“Information” is the subject of Chapter 11 of the copywriting classic “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins.
In today’s language, what Hopkins is talking about is better understood as research.
Hopkins was firmly of the view that…
“An ad-writer, to have a chance at success, must gain full information on his subject…A painstaking advertising man will often read for weeks on some problem which comes up.”
And he very much practiced what he preached. Hopkins was renown for his work ethic.
Here are some of the areas Hopkins insisted needed to be covered…
1. Survey potential customers and discover what they are most interested in.
2. Survey the overall market.
3. Survey intermediaries (“dealers” in Hopkins’ term)
4. Check out the competition.
5. Review news sources about the market and the product class
6. Comments and feedback from customers and dealers
7. How much does the typical customer spend on this type of product?
8. What’s the total size of the market?
Hopkins’ main point is that this attention to detail pays off. He mentions the case of a caffeine free coffee where one virtually unknown fact about caffeine was the key to a successful campaign (after previous dismal failures).
Research is also a vital component in being able to make detailed claims for a product. The more specific the claim, the more credible it will appear to prospective customers.
This is timeless advice and everything Hopkins recommended here is equally applicable to copywriters and marketers today.
In closing…
“The uninformed would be staggered to know the amount of work involved in a single ad. Weeks of work sometimes. The ad seems so simple, and it must be simple to appeal to simple people. But back of that ad may lie reams of data, volumes of information, months of research.”