Half the money spent on advertising is wasted, but no one knows which half

[Garson O'Toole]

Thanks to Arnold Zwicky for mentioning the saying: half of all
advertising budgets are wasted - the trouble is, no one knows which
half.

Barry Popik has an entry for this saying. The 1919 appearance date
mentioned in the letter to the Economist apparently was based on a
visit to Barry's webpage.

Title on webpage: Half the money spent on advertising is wasted, but
no one knows which half
http://goo.gl/ohkpK

The first citation in 1919 on Barry's webpage has the warning label
"MAYBE". I think Barry gave it a warning label because GB only showed
snippets for the citation, so the date was uncertain. In fact, the
correct date for that cite was November 1920 as I discovered via the
copy of the publication now available in HathiTrust. Below are the
details. (Note, Barry lists another cite with a 1919 date that is
accurate.)

Cite: 1920 November, The Advertising Age and Mail Order Journal,
Volume 23, "Magazine and Billboards, Maybe", Page 8, The Mail Order
Journal Co., Chicago, Illinois. (HathiTrust)
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433020491589
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433020491589?urlappend=%3Bseq=712

[Begin excerpt]
MAGAZINES AND BILLBOARDS, MAYBE
"It has been said," remarks an exchange, "that one-half of all the
money spent for advertising is wasted, but no one knows which half it
is."
One clew may be found by the skillful investigator-it isn't the half
which is spent for newspaper advertising.
[End excerpt]

Last year I explored the saying by request and found that part of it
could be found in the 1800s: half the money spent on advertising is
wasted.

Cite: 1897 October, Gunton's Magazine, Section:Advertisement, Of
Interest to Every Business Man, Page i, [After Page 326], The Gunton
Institute of Social Economics, New York. (Google Books full view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=5WNYAAAAMAAJ&q=%22are+wasted%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Many of them admit, freely but helplessly, that one half of their
advertising appropriations are wasted.
[End excerpt]

This partial version of the saying was expressed by a top executive in
Wanamaker's company in 1898.

Cite: 1898 April, The Bankers Magazine, Volume 56, Advertising for
Profit, Page 549, Bradford Rhodes & Co., New York. (Google Books full
view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=KnQ9AAAAYAAJ&q=%22fully+fifty%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Robert C. Ogden head of the house of John Wanamaker in New York made
an address before the Merchants' Association March 16, on "Advertising
as a Business Force." Mr. Ogden said that the success of business
depended upon three things, merchandise, service and advertising, and
he looked upon the latter as the dynamic power of the business. ...
He believed that fully fifty per cent. of the money spent on
advertising was wasted through being improperly placed.
[End excerpt]


The "Golden Book of the Wanamaker Stores" printed an entertaining
simile that expressed the saying in agricultural terms.

Cite: 1911, Golden Book of the Wanamaker Stores: Jubilee Year:
1861-1911, Compiled by the John Wanamaker Firm, Page 216, Publisher
not specified; Possibly John Wanamaker, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
(Google Books full view)
http://books.google.com/books?id=Eqs-AAAAYAAJ&q=%22of+seed%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
It is generally known that common advertising is like barrels of seed
in which half of the seed is dead.
[End excerpt]

The Foreword stated that Wanamaker was not the author of the "Golden
Book of the Wanamaker Stores".

[Begin excerpt]
Not penned by the Founder himself, but chronicled from the deeds and
services of the stores, as public prints and contemporary memories
disclose the story.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      quote
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> from  the Economist of 5/30/12, a letter to the editor:
>
> Business quotes
>
> SIR – You began an article with the old saw “that half of all advertising budgets are wasted—the trouble is, no one knows which half” (“Change of track”, June 9th). The remark is frequently attributed by Britons to Lord Leverhulme, founder of Lever Brothers, and by Americans to John Wanamaker, who opened Philadelphia’s first department store. Though references to such a saying date from at least 1919, no authoritative reference has been found linking either man to it. This leads one to observe that at least half the attributions are false, the trouble is no one knows which half.
>
> Professor Michael Mainelli
> Executive chairman
> Z/Yen Group
> London
>
> .....
>
> for the quote mavens.  i have no particular interest in tracking down quotations, but thought this might be of interest to those who do.  quite possibly it's been explored already.
>
> arnold
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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