The Man Nobody Knows 7/17/01 The author of this book Bruce Barton was a partner in a successful advertising firm during the 1920’s. This was a time when the industry of advertising was under going some major changes. These changes had a lot to do with a number of factors the first of which being the post war prosperity this meant people had more money than they ever had before. Another one of these factors had to do with the high number of teens who were now attending high school, this proved to be important because it created a whole other market which hadn’t existed before. One more factor was the advances made in transportation and communication, these advances allowed goods, people, and information to travel long distances relatively quickly intern allowing companies to grow large enough to spread their services nationally.
Still another important factor was the invention of financing, this allowed people to pay for durable objects (large objects that would last a couple of years) with affordable installments or payments. But the biggest changes were the actual advertising practices themselves, many of which were pioneered by Barton and his associates, and didn’t become norms in advertising until after the release of Barton book “The Man Nobody Knows” in 1924. This book served not only as a manual on how to advertise more affectively but also as an example of good advertising itself. Barton begins his book by explaining why he wrote it.
The Essay on Advertising Effects On Young People
Advertising on American youth has changed somewhat in the last ten years. Today’s youth, mostly between the ages of 15-18, see an advertisement on television, or the internet and they want to try it , have it, or even steal for it because they desire it. Take alcohol advertisements for instance. Alcohol advertisements are more complex and appealing to today’s youth than they were ten ...
He does this in the form of a parable or story. The story he tells is of a young boy who is forced to sit through Sunday after Sunday of being told what to think and feel about God. Barton goes on to describe how the teacher had repeatedly stressed the need for him to love God and Jesus, and how the boy had grown to be fear God. He also told us how the boy pictured Jesus as the “Lamb of God”, which reminded him of Mary had a little lamb.
This association between Jesus and a children’s song had made the boy think of Jesus as “meek, and lowly” and as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief ” (Barton prologue).
Later in Barton’s story the man grows up and becomes a business man, and again finds him self confronted by Jesus, only now he is old enough to read it for himself and this time he doesn’t see Jesus as a weakling at all. Now he sees him as a successful carpenter who is both mentally and physically strong as well as a great leader. He also realizes the great feat Jesus has accomplished as well as the methods he used to accomplish this feat. Methods Barton felt every business man should know about.
Barton concludes this explanation by telling us how he waited for someone to write a book relating Jesus’ work to modern day business, and how when no one did he decided to write it himself. And with that he set out to write what he called ” the story of the founder of modern business” Jesus Christ. At first glance Barton use of a parable seemed un important but as I read on I realized his intent in using this method was not meekly an explanation as it had first seemed, but that it also served as an example of good advertising in more ways than one. The first way I noticed was his use of simple language, Barton manages to write his prologue almost entirely without the use words above two syllables. The next thing I noticed was how Barton got right to the point, but with out sacrificing description. An example of this would be the length of the prologue itself in it Burton explains not only his reasons for writing the book, but also the experiences that influenced his reasons and he does all this in under five pages.
The Essay on Personal Philosophy of Man , God and the World
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I am grateful to the Almighty God for establishing me to complete this project. I wish to express my sincere thanks to SOTERO H. LAUREL Librarians, for providing me with all the necessary facilities and books that I need to be able to carefully analyze all the topics that have been discuss in philosophy of human existence. I also thank Professor Josefina C. Perez, one ...
The third thing I noticed was Barton’s use of repetition, an example of this would be when Barton repeats his Sunday school teachers command to “love God and Jesus.” Still another thing I noticed was Barton’s use of a parable. Barton could have just came right out and said, ‘I think Jesus had a lot of qualities a business man should have, and in this book I plan to point these qualities out,’ but instead he tell us the story of how he came to write the book. The story manages to catch the reader’s attention, and allows us to relate to his experiences in a way that simply telling us his intentions would not have done. This brings me to my next point in giving us something to relate to Barton has not only caught our attention but also demon straight his sincerity by relating to us on a personal level. All of these characteristics would be Characteristics of a good ad in Barton’s eyes. In the rest of this book Barton looks at Jesus the business man and not Jesus the sun of god.
He did this by quoting parables from the Bible and using them as examples of Jesus’ good business methods. He takes this comparison as far as to call the apostles adman selling faith. In conclusion Bruce Barton’s book “The Man Nobody Knows” changed the face of advertising forever.
