Masters of Advertising Copy: Principles and Practice of Copy Writing According to Its Leading Practitioners
A 1925 symposium edited by J. George Frederick, former managing editor of Printer's Ink, in which 26 American advertising writers each set out, in a signed chapter, the principle they work by. Bruce Barton tells how a short ad about Marie Antoinette riding to her death pulled eight times the coupons of full pages on owning fine books.
What it is
A 1925 symposium edited by J. George Frederick, former managing editor of Printer's Ink, in which 26 American advertising writers each set out, in a signed chapter, the principle they work by. Bruce Barton tells how a short ad about Marie Antoinette riding to her death pulled eight times the coupons of full pages on owning fine books. Claude C. Hopkins recounts learning to sell by demonstration and samples. Theodore F. MacManus contrasts copy that treats readers as fools with copy that assumes they seek the good. Frederick traces copy from Wanamaker's factual store ads to research-based selling plans. Christine Frederick argues that the "average woman" must be studied, not imagined. O. A. Owen shows how exact figures make claims believable. Other chapters cover simplicity, retail copy, visualizing, the psychology of print, and John Lee Mahin's memories of early agency work.
Why read it now
Its value is a panel of practitioners who disagree in print. Several claims have held up. Barton's human story beating a polished ad fits Binet and Field's analyses of IPA effectiveness cases, which found emotional campaigns deliver larger long-term business effects than rational ones. Owen's case for exact figures matches Schindler and Yalch's 2006 finding that precise numbers in ad claims are judged more accurate than round ones. Hopkins on samples and demonstration, and his warning that unrequested free samples cheapen a product, remain standard trial practice. Christine Frederick's demand to research real women rather than guess is now basic, though her own tone is patronising. Dated: the gender clichés, the racist chef mascot Mahin says he helped create for Cream of Wheat, and several chapters of general uplift with no evidence behind them. Use: when a team argues over an approach, pull the chapters that take each side of that question, then run the two strongest positions against each other in a small paid split test.
Passages worth keeping
Marie riding to her death on that quarter of a page pulled eight times as many coupons as we had ever got from one of these fine, full pages on the glory and splendor of owning fine books.
إعلان صغير يحكي قصة إنسانية مؤثرة جلب ردودًا أكثر بثمانية أضعاف من صفحات كاملة أنيقة تمدح المنتج بعبارات عامة.
Curiosity is a greater pulling factor than a gift.
حين أخفى هوبكنز نوع الهدية التي تنتظر الزائرة تضاعفت الاستجابة، فالفضول يجذب أكثر من الهدية نفسها.
Putting it crudely and bluntly, the first is a clever and semi-scientific application of the thesis that all men are fools, while the second maintains that while men may be fools and sinners, they are everlastingly on the search for that which is good.
هناك مدرستان في كتابة الإعلان: واحدة تفترض أن الناس سذج يمكن خداعهم، وأخرى تفترض أنهم مهما أخطؤوا يبحثون عما هو جيد، وماكمانوس ينحاز للثانية.
The average woman's mind is frequently not reached at all by very expensive advertising campaigns.
حملات باهظة التكلفة لا تصل إلى المرأة التي تستهدفها، لأن صورتها في ذهن المعلن متخيلة لا مدروسة.
In writing advertising copy, it is not enough to know that one is telling the truth.
الصدق وحده لا يكفي ليصدقك الناس؛ للمصداقية أدوات، منها الأرقام الدقيقة والتفاصيل المحددة.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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