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- [00:00]
Phil Agnew
Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times. It changed the course of my life. That's what David Ogilvy, the so called father of advertising, said about the book Scientific Advertising. Scientific advertising was published 102 years ago in 1923 by the American advertising executive Claude Hopkins. Alongside Ogilvy, other marketing veterans like Jay Abraham and Gary Hulbert. Cool Scientific Advertising. A must read book. It has sold 8 million copies over the past 102 years. It is widely praised with many marketers claiming that these century old principles are still relevant today. And it's very much in the zeitgeist. In Mad Men, the hit series about the 1960s advertising executives, the character Peggy reads the book before bed to prepare herself for work. I don't think the producers of the show actually read the book themselves though, because she's reading a large hardback and the book is actually quite small. Anyway, the ideas in the book Scientific Advertising are essentially ancient. It's hard to imagine that advice from the 1920s could possibly be relevant today. Scientific Advertising was written before Facebook launched. It was written before email, before the Internet. It was written before colour TV had even reached the uk. So will any of Hopkins advice actually work today? Well, in this episode of Nudge, I find out. I've read the book twice and I've researched the tips Hopkins suggests. Will the tips from a 102-year-old marketing book work today? Find out after this. Now, I mentioned that I read the book twice. That sounds far more impressive than it actually is. The book is only 65 pages long and it consists of 21 fairly short chapters. It's really a jumble of 21 different articles with no real storyline or theme. However, the general idea that Hopkins tries to convey is that advertising should rely on data. He argues that good marketers must collect data on how each version of their ad performs and they must compare the results. He was the first businessman, really to push the idea of a B testing and randomized controlled trials with advertising. Back then, this was achieved most of the time by sending two versions of a direct mail ad to a small group, measuring the results. So who responded to the ad, analysing what worked best and then sending the winner to the larger group? At the time, this was revolutionary. Today it's commonplace. The vast majority of ads are a B tested. Even the title of this very episode is a B tested. In my email subject line, there's no questioning that split testing works. But what about the rest of the book? Are any of his other specific points worthwhile? Well, let's find out. In chapter three of the book, Hopkins urges advertisers to create an offer that's too good to refuse. He gives an example, writing the maker of an electric sewing machine motor found advertising difficult, so on good advice he ceased soliciting a purchase. He offered to send to any home through a dealer a sewing machine for one week's use. With it would come a man to show how to operate. Let us help you for a week without cost or obligation. The ad said. Such an offer was resistless. About nine in 10 of the trials led to sales. Rather than directly selling the sewing machine, the ad instead offered a free no strings attached trial. This advice is definitely still relevant today. In fact, it's largely adopted. The vast majority of software products offer.
- [03:42]
Unknown
Free trials for this reason, and there's.
- [03:44]
Phil Agnew
Lots of evidence to suggest it works. A 2018 paper titled How Consumers Assess Free E Services reinforced Hopkins century old advice. The researchers found that participants are 47% more likely to pick a streaming service with a free plan over a $1 basic plan. They rated the benefits of the free.
- [04:05]
Unknown
Service as 18% higher than the dollar.
