When you see grocery store coupons, when your receive a direct mail promotion, when anyway talks about measuring results in marketing, the promotion of benefits over features, the use of preemptive positioning – homage is being paid to Claude C. Hopkins. He either invented or developed to a science each of these.
Born in 1866, he got his start in advertising in the 1880’s when stamps were a penny and brands were few.
Over the next 40 years, he helped establish many now famous brands, even products. At a time when brooms were the universal tool for cleaning floor, he single-handedly popularized carpet sweepers, working for Bissell.
He was proud of being a man of the people, asserting that most purchases were made by humble people, not the elite, and that you had to be and live with them to understand them, their needs and wants.
He was a strong advocate for simple, clear language in advertising. While he asserted that advertising is salesmanship in print, he also said he never tried to sell anything. His approach was simply to offer people something they wanted, to make clear with his copy that it WAS something they wanted, and to offer it in a way people would be comfortable in getting it.
Almost everything he layed out as principles of advertising, in his books My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising, still applies, 80 years later.
Truly a giant of advertising.