f/3.5 (uncoated) Tessar, were available from City Sale and Exchange (1929) Ltd, 'at a saving of over £8', for £22 17s 6d. The Contax I had been replaced by the II three years earlier.

What is so intriguing about such advertisements? Partly (and sadly) it is seeing what we have lost. Where are Hauff and Dassonville today? Where are Metrovick and Certo? Where are Eljy and, indeed, Agfa?

Then again, cameras were simpler, and made on an artisanal basis by a few skilled workers. As a result, there were far more solutions to each photographic problem, though it has to be said that today, Alpa continues in same artisanal tradition.

Then there are the prices. They look absurdly low, but they weren't – you need to multiply 1939 prices by around 100 in order to get the modern equivalents. The obsolete Contax I mentioned above, therefore, cost the equivalent of £2,288 – a little less than a new Leica MP today with 50mm, f/2.5 Summarit lens. Purchase Tax inflated prices far more than today's VAT, but that, too, is part of history.

This set me thinking about today's advertisements. Their clearest and greatest advantage is that they subsidise our favourite magazines. Without them, cover prices would be several times as high – at least three, maybe five or even ten times. To some extent, I therefore feel guilty when I skate past our major advertisers, though like everyone else, when I need what they are selling I scan their ads very carefully indeed. No one, I suspect, reads all the ads, all the time. But when I made a determined attempt to look at all the major ads, and some of the lesser ones too, I was quite intrigued at what I found. Despite unexceptionable visuals, several copy lines actually annoyed me. The worst were from Canon and Nikon.

For the former, I really can't see the appeal of 'You Can Canon'. Well, you can jolly well Canon, too, chum. Your ads are attractive, your cameras excellent, but that copy line, oh dear. For the latter, an exhortation to 'remain calm' about the arrival of the latest Nikon was possibly even worse. Anyone who really wants and can afford one will be excited. The rest of us will have no difficulty whatsoever in remaining tranquil to the point of catatonia, even if (like me) they have been using Nikons for decades. Then there was the one about, 'Is your DSLR missing something?' Of course it is: it's missing film.

It made surprisingly little difference to me whether advertisers used stunning pictures (an old Sigma trademark) or 'camera porn' pictures of the equipment – or switched between the two, as Ricoh does. I really don't remember either kind better.

Among 'catalogue' ads, with their acres of tiny print, I find the ones with pictures more attractive; but if I were really in the market for something hard to find, I'd chew through 'grey page' all-text advertisements, just as I have chewed through AP classifieds for decades. An interesting question: is it better to try to hook the half-interested reader with a visually attractive ad or to cater to the buyer who is looking for something specific and will read any rubbish, even eight-point type set solid? Does anyone actually know?

After all, one famous American industrialist is reputed to have said that only 50% of his advertising worked, but that the difficulty lay in determining which 50%. As a buyer, I find myself in the same position. I am influenced by maybe 10% of ads, but can I be sure which 10%? And do they influence me for good or ill? AP

Roger and Frances website

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Monday 21st July 2008

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