- [04:08]
Phil Agnew
Plan, and they were 11% less negative about ads. Furthermore, they were considerably more likely to sign up for a $10 plan after just one month. This is the foot in the door technique. Offer something small and valuable for free and then upsell. Hopkins proved that it works with sewing machines, while Netflix and YouTube prove it works today. In chapter six of the book, Hopkins writes about ad slogans that inspire curiosity. He writes, we learn, for instance, that curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives. We employ it whenever we can. Puffed wheat and puffed rice were made successful largely through curiosity. He gives examples of these ads writing grains puffed to eight times the normal size, foods shot from guns 125 million steam explosions caused in every kernel. These foods were failures before that factor was discovered. The basic idea here is that slogans are more effective and memorable if they inspire curiosity. There is evidence behind this as well. A 1991 study on 60 undergraduate students showed 10 fictitious slogans for Heineken. The researchers pick and Sweeney didn't ask the students to remember any of these slogans. They were simply shown the slogans, moved on to another task, and then 15 minutes later, they were asked to recall which slogans they remembered. The slogans that didn't inspire curiosity were quickly forgotten. Just 7% of the students remembered Heineken. The others can't compete. The slogan Heineken makes good times better was recalled just 18% of the time and only 9% recalled you want something special. You want Heineken. However, Pick and Sweeney added one curiosity inspired slogan into the mix. The slogan was Heineken, the beer that made Milwaukee jealous. Now, this slogan might not mean much to us Europeans, but to Americans who associate Milwaukee with famous American beer brands like Miller, this ad stuck in the mind. 85% of students remembered this ad. Just like foods shot from guns, the beer that made Milwaukee jealous stands out and is therefore more memorable. To make our own slogans more memorable today, we should find lines that stand out compared to the competition. This tip is certainly still relevant 102 years on. Now let's review another of Hopkins tips. On page 19 he writes, Many send out small gifts like memorandum books to customers and prospects. These get very small results. One man sent a letter to the effect that he had a leather covered book with a man's name on it. It was waiting for him and would be sent on request. Nearly all men who received this offer filled out the request and supplied the information. When a man knows something belongs to him with his name on it, he will make every effort to get it, even though the thing is a trifle Today, the psychology behind sending out personalised lever bound books has a scientific name. It is known as the Endowment Effect. It's a psychological phenomenon where people tend to assign more value to things simply because they own them. This bias leads individuals to overvalue their possessions. In thinking fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman proved the effect of the Endowment Effect by measuring how students who are gifted a mug will value that mug more than simply because they own it. This lever bound book achieves the same effect. In fact, there's one study from Stuart Sutherland's book Irrationality that proves this really nicely. He writes how people who self select lottery tickets value them significantly more than lottery tickets that are simply handed to them. Filling out your own lottery numbers increased the amount you will value the lottery ticket by sevenfold. In other words, you will charge someone else seven times more for a lottery ticket you've picked compared to a generic lottery ticket. It just like with the leather bound books, this personalisation makes us value items more. Now let's move on to another tip. Towards the end of the book, Hopkins dedicates a whole chapter to being specific. He writes, the man who makes a specific claim is either telling the truth or a lie. People do not expect an advertiser to lie. They know that he can't lie on the best mediums. The growing respect in advertising has largely.
- [08:34]
Unknown
Come through a growing regard for its truth.
- [08:37]
Phil Agnew
So a definitive statement is usually accepted. Actual figures are not generally discounted. Specific facts, when stated, have their full weight and effect. He goes on to give an example. A dealer may say our prices have been reduced without creating any marked impression. But when he says our prices have been reduced by 25%, he gets the full value of his announcement. The basic idea Hopkins presents is that specific numbers are more believable. And Claude Hopkins got this bang on in a 2006 study by Schindler and Yelts from the University of Washington and Reuters University 199 participants rated ads about a fictitious deodorant. Some saw a rounded number claim, a non specific number claim that simply stated that the deodorant lasted 50% longer than its competitors. Others saw a very specific claim which stated that the deodorant lasted 47% longer than competitors. The specific number ad was rated as being 10% more believable and 10% more accurate than the rounded number. A specific number is more persuasive. Hopkins goes on to Write on page 37 that impressive claims are made far more impressive by making them exact. For example, a certain drink is known to have a large food value. That simple assertion is not very convincing. So we send the drink to the laboratory and find that its food value is 425 calories per pint. One pint is equivalent to six eggs in calories of nutriment. This claim makes a great impression. The idea here is that saying one pint equals six eggs worth of nutriment is more effective than simply saying it has lots of calories. Hopkins isn't just saying be specific. He's saying be concrete. He's advising the advertiser to use terms that the reader can visualise. We can visualise six eggs. We can't visualise 425 calories. This finding holds true today. Researchers Monnier and Thomas in 2022 studied how specific words make people more likely to act. In the study, participants were shown ads about cookies. Some of the ads referred to three pieces of cookies, which is easy to visualise. Other ads referred to ounces or 75 grams of cookies, which is hard to visualize. The easy to visualise ads were more effective, making the participants more likely to recall and more willing to buy. Being concrete and specific worked in 1923, and it still works today. On page 55, Hopkins advocates for signing your signature beneath an ad. He writes, that's why we have signed ads sometimes to give them a personal authority. A man is talking a man who takes pride in his accomplishments, not a soulless corporation. Whenever possible, we introduce a personality into our ads. By making a man famous, we make his product famous. When we claim an improvement, naming the man who made it adds effect. There's some pretty solid evidence that backs this point up as well. A 2013 Behavioural Insights Team study found that letters from a dentist's Office saw a 54% return rate when signed by the dentist, but only an 18% return rate when it wasn't signed. This is the authority bias. We are more likely to act if we feel someone in authority is telling us to do so. So much of this 102-year-old book is still relevant today. Hopkins accurately noted that psychological biases like the Endowment effect, concrete phrases, specific number bias, the power of free and the authority bias. These still work, but he didn't get everything right. After the break, I'll cover some of the ideas that Hopkins got wrong.
