Marketing Accountability in 1923

Posted 2009.04.23

claudehopkinscopywriting

 

A couple of weeks ago I found a copy of Claude Hopkins’ “Scientific Advertising” as a pdf online.  This book was written in 1923 and it was probably the 1st book ever written on the application of mathematics in marketing.  If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.  It opens with the following beautiful paragraph :

 

“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 analyzed until they are well understood. The correct methods of procedure have been proved 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.” 

 

So what on earth has happened to marketing in the last 85 years one would think!  The most recent Jupiter study on CMO priorities of 2009 had “Achieving measurable ROI on marketing efforts” at the top of the list.  Surely this must be a formality by now!

 

 

 

 accountability

 

 

Hopkins was of course talking about direct response communications and since then marketing’s role has expanded.  But even if you look at today’s direct response campaigns by some of the biggest companies in the world it is shocking how many have forgotten about the basic principles the early pioneers of direct response perfected. 

 

You can download a copy of Scientific Advertising here.  Happy reading!

 


Tags: , ,

Comments

  1. Why creatives should wear bowties | The DoubleThink - The Art & Science of the New Marketing   |   7:38 am

    [...] like John Caples and Claude Hopkins, whose book Scientific Advertising I mentioned in my previous post on marketing accountability in 1923.  Over the past few years we have seen a new generation of [...]

  2. A Perfect Storm - ABM Presentation | The DoubleThink - The Art & Science of the New Marketing   |   8:12 pm

    [...] briefly touched upon the topics I covered at the ANA conference a couple of weeks ago and used Claude Hopkins’ opening paragraph to show that many companies have forgotten about the very basics the early [...]

  3. History of Scientific Marketing | The DoubleThink - The Art & Science of the New Marketing   |   7:32 am

    [...] Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising (1923) was one of the first books on the topic.  It opens with the following words: “The time [...]