By Claude C. Hopkins and Troy S. Laughren

© 2005 Troy S. Laughren All Rights Reserved
No part of this 2005 version May be reproduced in any form.

No matter what claim you use to gain the readers attention, the advertisement must tell a reasonably complete story.  If you watch your returns, you will find that certain claims appeal far more than others.  But with standard products a number of claims appeal to a large percentage of the readers. Present those claims in every ad for their powerful effect on that large percentage of readers.

Some advertisers, for sake of brevity, present one claim at a time.  Or they write a serial ad, and continue it in another issue. There is no greater foolishness.  Those serial ads almost never connect with the readers.

When you get a person's attention, is the time to accomplish all you ever hope with him or her.  Bring all your good arguments to their attention.  Cover every phase of your subject.  One fact appeals to some, one to another.  Omit any one and you will lose a certain percentage of whom that fact might have convinced.

People are not apt to read successive advertisements on any single product.  No more than you read a news item twice or a story twice. In one reading of an advertisement one decides for or against the products proposition.  And that fact works against a second reading.  So present to the reader, once you have his attention, every important claim you have to make.

The best advertisers do that.  They learn their appealing claims by tests - by comparing results from various headlines. Gradually they accumulate a list a claims important enough to use. All those claims appear in every ad thereafter. 

The advertisements seem monotonous to the men who read them all.  A complete story is always the same.  But one must consider that the average reader is only once a reader, probably.  And what you fail to tell him in that ad is something he may never know.

Some advertisers go so far as to never change their ads. Single mail order ads often run year after year without diminishing returns.  So with some general ads.  They are perfected ads, embodying in the best way known all that one has to say. Advertisers do not expect a second reading.  Their constant returns come from getting new readers.

In every ad consider only new customers.  People using your product are not going to read your ads.  They have already read and decided.  You might advertise month after month to present users that the product they use is poison, and they would never know it. So never waste one line of your space to say something to present users, unless you can say it in your headlines.  Bear in mind always that you can address an unconverted prospect.

Any reader of your ad is interested; otherwise he would not be a reader.  You are dealing with someone willing to listen.  Do your level best.  That reader, if you lose him now, may never again be a reader.

You are like a salesperson attempting to get into a busy man’s office.  You may have tried again and again to gain entrance. Do your best then and there, as you may never again be admitted.  This is your one chance to get action from the prospect; it must be used to its fullest.

This brings up the question of brevity.  The most common expression you hear about advertising is that people will not read much.  Yet a vast amount of the best-paying advertising shows that people do read much.  Then they write for a book or free report perhaps - for added information.

There is fixed rule on this subject of brevity.  One sentence may tell a complete story on a line like chewing gum.  It may on an article like Cream of Wheat.  But, whether long or short, an advertising story should be reasonably complete.

A man desired a cool car.  He cared little about the price.  He wanted a car to take pride in, otherwise he felt he would never drive it.  But, being a good business person, he wanted value for his money.

He was drawn towards a Rolls-Royce.  He also considered a Pierce-Arrow, a Jaguar and others.  But these famous cars offered him no information.  Their advertisements were very short. Evidently the manufacturer considered it undignified to argue comparative merits.

The Marmon, on the contrary, told a complete story.  He read columns and books about it.  So he bought a Marmon, and was never sorry.  Later however he learned facts about another car that was nearly three times the price - he would have bought that car had he known those facts beforehand.

What foolishness it is to simply state a name, plus a few brief generalities for a product like that.  A car may be a lifetime investment.  It involves an important expenditure.  A person interested enough to buy a car will read a huge book about it if the book is interesting.

So it is with everything.  You may be simply trying to change a woman from one breakfast food to another, or one toothpaste to another, or one soap to another.  She is wedded to what she is using.  Perhaps she has used it for years.

You have a hard sell ahead of you.  If you do not believe it, go to her in person and try to make her change.  Not to merely buy a first package to please you, but to adopt to your brand.  A person who does that just once, at a woman's door, won't argue for brief advertisements ever again.  He will never again say, "A sentence will do," or a name claim or sing his own praises.

Nor will the person who tracks his results.  Note that brief ads are almost never traced.  Note that every tracked ad tells a complete story, though it may take columns to tell.

Never be guided in any way by ads which are untraced.  Never do anything because some uninformed advertiser considers that something to be right.  Never be led in new paths by the blind.  Apply to your advertising ordinary common sense.  Take the opinion of nobody, who knows nothing about his advertising returns.