My Life in Advertising

They call Claude Hopkins "the best advertiser of the 20th century" and "a classic of sales". Why are the ideas of this advertising pioneer still relevant today?

It's simple - because they work.  Advertising is the multiplied skill of selling, and Claude Hopkins knew exactly how. He was the one who introduced pre-launch research and developed trial marketing. His was the idea of mass use of free samples so that customers could see for themselves the quality of the product being advertised. Hopkins understood the importance of psychology and used curiosity - one of the strongest human stimuli - in the design of his advertising strategies. Any advertising adventure in its initial stages simply means feeling the pulse of society. To give people what they need. Or simply to create "new desires". In every advertised product Hopkins finds that unique quality that sets it vividly apart from competitors' products. He calls this approach "reinforcing the advantage." He believes that advertising exists only to sell something, and its results must be measurable.

Hopkins wrote only two books, but both are classics.

Scientific Advertising, published in 1923, contains many of the secrets he himself discovered with his "testing techniques." Of it, the famous David Ogilvy said, "No one should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read Scientific Advertising seven times." Many advertising professionals, however, consider My Life in Advertising to be the best book on advertising ever written.