Original Publisher’s Preface

The “Reason-Why” epoch in Advertising is now seven years old.

It was initiated and made effective by the remarkable series of articles contributed to “Judicious Advertising” Magazine in 1905 by John E. Kennedy (which series is here reprinted).

That these articles apply as fitly and forcibly to Advertising conditions today as they did seven years ago proves the undying Truths embodied in them and expressed through them.

“Reason-Why” as the first definite concept of active Salesmanship-in-Advertising (versus passive “General Publicity”) has been quoted around the world, criticized, gibed, jeered, applauded and, finally, adopted by its most violent critics, until it is now quietly conceded to be the basis of all good Advertising.

Many thousands of inquiries received for reprints of the “Reason-Why” articles have led the publishers to issue them, bound together but practically unchanged, in present form, as the first real Text-Book upon the great and growing Science of Advertising.