Claude Hopkins

Scientific Advertising

1. IDEA 1

   Advertising is salesmanship in print

   Hopkins, an early American advertising pioneer, argues that advertising should be treated like salesmanship. Its purpose is to sell, and it should be judged by results, not by cleverness. A clever ad that sells nothing has failed.

2. IDEA 2

   Test everything

   Hopkins argues that advertising should be tested scientifically, comparing results of different approaches. Testing removes guesswork. Instead of trusting opinions, run two versions and see which one brings more replies. The ad that does better in the test is the one to use.

3. IDEA 3

   Measure response

   Hopkins used coupons in ads to track how many people responded. This let him measure which ads worked. Counting the coupons that came back showed clearly which ad or offer gave the most response.

All 8 ideas from Scientific Advertising →