All about coffee by William H. Ukers

A SHORT HISTORY OF COFFEE ADVERTISING _Early coffee advertising--The first coffee advertisement in 1587 was frank propaganda for the legitimate use of coffee--The first printed advertisement in English--The first newspaper advertisement--Early advertisements in colonial America--Evolution of advertising--Package coffee advertising--Advertising to the trade--Advertising by means of newspapers, magazines, billboards, electric signs, motion pictures, demonstrations, and by samples--Advertising for retailers--Advertising by government propaganda--The Joint Coffee Trade publicity campaign in the United States--Coffee advertising efficiency_ In a work of this character the chapter on advertising must of necessity be in story form. It may tell what has been accomplished in advertising coffee, and perhaps point the way to greater achievement. In so far as possible, the story is supplemented by illustrations, which here tell the story even better than words. Advertising to the trade or the consumer calls for expert advice. There are successful trade journalists who are competent to supply such advertising counsel; and new-comers in the field should consult them first. These men are in the best position to suggest the means for successful accomplishment. They know the men who are best qualified to render assistance for all media, and are glad to recommend those who can be most helpful. Jarvis A. Wood has said that advertising is causing another to know, to remember, and to do. If we agree with this excellent definition, then the first coffee advertisers were the early physicians and writers who told their fellows something about the berry and the beverage made from it. Rhazes and Avicenna told the story in Latin, and appear to have recommended a coffee decoction as a stomachic, as far back as the tenth century. Many other early physicians refer to it. Thus it was that coffee was solemnly introduced to the consumer as a medicine. The first step made by the berry from the cabinets of the curious, where it was known as an exotic seed, was into the apothecaries' shops, where it was sold and advertised as a drug. Next, the coffee drink was advertised and sold by lemonade venders; then by the proprietors of the coffee houses and cafés; and finally the coffee merchant sold and advertised the green and roasted bean. Rauwolf told the Germans about it in 1582; Abd-al-Kâdir wrote his famous _Argument in favor of the legitimate use of coffee_ in Arabic about 1587; Alpini carried the news to Italy in 1592; English travelers wrote about the beverage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; French Orientalists described it about the same time; and America learned about it long before the green beans were offered for sale in Boston in 1670. Because of its frank propaganda character, Abd-al-Kâdir's manuscript may rightly be called the earliest advertisement for coffee. The author was a lawyer-theologian, a follower of Mahomet, and as such was eager to convince his contemporaries that coffee drinking was not incompatible with the prophet's law. Soon the news of the day became the advertising of the morrow. In 1652 appeared the first printed advertisement for coffee in English. It was in the form of a shop-bill, or handbill, issued by Pasqua Rosée from the first London coffee house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill; and the original is preserved in the British Museum. It is pictured on page 55, chapter X, and is worthy of close examination. It reads: The Vertue of the _COFFEE_ Drink First publiquely made and sold in England, by _Pasqua Rosée_. The Grain or Berry called _Coffee_, groweth upon little Trees, only in the _Deserts of Arabia_. It is brought from thence, and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seigniors Dominions. It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a Drink, by being dryed in an Oven, and ground to Powder, and boiled up with Spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before, and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any Blisters, by reason of that Heat. The Turks drink at meals and other times, is usually _Water_, and their Dyet consists much of _Fruit_, the _Crudities_ whereof are very much corrected by this Drink. The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry; and though it be a Dryer, yet It neither _heats_, nor _inflames_ more then _hot Posset_. It so closeth the Orifice of the Stomack, and fortifies the heat within, that it's very good to help digestion, and therefore of great use to be taken about 3 or 4 a Clock afternoon, as well as in the morning. It much quickens the _Spirits_, and makes the Heart _Lightsome_. It is good against sore Eys, and the better if you hold your Head over it, and take in the Steem that way. It suppresseth Fumes exceedingly, and therefore good against the _Head-ach_, and