{"id":28842,"date":"2015-01-18T01:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T06:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=28842"},"modified":"2015-01-11T16:41:24","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T21:41:24","slug":"qotd-the-power-of-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/01\/18\/qotd-the-power-of-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The power of advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday afternoon Harris came round; he had a cycling paper in his hand.<\/p>\n

I said: \u201cIf you take my advice, you will leave it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris said: \u201cLeave what alone?\u201d<\/p>\n

I said: \u201cThat brand-new, patent, revolution in cycling, record-breaking, Tomfoolishness, whatever it may be, the advertisement of which you have there in your hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know; there will be some steep hills for us to negotiate; I guess we shall want a good brake.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said: \u201cWe shall want a brake, I agree; what we shall not want is a mechanical surprise that we don\u2019t understand, and that never acts when it is wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis thing,\u201d he said, \u201cacts automatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou needn\u2019t tell me,\u201d I said. \u201cI know exactly what it will do, by instinct. Going uphill it will jamb the wheel so effectively that we shall have to carry the machine bodily. The air at the top of the hill will do it good, and it will suddenly come right again. Going downhill it will start reflecting what a nuisance it has been. This will lead to remorse, and finally to despair. It will say to itself: \u2018I\u2019m not fit to be a brake. I don\u2019t help these fellows; I only hinder them. I\u2019m a curse, that\u2019s what I am;\u2019 and, without a word of warning, it will \u2018chuck\u2019 the whole business. That is what that brake will do. Leave it alone. You are a good fellow,\u201d I continued, \u201cbut you have one fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d he asked, indignantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have too much faith,\u201d I answered. \u201cIf you read an advertisement, you go away and believe it. Every experiment that every fool has thought of in connection with cycling you have tried. Your guardian angel appears to be a capable and conscientious spirit, and hitherto she has seen you through; take my advice and don\u2019t try her too far. She must have had a busy time since you started cycling. Don\u2019t go on till you make her mad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men on the Bummel<\/em><\/a>, 1914.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday afternoon Harris came round; he had a cycling paper in his hand. I said: \u201cIf you take my advice, you will leave it alone.\u201d Harris said: \u201cLeave what alone?\u201d I said: \u201cThat brand-new, patent, revolution in cycling, record-breaking, Tomfoolishness, whatever it may be, the advertisement of which you have there in your hand.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,41,15],"tags":[97,948],"class_list":["post-28842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-quotations","category-technology","tag-advertising","tag-jkjerome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7vc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28843,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28842\/revisions\/28843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}