St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 3/Advertisements/Back/St. Nicholas Advertising Competition

St. Nicholas League Advertising Competitions.
Report on Competition 41.

Without attempting to make a complete summary of the various competitions, perhaps the members of the St. Nicholas League who have been working in the advertising department will like to be reminded of the variety of competitions in which they have engaged for the last two years.

Among the most popular have been the puzzles based upon advertising firms and advertised articles. These have included a set of monograms, another of anagrams, a letter-block puzzle, a wheel puzzle, and two varieties of king’s move puzzles. There have been several lists of prize questions, designed to teach close and minute observation of the advertising pages. The making of practical advertisements has been the task set for several months, the criticism and condensation of advertisements being work of the same general character.

Competitions have been based upon Mather Goose rhymes, “Alice in Wonderland,” the World’s Fair, characters in fiction and history, and fairy stories, Pictures have been called for requiring the introduction of a given line or “wriggle,” the illustration of a proverb, and the special drawing of a rag-doll, besides the creation of an imaginary family or character, such as those that have proved so popular in advertising.

This brief summary serves to give an idea of the wide scope of these competitions.

In order to give plenty of time to answer “A Century of Questions,” which were proposed last month, there will be no new competition proposed in this number. We feel that it ts time to broaden the field, so that we may not be repeating our efforts always in the same line. Modern advertising has ceased to be a matter of mere guesswork. It is enlisting constantly a better class of workers; it is becoming a recognized and legitimate profession, not only of importance for its own sake, but also as an indispensable aid lo every kind of business. There is in advertising work a field for every talent, and it is necessary to educate in the appreciation of good advertsing not only those who will make a business of publicity, but the whole public ta whom their efforts are addressed,

It is for this reason that we shall attempt to present in this department a series of more important competitions, designed to attract the attention and coöperation of all members of every household into which St. Nicholas goes. “A Century of Questions” is’ the first of these new competitions, and attention is directed to it accordingly.

The “Step-and-Jump Puzzle,” Competition No. 41, evidently caused our young sages much trouble. They seem to have included as “advertised articles” every word they found, or supposed they found, in the advertising pages of St. Nicholas ar elsewhere. In such a puzzle it must of course happen that there should be many words found that have something to do with articles advertised; but it was necessary to exclude from consideration all mere general words that could apply to any articles of the class—such as “food products.” The absence of the name “Libby” makes the words “food products” meaningless as an advertisement. “Minerva” occurs in the puzzle-square, but it is the “Minerva doll-head” that is advertised, and part of the phrase is not an advertised article. “Pope” alone does not mean “Columbia bicycles,” nor does “pencils” mean “Dixon pencils.” These single words are to be spelled from the square, but they were accidents.

Practically the lists all, or nearly all, contained these “guesses,” but the prizes were awarded without giving credit for them.

The prizes had to be awarded by using the best judgment available in deciding what should and should not be included, since our puzzlers found much more in the puzzle than the maker of it put there.

Here follows the list of

PRIZE-WINNERS.

Five Prizes of Five Dollars Each:	Five Prizes of Two Dollars Each:
Robert S. DuBois (13), Wichita, Kansas. M, Lalite Willcox (12), Philadelphia, Penn. Dorothy Thayer (11), Portsmouth, N. H. Charles Larkins (11), New York City. William Wren Hay (14), Fort Robinson, Nebraska.	Alice L. Cousens (14), Cohasser, Mass. Harold G. Sweetser (16), Woburn, Mass. Lester J. Reynolds (16), New York City. Robert L, Rankin (13), Ocean Grove. N, J. Ella Rankin (12), Ocean Grove, N. J.
Five Prizes of Three Dollars Each:	Five Prizes of One Dollar Each:
Mary P, Damon (13), Newton, Mass. Hilda 1. Boegehold (15), Mt. Vernon, N. Y. Margaret F. Bunyan (10), Colchester, Conn, Dorothy Tenney (10), San Francisco, Cal. Marion Humble (15), Buffalo, N. Y.	Roger K. Lane (13), Bristol, Conn. Alice E. Kingman (15), South Framingham, Mass. Helen J. Kingsbury (14), New York City. Sarah L. Craven (15), Mattituck, N.Y. Ruth Silver (12), Woburn, Mass.