will very much stop any _Defluxion of Rheums_, that distil from the _Head_ upon the _Stomack_, and so prevent and help _Consumptions_; and the _Cough of the Lungs_. It is excellent to prevent and cure the _Dropsy_, _Gout_, and _Scurvy_. It is known by experience to be better than any other Drying Drink for _People in years_, or _Children_ that have any _running humors_ upon them, as the _Kings Evil_,&c. It is very good to prevent _Mis-carryings_ in _Child-bearing Women_. It is a most excellent Remedy against the _Spleen_, _Hypocondriack Winds_, or the like. It will prevent _Drowsiness_, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to _Watch_; and therefore you are not to Drink of it _after Supper_, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for 3 or 4 hours. _It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not trobled with the Stone, Gout, Dropsie, or Scurvey, and that their Skins are exceedingly cleer and white._ It is neither _Laxative_ nor _Restringent_. Made and sold in St. _Michaels Alley_ in _Cornhill_, by Pasqua Rosée, at the Signe of his own Head. The noteworthy thing about this advertisement is, that in comparison with the best copy of today, it has high merit. For this early advertisement seems to have embodied in it superbly well those qualifications which modern advertising experts agree are essential requirements for success--measured in terms of sales to the consumer. We shall return to it later. The first newspaper advertisement for coffee appeared in the form of a "reader" in the issue of _The Publick Adviser_, London, for the week of Tuesday, May 19, to Tuesday, May 26, 1657. _The Publick Adviser_ was a weekly pamphlet partaking of the nature of a commercial news-letter. The advertisement was sandwiched between a reader advertising a doctor of physick and one for an "artificer," the latter being a ladies' hair-dresser. It was as follows: In _Bartholomew_ Lane on the back side of the Old Exchange, the drink called _Coffee_, (which is a very wholesom and Physical drink, having many excellent vertues, closes the Orifice of the Stomack, fortifies the heat within, helpeth Digestion, quickneth the Spirits, maketh the heart lightsom, is good against Eye-sores, Coughs, or Colds, Rhumes, Consumptions, Head-ach, Dropsie, Gout, Scurvy, Kings Evil, and many others is to be sold both in the morning, and at three of the clock in the afternoon.) About the time that Pascal opened the first coffee house in Paris in 1672, the Paris shop-keepers began to advertise coffee by broadsides. A good example is the following,[345] the text of which closely resembles the original by Pasqua Rosée: _The most excellent Virtue of the Berry called_ Coffee. _Coffee_ is a Berry which only grows in the desert of _Arabia_, from whence it is transported into all the Dominions of the Grand Seigniour, which being drunk dries up all the cold and moist humours, disperses the wind, fortifies the Liver, eases the dropsie by its purifying quality, 'tis a Sovereign medicine against the itch, and corruptions of the blood, refreshes the heart, and the vital beating thereof, it relieves those that have pains in their Stomach, and cannot eat; It is good also against the indispositions of the brain, cold, moist, and heavy, the steam which rises out of it is good against the _Rheums_ of the eyes, and drumming in the ears: 'Tis excellent also against the shortness of the breath, against _Rheums_ which trouble the Liver, and the pains of the Spleen; It is an extraordinary ease against the Worms: After having eat or drunk too much: Nothing is better for those that eat much Fruit. The daily use hereof in a little while will manifest the aforesaid effect to those, that being indisposed shall use it from time to time. The following are typical London trade advertisements of 1662 and 1663. The first is from the _Kingdom's Intelligencer_ of June 5, 1662, and reads as follows: At the Exchange Ally from Cornhill into Lumber Street neer the Conduit, at the Musick-Room belonging to the Palsgrave's Hall, is sold by retayle the right coffee powder; likewise that termed the Turkey Berry, well cleansed at 30d. per pound ... the East India berry (so called) of the best sorts at 20d. per pound, of which at present in divers places there is very bad, which the ignorant for cheapness do buy, and is the chief cause of the now bad coffee drunk in many plaies (sic). The _Intelligencer_ for December 21, 1663, contained the following advertisement: There is a Parcel of Coffee-Berry to be put to publique sale upon Wednesday, the 23, instant, at 6 a clock in the evening at the Globe Coffee-house at the end of St. Bartholomew Lane, over against the North Gate of the Royall Exchange.... And if any desire to be further informed they may repair to Mr. Brigg, Publique Notary at the said Globe Coffee-house. Dufour's treatise on _The Manner of Making Coffee, Tea