Hopkins - My life in advertising ; &, Scientific advertising: two works

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S ome one is always reprinting Claude Hopkins.

In 1923 he wrote a slender book which was published by the advertising agency of Lord & Thomas (lineal antecedent of the Foote, Cone & Belding advertising agency of today). He called it Scientific Advertising, and almost 30 years later it was re-published by Alfred Politz, eminent researcher and devotee of scientific marketing and advertising, because the most concentrated wealth of useful discoveries [about advertising] was presented by Claude Hopkins and because present-day advertising research has a long way to go before it reaches the level of Claude Hopkins contributions to efficient advertising.

In 1927 Mr. Hopkins wrote an autobiographical work, My Life in Advertising, which first was serialized in Advertising and Selling magazine and subsequently was published in book form by Harper. In 1933 you could buy a copy [even one personally autographed by his widowClaude had died in 1932] for 10 cents at almost any secondhand book store.

But by 1946 Advertising and Selling was reprinting the volume, with an interpretive foreword by Walter Weir, who concluded:

There are few pages in My Life in Advertising which do not repay careful studyand which do not merit rereading. Before your eyes, a successful advertising life is livedwith all that went to make it successful. The lessons taught are taught exactly as they were learned. They are dished up dripping with life. It is not a book, it is an experienceand experience has always been the great teacher.

* * *

So here we are again, reprinting Claude Hopkins, in an edition which contains both Scientific Advertising and My Life in Advertising for the edification of a generation of advertising men largely made up of the great grandchildren of Claude Hopkins and his contemporaries.

Hopkins is hopelessly out of date, and amazingly current. He was the outstanding copywriter and strategist of his time; he made $100,000 a year and more writing advertising when that kind of money was important even to the U. S. Treasury. He talked about scientific advertising in an era when there was very little science, and much of what he says seems terribly dated to the sophisticates of today. Some of it, indeed, is dated, or disproven; times and circumstances have changed. But despite it all, Claude Hopkins laid down guidelines that are too important, too eternal, to be forgotten.

The reader will find himself alternately shaking his head in violent disagreement, and applauding vigorously in complete agreement. He will be annoyed at Hopkins conceit and arrogance, intrigued with his stories, and impressed with his short, staccato sentencesa pre-Flesch example of the best in punching home a message. Short. Simple. To the point. Like this, from the first chapter of his autobiography:

I am sure I would fail if I tried to advertise the Rolls-Royce, Tiffany & Co. or Steinway pianos. I do not know the reactions of the rich. But I do know the common people. I love to talk to laboring-men, to study housewives who must count their pennies, to gain the confidence and learn the ambitions of poor boys and girls. Give me something which they want and I will strike the responsive chord. My words will be simple, my sentences short. Scholars may ridicule my style. The rich and vain may laugh at the factors which I feature. But in millions of humble homes the common people will read and buy. They will feel that the writer knows them. And they, in advertising, form 95 percent of our customers.

Claude Hopkins was an advertising pioneer. He blazed new trails. But he considered himself a cautious man, one who based his advertising on fixed principles and done according to fundamentals. That is why his words are always being reprinted. That is why neophyte and expert alike will find his words stimulating, helpful, entrancing.

S. R. Bernstein, President,
Advertising Publications, Inc.

One
Early influences

Two
Lessons in advertising and selling

Three
My start in business

Four
How I got my start in advertising

Five
Larger fields

Six
Personal salesmanship

Seven
Medical advertising

Eight
My Liquozone experience