- [12:30]
Unknown
Hello and welcome back. You're listening to Nudge with me, Phil Agnew. Now, Claude Hopkins wrote one of the defining marks marketing books. It's still read a century on and it's sold over 8 million copies. But although many ideas in the book are accurate, there are a few ideas that need questioning. For example, in chapter four, Hopkins writes how the motto is the more you tell, the more you sell. This motto has never failed to prove out in any test. We know he's suggesting that in mail order advertising, at least writing a longer story a longer message guarantees more sales. He suggests that if you make an ad four times the length, it might drive four times the sales. I doubt this is true. In fact, evidence from the book writing for busy readers suggests the exact opposite. Studies from that book suggest that concise messages are actually much better for engagement. For example, in one study, two emails were sent to school board members. Both emails asked the members to complete a survey. The emails contained the exact same general message, but one of the emails was just 49 words long. The other email was 127 words long. It turns out that the length of the email influenced action. Only 2.7% of those who received the long email answered the survey, compared to 4.88% of those who received the short email. On an earlier episode of Nudge, the author of the book, Todd Rogers, told me that this is because the short.
- [14:09]
Phil Agnew
Message makes the recipients perceive the survey.
- [14:12]
Unknown
To be less effortful. In a different fundraising experiment with 770 600,000 potential donors, a campaign's email that.
- [14:22]
Phil Agnew
Randomly removed half of its paragraphs raised.
- [14:25]
Unknown
16% more money than the longer original email. In other words, the more you tell, the less you sell. Now, there are nuances here. There are certainly examples where writing more can boost your sales. Just look at London Underground ads. But the Claude Hopkins motto, the more you tell, the more you sell. It's certainly not foolproof. It's certainly not 100% accurate. It's not his only mistake as well. On page 33, Hopkins writes that negativity doesn't work in ads. He writes how a toothpaste may prevent decay. It may also beautify teeth. Tests will probably show that the latter appeal. Beautifying teeth is many times as strong as the former, preventing decay. The most successful toothpaste advertiser never features his tooth troubles in his headlines. Tests have proven them unappealing. Other advertisers in this line central on those troubles. That is often because the results are not known and compared. This isn't accurate. Corsodol, a mouthwash brand, created a series of ads using shock tactics. In the ad, a woman sitting in a bed is horrified when her teeth fall out of her mouth into her hand. She wakes and is relieved to find it was just a nightmare, but then spits out blood when brushing her teeth. Looking in the bathroom mirror, she reveals a gap where her front tooth should be.
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Spitting blood when you brush your teeth could be a sign of gum disease, the leading cause of tooth loss. Corsodyl Mint mouthwash and Corsodyl toothpaste are clinically proven to help stop bleeding gums. Because losing a tooth in real life is worse than a bad dream, the.
- [16:13]
BBC revealed that Corsodel's shock tactic ads worked. The ads helped Corsodal double in size from £10 million to £21 million from 2008 to 2009. The campaign grew the brand in an otherwise static medicated mouthwash category, the brand grew by 33% while others stayed the same. However, in chapter 18, Hopkins states that negative ads will not work.
- [16:38]
Phil Agnew
He writes, show the bright side, show the happy side, the attractive side, not.