and Chocolate_, published in Lyons, 1684, was generally regarded as propaganda for the beverage; and, indeed, it proved an excellent advertisement, being quickly translated into English and several other languages. In 1691 we find advertised in the _Livre Commode_ of Paris a portable coffee-making outfit to fit the pocket. The first coffee periodical, _The New and Curious Coffee House_, was issued at Leipzig by Theophilo Georgi in 1707, being a kind of house organ for what was, perhaps, the first kaffee-klatsch; the publisher-proprietor, however, admitted that the idea of making his coffee salon a resort for the literati was obtained from Italy. [Illustration: FIRST NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENT SOLELY FOR COFFEE IN THE UNITED STATES _New York Daily Advertiser_, February 9, 1790] In chapter X we have described a number of broadsides, handbills, and pamphlets having to do with the introduction of the coffee drink into London between 1652 and 1675. The advertising student would do well to refer to them because they serve to show how completely the true merits of the beverage were lost sight of by those who urged its more fantastic claims. It is interesting to note, however, that this early copy was of a high order of typographical excellence; indeed, the display letter used for the word coffee is often like that found in copy in the United States two hundred and fifty years after. Also, it should be noted that "apt 'illustration's' artful aid" was first employed in 1674. Again, note this curious contrast. Two hundred and sixty-nine years ago all the resources of advertising were being laid under contribution to make propaganda for coffee as the great _cure_ for many ailments of which nowadays the enemies of coffee would have us believe coffee is the cause! Those who have possessed themselves of the facts about coffee know that both arguments are equally fantastic. Coffee was mentioned in shop-keepers' announcements appearing in the _Boston News Letter_ as early as 1714, and in other newspapers of the colonies during the eighteenth century, usually being offered for sale at retail with strange companions. In 1748 "tea, coffee, indigo, nutmegs, sugar, etc.," were advertised for sale at a shop in Dock Square, Boston. The following advertisement from the _Columbian Centinel_, Boston, April 26, 1794, is typical: GROCERIES AT NO. 44 _CORNHILL_ Norton and Holyoke Respectfully inform their friends and the publick, that they have for sale, at their Shop, No. 44 _Cornhill_, formerly the Post-Office. A GENERAL ASSORTMENT OF GROCERIES among which are the following articles: Teas, Spices, Coffee, Cotton, Indigo, Starch, Chocolate, Raisins, Figs, Almonds, and Olives; West India Rum, best French Brandy, excellent Cherry Wine, pure as imported, etc., etc., all which they will sell as low as any store in Boston. _Any article not liked will be taken again, and the money returned._ It appears that the first advertisement dealing with coffee alone was published in the _New York Daily Advertiser_ for February 9, 1790; and this was primarily an advertisement of a wholesale coffee roasting factory rather than an advertisement of coffee per se. This advertisement, and a later one published in Loudon's _New York Packet_ for January 1, 1791, also of a coffee manufactory, are reproduced herewith. Not until package coffee began to come into vogue in the sixties was there any change in the stereotyped business-card form followed by all dealers in coffee. And even then the monotony was varied only by inserting the brand name, such as "Osborn's Celebrated Prepared Java Coffee. Put up only by Lewis A. Osborn"; "Government coffee in tin foil pound papers put out by Taber & Place's Rubia Mills." _Evolution of Coffee Advertising_ Real progress in coffee advertising, as in publicity for other lines of trade and industry, began in the United States. Here too, it has been brought to its lowest degradation and to its highest efficiency. The entire process has taken something less than fifty years. [Illustration: EARLY COFFEE ADVERTISING IN UNITED STATES Printed in the _New York Packet_, January 1, 1791] The first step forward was the picture handbill. The handbill, or dodger, had been common enough in England and on the Continent, where, for upward of two hundred years it had served as an advertising medium, in company with the more robust broadside, and in competition with the pamphlet and newspaper. It remained for America, however, to glorify the handbill by means of colored pictures; and one of the earliest and best specimens of the picture handbill is the Arbuckle circular here illustrated. [Illustration: FIRST HANDBILL IN COLORS FOR PACKAGE COFFEE ABOUT 1872] Soon the handbill copy began to appear in the newspapers, but mostly without the illustrations. Later newspaper developments were to introduce more of the picture