Episode Details

Claude Hopkins was the greatest copywriter of all time. His ideas were so valuable that when he wrote them down in a book the founder of his advertising firm locked the manuscript in a safe for 20 years.

When the book was finally published it sold over 8 million copies. David Ogilvy said that nobody should work in advertising until they had read the book seven times.

This episode is what I learned by reading Claude Hopkins' autobiography My Life In Advertising and his legendary book Scientific Advertising.

Made possible by:

Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠

Applovin: ⁠⁠https://www.applovin.com

Vanta: ⁠⁠https://vanta.com/founders

Some of my favorite quotes:

0:00 — "Any man who by a lifetime of excessive application learns more about anything than others owes a statement to his successors."

5:12 — "The man who works twice as long as his fellows is bound to go twice as far, especially in advertising."

5:30 — "If I have gone higher than others in advertising or done more, the fact is not due to exceptional ability but to exceptional hours."

6:48 — "To poverty I owe the fact that I never went to college. I spent those four years in the school of experience instead of the school of theory."

9:08 — "Which is work and which is play? If a thing is useful, they call it work. If it's useless, they call it play. But one is hard as the other. All the difference I see lies in the attitude of the mind."

9:32 — "I came to love work as other men love golf. I love it still. The love of work can be cultivated just like the love of play."

9:58 — "We do best what we like best."

13:05 — "A good product is its own best salesman. It is uphill work to sell goods without samples."

15:00 — "We must never judge humanity by ourselves. The things we want, the things we like may appeal to a small minority."

15:23 — "We must submit all things in advertising to the court of public opinion."

17:48 — "Some of the greatest successes I have ever known in advertising were ignorant men. One wrote copy which would induce a farmer to mortgage his barn to respond, but every sentence had to be edited for grammar."

20:23 — "John Powers created a new concept of advertising. He told the truth, but told it in a rugged and fascinating way."

25:47 — "Study salesmen, canvassers, and fakers if you want to know how to sell goods. No argument in the world can ever compare with one dramatic demonstration."

26:35 — "The average salesman seeks favors. He seeks profit for himself. His plea is, 'Buy my goods.' He makes a selfish appeal to selfish people, and of course, he meets resistance. I was selling service."

28:45 — "We must treat people in advertising as we treat them in person."

31:23 — "Others have never told this story. It will startle everyone in print. I gave purity a meaning." (On Schlitz Beer jumping from 5th to 1st