- [16:42]
Unknown
The dark and uninviting side of things. Show beauty, not homeliness. Health, health, not sickness. Don't show wrinkles you propose to remove, but the face as it will appear. He continues, in advertising a toothpaste, show pretty teeth, not bad teeth. Talk of coming good conditions, not conditions which exist in advertising. Clothes picture well dressed people, not the shabby picture successful men and not failures. When you advertise a business course, picture what others wish to be, not what they may be. Now, this doesn't seem to hold true. 12010 analysis of new York Times book reviews found that negative reviews can actually increase sales by 45%. If the author is unknown, there's a 2023 study that found how negative news articles hold more attention with readers than positive articles. And negativity is also more memorable. In a 1991 study by Felicia Prato at Berkeley, participants were twice as likely to remember negative personality traits compared to POS personality traits when reading them off a list. You just need to look at political ads to realise that negativity works. The adverts Donald Trump created highlighted the negative traits of the left.
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Here's a question for you. Just how far are the radical left and inside the Beltway bandits willing to go to stop it?
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And the adverts Kamala Harris team put out highlighted the problems with Trump. Trump more dangerous, more erratic than ever before.
- [18:15]
Phil Agnew
Echoing fascist I do remember the day that he suggested that we shoot people on the streets. A second term would be worse. There will be no one to stop his worst instincts.
- [18:25]
Unknown
Negativity in ads clearly works, and it looks like Hopkins got this one wrong. Towards the end of the book, Hopkins argues that scientific advertising will make marketing safer, more cost effective and a better means of business. He finishes the book writing that advertisers will multiply when they see that advertising.
- [18:44]
Phil Agnew
Can be safe and sure. Small expenditures made on a guess will.
- [18:48]
Unknown
Grow to big ones on a certainty. Our line of business will be finer, cleaner when the gamble is removed. His concluding point is that marketers will stop gambling that marketing will become more reliable and more replicable. Hopkins predicts that advertising in the future will be able to deliver consistent results that simply do not waver. But this certainly isn't true. Despite having more data than we've ever had before, advertising is not and will.
- [19:17]
Phil Agnew
Never be a certain path to success.
- [19:20]
Unknown
95% of new products fail and 60% of new British businesses flop within three years. If advertising was a certainty, this wouldn't be the case. Even though we have more data, Hopkins dream of certainty isn't true. Programmatic advertising doesn't deliver the endless returns that Hopkins predicted. In fact. In fact, it's arguably made advertising worse. So while much of the content of this 102-year-old book is accurate, I'd hesitate before recommending you read it. There are definitely some great points in there, but the idea that advertising can be a complete science just doesn't hold true. Consumers are far too irrational and the world is far too chaotic for marketing to ever be a certainty.
- [20:09]
Phil Agnew
Now look, I don't want to put you off reading Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins.
- [20:13]
Unknown
I think the book has many, many.
- [20:15]
Phil Agnew
Good points and it's so old that it's now available for free online. So do go ahead grab a copy.
- [20:20]
Unknown
If you want to give it a read.
- [20:21]
Phil Agnew
It's a very easy book to read.
- [20:22]
Unknown
As well, but if you're looking for books that I think will truly help you with your marketing, then I'd recommend.
- [20:28]
Phil Agnew
You check out my reading list.
- [20:30]
Unknown
My reading list contains 25 books that I think you should read in 2025 plus five books. I recommend you avoid all of the books in this list have reliable science backed evidence that back them up. They're not waffly anecdotes from people who have had success once and then spend a lifetime writing about it. No, these are typically booked from psychologists and behavioural scientists who have evidence to back up their work.
- [20:56]
Phil Agnew
You can grab the full list for.
- [20:57]
Unknown
Free at www.nudge.kit.com readinglist that's nudge.kit.com reading list or just click the link in the show notes to go grab a copy. You can download it for free right now. Okay, that is all for me today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Nudge.
- [21:18]
Phil Agnew
I've never reviewed a century old book.
- [21:21]
Unknown
Before and I doubt I'll ever do it again, so I've really enjoyed working on this episode and I really hope you enjoyed it as well. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please do share it with a friend or leave Nudge a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. That is all from me. Me. I'll be back next Monday with another episode of Nudge. Cheers.