element, decorative border, and design. The ideas of European artists were freely drawn upon, but put to so utilitarian uses that their originators would scarce have recognized them. In the _Ladies Home Journal_ for December, 1888, the Great London Tea Company, Boston, an early mail-order house, advertised, "We have made a specialty since 1877 of giving premiums to those who buy tea and coffee in large quantities." In the same issue, there was an advertisement of Seal Brand and Crusade Brand coffee by Chase & Sanborn, Boston. Dilworth Bros., Pittsburgh, were also among the early users of magazine space. The menace of the cereal coffee-substitute evil had grown to such proportions at the beginning of the twentieth century, that the coffee men began to be concerned about it. Misleading and untruthful "substitute" copy was freely accepted by nearly all media. The package labels were as bad, if not worse. With the advent of the pure food law of 1906, the cereal label abuse was reformed; but not until the "truth in advertising" movement became a power to be reckoned with, nearly ten years later, were the coffee men granted a substantial measure of protection in the magazines and newspapers. Meanwhile, many coffee men, lacking organization and a knowledge of the facts about coffee, unwittingly played into the hands of the substitute-fakers by publishing unfortunate defensive copy which made confusion worse confounded in the consumer's mind. [Illustration: REVERSE SIDE OF THE ARBUCKLE HANDBILL (IN COLORS) OF 1872] [Illustration: A ST. LOUIS HANDBILL OF 1854] At one time there were nearly one hundred coffee-substitute concerns engaged in a bitter, untruthful campaign directed against coffee. The most conspicuous offender employed the principle of auto-suggestion and found a goodly number of pseudo-physicians and bright advertising minds that were quite willing to prostitute their finest talents to aid him in attacking an honorable business. [Illustration: ADVERTISING-CARD COPY, 1873] In one year $1,765,000 was spent in traducing the national beverage. The burden of the cereal-faker's song was that coffee was the cause of all the ills that flesh is heir to, and that by stopping its use for ten days and substituting his panacea, these ills would vanish. Of course, there were many people (but they were the minority) who knew that the caffein content of coffee was a pure, safe stimulant that did not destroy the nerve cells like such false stimulants as alcohol, morphine, etc.; and that while too much could be ingested from abuse of any beverage containing it, nature always effected a cure when the abuse was stopped. However, there was undoubtedly created in the public mind a suspicion, that threatened to develop into a prejudice, and that affected otherwise sane and normal people, that perhaps coffee was not good for them. Then came the winter of the coffee men's discontent. Floundering about in a veritable slough of cereal slush, without secure foothold or a true sense of direction, coffee advertising went miserably astray when its writers began to assure the public that _their_ brands were guiltless of the crimes charged in the cereal men's indictment. In this, of course, they unwittingly aided and abetted the cereal fakers. For example, one roaster-packer advertised, "The harmful ingredient in coffee is the tannin-bearing chaff, which our roasting and grinding process completely removes." Scientific research has since proved the fallacy of this idea. [Illustration: HANDBILL COPY OF THE SEVENTIES] [Illustration: BOX-END STICKER, 1833] Another roaster said, "if coffee works havoc with your nerves and digestion, it is because you are not using a fresh roasted, thoroughly cleaned, correctly cured coffee. Our method of preparing gives you the strength and aroma without its nerve-destroying qualities." A well known coffee packer advertised, "Our coffee is free from the dust and bitter tannin--the only injurious property in coffee." Still another packer informed the consumer that "by a very special steel cutting process" he sliced the coffee beans "so that the little cells containing the volatile oil (the food product) are not broken." A prominent Chicago packer put out a new brand of coffee which he claimed was "non-intoxicating," "poisonless," and the "only pure coffee." A New Yorker, not to be out-done, brought out a coffee that he said contained all the stimulative properties of the original coffee berries, but with every trace of acid removed, every undesirable element eliminated. "Also," he added for good measure, "this coffee may be used freely without harming the digestive organs or impairing the nervous system." And one package-coffee man became so exercised over cereal competition that he brought out a _grain_ "coffee" of his own, which he actually advertised as "the nearest approach to coffee ever put on the market, having all the