Frank Bishop 1944

FP (Frank) Bishop was probably the first person to write a book on the statistics of advertising, in his book called The Economics of Advertising, published by Robert Hale Limited in 1944.

A quote from this book:

On Direct Mail:

"This is a wasteful form of advertising that experienced commercial advertisers rarely employ. The unwanted postal packet that found its way straight into the wastepaper basket before the war was sent out very often by the less desirable kind of advertiser who was denied admittance to the press."

Written in the last year of the Second World War from Bishop's London base, this was probably one of the first references to what we now call 'junk mail'. Anyone who opens up a Saturday or Sunday newspaper probably wishes that such 'denied admittance to the press' still applied today!