"There lies the cause of most conflicts in advertising. The layman pays the bills. He naturally assumes the right to dictate. He is not apt to exercise that right in the early stages. The scheme is too new to him. But there comes a time when he feels that he is also an advertising expert. It is curious how we all desire to excel in something outside of our province.
That leads many men astray. Men make money in one business and lose it in many others. They seem to feel that one success makes them super-business men.
These men would not venture to dictate to a surgeon. Or tell a lawyer how to win a certain case. Or an artist how to paint a picture. They recognize technical knowledge in vocations like those. But not in advertising, which seems so simple to them, because it aims at simple people. They do not realize that no lifetime is long enough to learn much more than the rudiments."Claude C. Hopkins: 1866-1932
My Life in Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins
To read Scientific Advertising online"The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest. You wish to talk to someone in a crowd. So the first thing you say is, "Hey there, Bill Jones" to get the right persons attention.
So it is in an advertisement. What you have will interest certain people only, and for certain reasons. You care only for those people. Then create a headline which will hail those people only...
Headlines on ads are like headlines on news items. Nobody reads a whole newspaper. One is interested in financial news, one in political, one in society, one in cookery, one in sports, etc. There are whole pages in any newspaper which we may never scan at all. Yet other people might turn directly to those pages.
We pick out what we wish to read by headlines, and we don't want those headlines misleading. The writing of headlines is one of the greatest journalistic arts. They either conceal or reveal an interest.
...Don't think that those millions will read your ads to find out if your product interests. They will decide at a glance - by your headline or your pictures. Address the people you seek, and them only."
Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins