When Science is Applied to Advertising and Marketing
Copyright 2006 Presslink Publishing
This is the third article in a series of the history of
advertising and marketing. We pick up the story from when John
E. Kennedy exited Lord and Thomas leaving Albert Lasker with the
monumental task of replacing him.
1908 Kennedy must have been a hard act to follow.
But Lasker did replace him with a man who made an even greater
overall contribution to the advertising world than Kennedy did.
Kennedy's replacement was called Claude C. Hopkins.
And what a true pioneer he proved to be.
He's the man who inaugurated free sampling, risk-free trials,
money-back guarantees, market testing, and much more.
Hopkins agreed with Kennedy on the "Salesmanship on Paper"
philosophy, but where Kennedy was a "one idea" man, Hopkins had
many ideas.
Hopkins reckoned that just placing ads and seeing what happened
was futile. Pure guesswork. He wanted to measure everything that
he did.
And we should all be glad that he did.
Hopkins wrote only two books but both were classics. His first:
"Scientific Advertising" written in 1923 contained manyof his
secrets that he found with his testing techniques. These secrets
are still as valid today.
His second book, written in 1927, was an autobiography called:
"My Life in Advertising." Many regard this as the best
advertising book ever written.
All top marketers regard Hopkins' first book as their
copywriting "how-to" bible.
And the late advertising great, David Ogilvy, had this to say
about Scientific Advertising: "Nobody should be allowed to have
anything to do with advertising until he has read Scientific
Advertising seven times - it completely changed my life."
Jay Abraham, known as America's #1 marketing wizard, had this to
say: "Claude Hopkins is the master of them all. His influence
has easily added over $6m to my personal income.....and still
counting."
Hopkins created ad campaigns for many major US companies that
are still going strong today. Companies such as Palmolive,
Pepsodent, and Quaker Oats.
One of his secret strategies for creating more turnover for his
clients was that of "pre-emptive" strikes.
By this strategy, he used to tell a story of how things were
done in an industry and thus educate the customers. Any
competitor could have told the same story but didn't. and
whoever did so first, gained the edge.
Hopkins stated in his books that a large part of advertising
done at the time was based on the concept of: "Buy My Product"
or "Come into My Store." Lots of advertisers today make this
same mistake. Are you one of them?
Customers are not fooled by this. They want to know: "What's in
it for me?"
Hopkins knew this and used this psychology to grow Van Camp's
pork and bean business. After his research, Hopkins found that
94% of housewives were baking their own beans at home and only
6% were buying canned beans.
But Hopkins realized that everybody advertising canned beans
merely stated: "Buy My Brand." Nobody explained what the benefit
of their product was.
So, Hopkins ran an advertising campaign that explained how it
took 16 hours to bake beans at home, and you could never make
home baked beans digestible.
He talked about crispy beans on top and the mushy beans on the
bottom. He also highlighted the process Van Camp's used to
select their beans, the soft water that they used, and how they
made the skins less tough by removing the lime. He also
emphasized the steam ovens where the beans were baked at 245
degrees in sealed containers so no flavor was lost. Then finally
he offered a free sample so customers could compare.
This particular campaign became a huge success for Van Camps.
Yet it was the very same process that all the manufacturers
could have told. But they didn't.
Here's another famous story from Claude Hopkins which you may
have heard of:
Schlitz Beer were ranked 5th. in their share of the market. That
was, until they hired Hopkins to do his makeover.
Hopkins' campaign took Schlitz from that 5th. spot to equal 1st.
spot in just a few months.
What Hopkins did in these two examples and all the others he
created, was educate people. The same is true today.
You cannot over-educate people.
Now maybe you're still thinking, anything from as long ago as
the beginning of the last century can't possibly work today.
Then think again.
1908 Walter Dill Scott produces another classic on advertising:
"Psychology of Advertising." Maxwell Sackheim said this about
this classic manuscript: "The only book on advertising I read as
a youth was written by Professor Walter Dill Scott of North
Eastern University and was titled: "The Psychology of
Advertising." l still think it is one of the finest books ever
written on the subject - and that his formula for successful
advertising has never been surpassed.
1911 Kennedy returns to Lord and Thomas as a freelance
copywriter.
1911 Proctor and Gamble pay JWT to launch Crisco, its new
vegetable shortening.
1911 Standard Oil , dissolved by the courts, invites Harrison
King McCann to form an agency to service its disbanded divisions.
1911 Woodbury Soap launches its "The skin you love to touch"
campaign. The first time "sex" appeal was used in advertising.
Around this time, copywriting started to become a "trade." Many
newcopywriters appeared and agencies like Lord and Thomas
actually set upcopywriting schools.
Some great sales copy by some great writers started to show. In
my next article I will mention a few. All are well-worth
studying.