Scientific Advertising Book: Key Takeaways from Claude C. Hopkins

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[00:00:15] Today we will unlock the book, Scientific Advertising. David Ogilvy, the founder of the advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather and the author of Ogilvy on advertising, once published a classic car ad in a newspaper.

[00:00:30] Above the ad copy was a picture of a Rolls-Royce with a person sitting in the backseat looking out the window.

[00:00:37] The caption below read, at 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.

[00:00:45] Though BMW and Mercedes-Benz dominated the market, this ad campaign helped push Rolls-Royce to the forefront of the automotive industry in the 1950s and 1960s.

[00:00:57] In this famous Rolls-Royce advertisement, Ogilvy's unique copywriting mindset was a key factor to its success.

[00:01:05] So, what exactly is this copywriting mindset?

[00:01:09] In the age of the internet most sales now take place online.

[00:01:14] Whether it is posting something on social media, crafting a resume for a job opportunity or writing reviews online.

[00:01:21] And to make a successful sale, you must have a sales-based way of thinking called the Copywriting Mindset.

[00:01:28] The Copywriting Mindset has deeply affected all aspects of our lives.

[00:01:34] So, how do we cultivate copywriting mindset and write compelling copy?

[00:01:39] The book Scientific Advertising will bring you the answer.

[00:01:43] This book is a must read writing guide for advertising majors in 172 universities in the United States and is listed as the first of the seven must read books for Ogilvy employees.

[00:01:56] Ogilvy once commented, nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times.

[00:02:04] It changed the course of my life.

[00:02:07] Next, we will break down this book in three parts.

[00:02:10] Part 1. The Three Laws of Advertising

[00:02:14] Part 2. How to Touch the Consumers Heart

[00:02:18] Part 3. How to Write a Compelling Copy

[00:02:21] Part 1. The Three Laws of Advertising

[00:02:25] As one of the founders of the modern day advertising industry, Hopkins was the first to introduce the concept of scientific advertising.

[00:02:33] The concept is based on writing from a fixed set of principles and following a set of basic laws.

[00:02:39] So, what are some of the basic principles to follow?

[00:02:44] Next, we will look at three of the principles introduced in the book.

[00:02:49] The first law is gathering as much information regarding the product being advertised as possible.

[00:02:55] This includes going through large amounts of data, sending out questionnaires, interviewing consumers, etc.

[00:03:02] These are crucial steps that must be taken in order to write compelling copy.

[00:03:08] We only understand a product's unique strengths and value, as well as what problem it solves for the consumer once we have enough information about the product.

[00:03:17] In his advertising career, Hopkins planned an ad for Van Kamp's canned pork and beans.

[00:03:24] Before finding Hopkins, the company had spent thousands on advertising expenses with little effect.

[00:03:30] These advertisement campaigns were not written poorly, but they did not bother to understand the needs of the housewives they were selling to.

[00:03:39] They were more focused on writing copy that would appeal to the company.

[00:03:43] However, when Hopkins took over the project, he immediately sent investigators out to understand everything related to pork and beans.

[00:03:51] After analyzing the information collected, he discovered that 94% of housewives make this dish at home and only 6% are willing to buy canned pork and beans.

[00:04:03] After discovering this core issue, Hopkins applied all of the information he gathered in his copy and focused the marketing campaign on arguing against home baking.

[00:04:13] He meticulously listed the downsides of housewives making the dish at home.

[00:04:17] He pointed out that not only is it time consuming to cook at home, but also that beans are not easy to digest.

[00:04:25] He also listed the ingredients used in canned beans and information about the cooking process while offering free samples to try out.

[00:04:33] The promotion was a huge success.

[00:04:36] Van Kamp's beans opened up a new market and crushed its competitors.

[00:04:42] This case study shows collecting the most amount of information possible is a must in order to write effective copy.

[00:04:49] Next, we move on to the second law to strategically set the product name and price and anticipate how to fend off substitute products.

[00:04:58] When launching a promotion, it is likely there will be questions about what to name the new product.

[00:05:04] Products with good names have a huge advantage.

[00:05:08] Sometimes, a great name can help ensure a product success, especially when the name tells a strong story.

[00:05:15] When such a name is presented in an eye-catching fashion, it can give an ad a massive advantage.

[00:05:22] Even the name can become a type of advertisement on its own.

[00:05:26] Some good examples of this are May breath, cream of wheat, minute tapioca, etc.

[00:05:32] Some other product names are entirely made up words, such as Kodak, Mazda, and Lux, etc.

[00:05:40] They do not have any particular meaning.

[00:05:43] But after being strategically promoted for a long time, consumers began to associate these brand names with prestige and value.

[00:05:51] And because their names are so unique, these brands do not need to worry about sharing this advantage with other manufacturers.

