Advertising Became More Scientific by the late 1800s.

The ability to sell a product to someone who did not need it became the goal of advertising by the earty twentieth century.  Mass production of goods outpaced the distribution and consumption of such goods.

The talent to create an ad  for a magazine or newspaper to sell a product to someone was therefore an important talent.

This was happening at the same time that advertisers began to look at sdvertising as a science.

A. Cressy Morrsion, the Pabst advertising manager in the 1890s, became a believer in modern advertising as a science.  His success at Pabst with the Best Tonic proved his methods worked.

Emily Fogg-Meade wrote in her article “The Place of Advertising in Modern Business” in 1901 in the Journal of Political Economy, “Advertising is a mode of education by which the knowledge of consumable goods is increased. It sets forth the peculiar excellence of novelties, keeps in mind the merits of staple articles, and thus increases the general demand for commodities.”

To be ‘scientific’ meant that there was a method, which could be carried out and measured for its success.

Fogg-Meade wrote in the same article that “Advertising experts differ as to the possibility of reducing advertising to a science, but they all acknowledge the importance of skill.”

Cressy showed his skill at advertising by making the Pabst Best Tonic the number one product for the brewery.