Thread by @TheCharlieton

I just finished reading “Tested Advertising Methods,” by John Caples.

I found this book after seeing that David Ogilvy called it “without a doubt, the most useful book on advertising [he] had ever read.”

Good enough for me!

Here are my key takeaways:

The book is premised on two simple ideas.

First, there is a GIGANTIC difference btwn a good ad & a bad ad

Caples says “I have seen one ad sell 19 1/2x as much goods an another.”

Second, a good ad is discovered by applying the scientific method to the testing of ad variables

Think of “Tested Advertising Methods” like the marketing cousin to @jposhaughnessy‘s What Works on Wall Street.

Both authors start w an observation that there are widely divergent outcomes in their respective fields and set out to identify the factors that lead to success.

And just like quants have identified quantitative factors like Value and Momentum, serious admen who study their craft with the rigor of a scientist can come to reasonably similar conclusions about What Works on Madison Avenue

In the age of Google and Facebook, perhaps this quantitative approach sounds simple and even a little quaint. But you have to consider that when Caples was writing this, the ONLY way to measure ads scientifically was through the manual counting of direct mail response cards.

And so Caples studied mail as closely as anyone ever has, coming up with ingenious methods for measuring which ads had the most “pulling power”

For example, one mailer would direct readers to mail responses to Acme department R-44 while a different ad would direct ppl to de R-45

The department numbers were in fact only a single place. But my keeping a detailed manifest of which ad directed responses to a specific department, Caples was able to carefully suss out the effect ads from the duds.

Caples research revealed several key areas to be tested rigorously:

“If my ad department had a year to prepare a campaign for my product, I would be satisfied if they spent 11 month in search of the right appeal, and one month- or one week- preparing the actual ads”

Caples

After the ads appeal was dialed in, the next most important element is the headline

In fact, of the 18 chapters in the book a full 4 are dedicated to the craft of how to write headlines

“If the headline doesnt stop people, the copy might as well be written in Greek”

- Caples

What makes the best headlines?

Three things (in order)

1. Self Interest: appealing to what the readers want

2. News: “Discovered - a new kind of hand cleaner”

3. Curiosity: “Are you playing fair w/ your wife?”

And you thought clickbait was new...

On headlines:

“Your prospective customers may be in a hurry. They may be half asleep.

You have got to hit them where they live - in the heart or in the head.

You have got to catch their eyes or ears with something simple, something direct, something they want to hear”

Caples

Caples then spends several chapters laying out headline writing in the way Bill Bellichek might diagram a defense. Chapters titles include:

- Headlines That Attract the Most Readers
- Right and Wrong Methods of Writing Headlines
- 35 Proven Formulas for Writing Headlines

For those who sneer at writing through formula consider this:

“Just as a physician uses the same prescription many times with beneficial effect, so can the advertising copy writer use formulas that have worked successfully in the past”

Caples

One of my favorite sections was Caples advice on HOW to write.

The secret? Write with enthusiasm!

“Everybody knows that you can tame a wild horse and make the animal useful. But it is impossible to put life into a dead horse.”

”An ad they had been pounded out in the white heat of enthusiasm can be tamed and made effective. But it is impossible to put life into dead copy”

-John Caples

20 Ways to Increase Selling Power of Copy:

1. Use present grande, second person
2. Use subheads
3. Out captions under illustrations
4. Use a simple style of writing
5. Choose simple words
6. Give free information
7. Use selling copy vs style copy

8. Arouse curiosity
9. Make your copy specific
10. Use long copy
11. Write more copy than is necessary to fill the space
12. Avoid helping competitors
13. Use mail order methods in direct mail ads
14. Understand overstatement copy bs understatement
15. Avoid trick slogans

16. Get help from others
17. Do not say that salesmen will call
18. Study the selling copy in mail order catalogs
19. Make every advertisement a complete sales talk

The book goes into to include detailed advice on how to test and measure a given series ads

The books encylodpedic nature makes it a little hard to blurb, but highly recommended for students of writing and advertising!