Cov­er of the first edi­tion of The New York­er, Feb­ru­ary 21, 1925

What can you say about The New York­er mag­a­zine? That the report­ing is in-depth? That there’s lots of polit­i­cal com­men­tary and cul­tur­al crit­i­cism? That the fic­tion is engrossing?

But what if you had to sell The New York­er to adver­tis­ers and adver­tis­ing agen­cies, con­vinc­ing them that they should spend their pro­mo­tion dol­lars in The New Yorker.

Read how it was done in this series of 1955/1956 ads for The New York­er pub­lished in Print­ers’ Ink, the trade mag­a­zine of adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing man­age­ment.

And, as your read the copy, which is repro­duced below – admire the short sen­tences, the appro­pri­ate words, and the touch of humour. Note the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the prin­ci­pal sell­ing points: The New York­er cir­cu­lates far  out­side the city of New York; reach­es the 40 Pri­ma­ry Trad­ing Areas where America’s eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty is con­cen­trat­ed; is read by well-edu­cat­ed read­ers; and the adver­tis­ing rates are a bar­gain because The New York­er actu­al­ly has a high­er cir­cu­la­tion than it charges for – 13.2% more read­ers than its cir­cu­la­tion base.

Enjoy these examples of creative advertising at its best – advertising that befits the product.

One of our readers lives here

Once a week, The New York­er gets sent up to Leav­en­worth. One of our read­ers lives here.

You couldn’t ask for a more cap­tive audi­ence. But don’t let con­fine­ment fool you. Some of today’s bet­ter class of pris­on­ers have for­mi­da­ble pur­chas­ing power.

The New York­er is a boon to reha­bil­i­ta­tion too. It keeps an inmate so cur­rent you’d hard­ly know he’s serv­ing time.

All this comes as extra to you, of course, over and above the 13.2% cir­cu­la­tion bonus you get from the New Yorker.

And while some of our read­ers live in hous­es that are not exact­ly homes, the vast major­i­ty live quite freely in the 40 Pri­ma­ry Trad­ing Areas where America’s eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty is concentrated.

One of Our Readers Lives Here

You prob­a­ble nev­er thought of your adver­tise­ment in The New York­er as a show­case for democ­ra­cy, but the fact remains that one (in fact, eight) of our read­ers lives here. And in a pop­u­la­tion starved for qual­i­ty con­sumer goods, your mes­sage could make an impres­sion you nev­er dreamed of.

You can be sure that before each issue runs its course, a lot of com­rades get a lot of ideas.

How much of The New Yorker’s dis­play of qual­i­ty prod­ucts can we hope to sell to our man in Moscow.  Not very much. So con­sid­er him an extra. Some­thing over and above the 13.2% cir­cu­la­tion bonus that The New York­er always gives you as a mat­ter of policy.

And while The New York­er comes on strong in inter­na­tion­al cir­cles, the bulk of our read­ers live in the 40 Pri­ma­ry Trad­ing Areas where America’s eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty is concentrated.

Bonus Circulation

The New York­er is wel­comed here once a week, faith­ful­ly. One of our read­ers lives here.

We don’t sug­gest that you write your ads in Latin, even though many of the New Yorker’s house­hold heads have done post­grad­u­ate work. Our read­ers, for the most part, are more respon­sive to Eng­lish. They should be, they live is the 40 Pri­ma­ry Trad­ing Areas of the Unit­ed States, where the nation’s eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty is concentrated.

There are excep­tions – 20,379 of them scat­tered from Aden to Zanz­ibar. The New York­er sub­scribers form an inter­na­tion­al net­work of influ­en­tial peo­ple. Peo­ple impor­tant in any marketplace.

If you hadn’t bar­gained for world­wide read­er­ship, con­sid­er it a bonus – in addi­tion to the 14% cir­cu­la­tion bonus you get from The New York­er.  And isn’t it nice to know that your ads are get­ting around.

Read­ers who believe that syn­tax is every­thing, will find much to crit­i­cize in this adver­tis­ing copy but read­ers who sup­port good com­mu­ni­ca­tion will salute the copy­writer who got the mes­sage across.

Here’s a Print­ing Times post show­ing how The New York­er cre­ative­ly filled blank adver­tis­ing space.