“Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book (“Scientific Advertising”) seven times. It changed the course of my life.”
– David Ogilvy
This year (2023) is the 100th anniversary of the first publishing of the book “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins. It’s widely regarded as one of the foundation stones of what is known as Direct Response Marketing.
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s not that well known outside of direct response practitioners in the wider marketing community.
W-a-a-a-y back in 2008, I wrote a series of posts covering each of the 21 chapters in the book, discussing whether or not what Hopkins had to say was still relevant for marketers in the 21st Century. He described his aim for the book as follows…
“The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analysed until they are well understood. The correct methods of procedure have been proven and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic laws.”
“Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest of business ventures. Certainly no other enterprise with comparable possibilities need involve so little risk.”
To mark this 100th anniversary of “Scientific Advertising”, the links to the original series of posts are below… [Read more…]
