A to Z Challenge 2024 - Professionally Speaking - A is for Advertising

When my father, Commander Arden Packard, USN, retired from the Navy after World War II, one of the first jobs he had was in partnership with his brother, John Creighton "Jack" Packard, in the advertising business.  They opened their agency, Packard & Packard Advertising, in Los Angeles, both being natives of that city.  The firm was written up in two case studies of successful advertising campaigns.

One of their projects was for a company in Glendale, in Los Angeles County, whose owner did not believe in advertising.  Before the war, his small company had made shoelaces.  During the war, it ended up making nylon cording for parachute shrouds under government contract.  On a parachute, a shroud is any of the lines running from the canopy to the harness.  After the war, the company, left with some twenty tons of surplus nylon, decided to make nylon fishing line.  The business got off to a rocky start and was in danger of folding, when the owner decided that maybe he should try advertising, after all.  He contacted Packard & Packard for the job.

The Packard brothers advised a national advertising campaign.  The company's owner produced twelve thousand dollars as a budget.  The brothers started with full-page, color ads in periodicals aimed at the hardware trade, where the fishing line would likely be sold.  One-third-page ads were placed in sporting periodicals aimed at consumers.  The business owner favored the use of coupons in the ads, which consumers could fill in and use to request more information.  Coupons sent in would show the effectiveness of the advertising campaign, and provide data for further refinements of the campaign.  

The coupons sent in requesting more information were answered with the information and samples of the fishing line.  Consumers returning the coupons had also been asked to provide the name of their local sporting-goods store.  Initial response was 2,900 coupons mailed in, and hundreds of inquiries from dealers interested in carrying the product.  According to this case study, when the campaign began, the fishing-line company owner was "cautiously counting the mail resulting from the ads.  By the end of the campaign he was weighing it."(1)

The second case was for a Los Angeles company that manufactured rectifiers, equipment that converts alternating current into direct current, for technical applications.  Though having been in business for nearly two decades in manufacturing technical equipment, the company had been ill-served by its former advertising agency, and was only locally-known.  This company needed a national advertising campaign, and they turned to Packard & Packard.

The problem was not the battery-charger market the company had always produced for, which was the military and commercial aircraft industry.  The company was entering, simultaneously, two new markets:  motion-picture projection equipment and quick-charging equipment for automotive repair businesses.  The target for the advertising campaign would be jobbers and distributors rather than the general public.  The ads had to be technical enough to convince the target audience of the manufacturer's ability, but also had to be massaged into the proper technical language for each of the three different industries to be served.  Even at this technical level, the Packard brothers again used coupons effectively.  The campaign was a success in both domestic and international markets for the manufacturer's products, and the CEO of the company remarked that the campaign would be expanded as needed.(2)

As successful as the Packard brothers were in advertising, they dissolved their partnership.  I doubt it was because of any disagreement between my father and my Uncle Jack.  There certainly was no animosity between them, as they remained in contact, with frequent visits always jovial in nature, as I remember.  Our families were very close into the 1950s, and after my father died in 1954, remained so.  Uncle Jack and Aunt Billie were very close to all of us, and were among my favorite relatives.  Jack stayed in advertising, in his own firm, Jack Packard Adversing, of Glendale.  He retired in the 1980s, and he and Aunt Billie moved to Florida, where we lived.  Visits were much more frequent with them living so much closer to us. My father may have received or had notice of a job opportunity in his field of engineering, and might have welcomed the chance to use his degree from the Naval Academy.

Notes:

1.  "Didn't Believe in Advertising; Tried It; Now Does," in Printer's Ink Editors and Contributors, Case Histories of Successful Advertising: Problems - Solutions - Results.  (New York: Funk and Wagnall's and Printer's Ink Publishing Company, 1949), 42-44.

2.  "Hit-or-Miss Ads Failed, but Consistent Campaign Clicked," in Printer's Ink Editors and Contributors, Case Histories of Successful Advertising: Problems - Solutions - Results.  (New York: Funk and Wagnall's and Printer's Ink Publishing Company, 1949), 128-132.