[00:05:59] The downside of this is that many brands fail to attain this level of recognition quickly and end up failing.

[00:06:06] Because the names fail to connect value to the product in the mind of the customer it is very doubtful if they justify display.

[00:06:14] Since marketing should focus on promoting the use of the product, it is a massive risk to spend time on displaying names and pictures that don't tell any product information.

[00:06:24] Hopkins believes a good name should aid in promoting the major selling point of the product.

[00:06:29] The more vivid and complete picture of the product conveyed the better.

[00:06:34] So, before choosing a product name, it is also important to do a lot of research.

[00:06:40] In addition to the name, price is also an important factor in creating an advertising campaign.

[00:06:47] Typically, high prices will make people resist buying your product, therefore limiting the scope of the market.

[00:06:54] If only 10% of people can afford your product, it will vastly increase the cost of selling the product and the product's market share will shrink.

[00:07:03] But due to the nature of some products, there are exceptions.

[00:07:07] Sales volume is not as important because each customer has a limited demand on this kind of product.

[00:07:14] Therefore, manufacturers must maintain a huge profit margin in order to survive.

[00:07:20] For example, customers typically do not care how much they spend on bottles of work medication because they generally just need one.

[00:07:29] And for some products, a high price is actually a draw.

[00:07:33] For example, products that represent wealth and status such as jewelry, luxury goods, rare products, etc.

[00:07:41] People will think, expensive means good, expensive means it is rare to justify their buying decision.

[00:07:48] In order to avoid losing your product's market share, it is important to also think about how to combat substitute products when planning an advertisement.

[00:07:58] Substitute products often appear at times of opportunity in the market of an already established leader and start to take a piece of the pie, forcing the market leaders profit margin to shrink.

[00:08:09] For example, even though royal baking powder and toasted corn flakes were first to market, they still left an opportunity for product substitutes to flourish.

[00:08:19] Therefore, the market became fragmented and only left them with one competitive edge, their brand reputation.

[00:08:26] Because of this, in the beginning planning stages of creating a new advertising campaign for a product, defenses must be established in advanced.

[00:08:35] Vaseline is a great example of doing just this.

[00:08:40] Vaseline was the first to create a new market need while also choosing a name that connects their brand to its product category.

[00:08:47] Using their name recognition, they nearly monopolized the market.

[00:08:52] Choosing the correct name may have made all the difference in the success they had.

[00:08:57] The third law of advertising planning, used test campaigns to track the success of advertisements.

[00:09:04] A test campaign involves first testing the effectiveness of an advertisement on a smaller scale and collecting relevant feedback.

[00:09:13] Through test campaigns, we can evaluate its effectiveness and make low cost adjustments to the advertisement, then quickly iterate different methods to find the best method to market the product.

[00:09:24] Typically, test campaigns and providing free samples go together.

[00:09:29] Let's take a look at how Hopkins helped Quaker Oats promote their oatmeal.

[00:09:34] At the time, Quaker Oats had a negative reputation for taking so long to cook.

[00:09:40] So, a competitor took advantage of this and launched a new instant oatmeal product.

[00:09:46] This was a heavy blow to Quaker Oats sales.

[00:09:50] In response to the new competition, Quaker launched their own instant product, named Two Minute Oats.

[00:09:57] The company believed this was the perfect idea to combat the competition and unanimously agreed that it did not need to be tested and should be promoted full force immediately.

[00:10:08] But Hopkins insisted they do a test campaign first.

[00:10:12] The feedback from their first few tests in small cities was revealing, the flavor was different from what oatmeal consumers were used to and the customer base could not accept a change in the flavor.

[00:10:23] Two few people were willing to accept this new flavor.

[00:10:27] So, Two Minute Oats, the plan that everyone thought was great flopped.

[00:10:32] Later, the company developed a new oatmeal that needed only three to five minutes to cook called, Quick Quaker Oats.

[00:10:40] Its flavor was nearly identical to traditional oatmeal.

[00:10:44] They launched test campaigns in multiple small cities giving customers free samples.

[00:10:50] 90% of the customer's samples preferred the Quick Quaker Oats over Quaker Oats.

[00:10:57] From then on, Quick Quaker Oats gave the company a distinctive market advantage.

[00:11:02] Due to Hopkins' insistence on conducting test campaigns, they were able to efficiently and economically change direction and maintain their control of the market.

[00:11:12] That wraps up part one, the three laws of advertising planning.

[00:11:17] Let's summarize, the first law is to gather as much information regarding the product being advertised as possible.

[00:11:24] The second law is to strategically set the product name and price and to have a plan on how to fend off substitute products.

[00:11:32] The third law is to track the success of a campaign through test campaigns.

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