merits without any objectionable features, strengthening without stimulating, satisfying without shattering the nerves." And so history again repeated itself in America. Five hundred years after the first religious persecution of the drink in Arabia, we find it being persecuted by commercial zealots in the United States. And even in the house of its friends, coffee was being stabbed in the back. The coffee merchants themselves presented the spectacle of "knocking" it by inference and innuendo. Something had to be done. As cereal drinks, standing on their own feet, the coffee "substitutes" would have attracted little notice. It was only by trading on the allegation that they were _substitutes for coffee_ that they made any headway. The original offender sold his product as "coffee," which was an untruth, as he later admitted there was not a bean of coffee in it. He boldly advertised: "Blank coffee for persons who can't digest ordinary coffee." When it became no longer possible to perpetrate an untruth on the package label, there still remained the newspapers and billboards. For years before fake-advertising laws and an outraged public opinion made recourse to these no longer possible, it was a common practise to use the newspapers and billboards to promote the idea that here was a different coffee; and in this way to create a demand for a package, which, when purchased, was found to tell a different story. [Illustration: A CHASE & SANBORN ADVERTISEMENT, 1888 As printed in _Harper's_ and _Scribner's Magazines_] As late as 1911, one of our most respected New York dailies was carrying an advertisement calling the product "coffee," although fairness demands it be recorded that the coffee part of the announcement was stricken out when _The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal_ called the attention of the publisher to its misleading character. This trade paper, from its start, had been urging the coffee men to organize for defense. The agitation bore fruit at last, first in the starting of the National Coffee Roasters Association, and later in the inception of the movement that resulted in the international advertising campaign for coffee now in progress in the United States. Meanwhile, the cereal coffee-substitute had been thoroughly discredited by governmental analysis, although even today newspaper publishers are to be found here and there who are willing to "take a chance" with public opinion and who will admit to their advertising columns such misleading statements for the substitute, as "it has a coffee-like flavor." [Illustration: A GOLDBERG CARTOON, 1910] [Illustration: NEWSPAPER COPY USED BY CHASE AND SANBORN ABOUT 1900] In the United States today, coffee advertising has reached a high plane of copy excellence. Our coffee advertisers lead all nations. The educational work started by _The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal_, fostered by the National Coffee Roasters Association, and developed by the Joint Coffee Trade Publicity Committee, has laid low many of the bugaboos raised by the cereal sinners. The coffee men, however, have left considerable room for improvement. There are still some who are given to making exaggerated claims in their publicity, who make reflections upon competitors in a way to destroy public confidence in coffee, and who display an ignorance of, or a lack of confidence in, their product by continuing to claim that their brands do not contain what they assert are injurious or worthless constituents. It is to be hoped that in time these abuses will yield to the further enlightening influence of the trade press, and of the organizations that are continually working for trade betterment. Before the international coffee campaign started in 1919, the National Coffee Roasters Association promoted two national coffee weeks, one in 1914 and another in 1915, wherein excellent groundwork was done for the big joint coffee trade propaganda that followed. Some original research also was done along lines of proper grinding and correct coffee brewing. A better-coffee-making committee, under the direction of Edward Aborn of New York, rendered yeoman's service to the cause. Much educational work was done in schools and colleges, among newspaper editors, and in the trade. This campaign was the first co-operative publicity for coffee. Among other things, it put a nation-wide emphasis on iced coffee as a delectable summer drink and, for the first time, stressed the correct making of the beverage by drip and filtration methods instead of by boiling, which had long been one of the most crying evils of the business. [Illustration: CHART SHOWING MONEY SPENT ON ADVERTISING COFFEE AND SUBSTITUTES Only advertisements printed in magazines and periodicals are considered in making this calculation] _Package Coffee Advertising_ Coffee advertising began to take on a distinctive character with the