Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

Notes from the book Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples

Caples 3 step approach to creativity

1. Capture the prospects attention
2. Maintain the prospects interest
3. Move the prospect to favorable action

Caples three step approach to testing

1. Accept nothing as true about what works best in advertising until it has been objectively tested
2. Build upon everything you learn from testing to create an ever stronger system that you return to with each new project
3. Test every ad as an ongoing test of what has been learned before

Key points expressed by David Ogilvy in the Foreward:

• The key to success (max sales per dollar) lies in perpetual testing of all the variables
• What you say is more important than how you say it
• the headline is the most important element in most advertisements
• The most effective headlines appeal to the readers self-interest or give news
• Long headlines that say something are more effective than short headlines that say nothing
• Specifics are more belieavable than generalities
• Long copy sells more than short copy

Caples writes:

I would much rather have a hastily prepared advertisement based on the correct appeal than 20 beautiful pieces of copy with beautiful pictures featuring an ineffective appeal.

I would be perfectly satisfied if they spent 11 months in search of the right appeal and one month – or one week, for that matter, preparing the actual advertisements

Three W’s advertising policies:

• Where to advertise
• When to advertise
• What to say in ads

Combining the two features, curiosity and self-interest, into a single headline: “how a fool stunt made me a star salesman’

4 important qualities that a good headline may possess:

• Self-interest
• News
• Curiosity
• Quick, easy way

Self-interest is by far the most important of these headline qualities

Never show management decision makers your proposed ads in ‘rough’, that is, in a doodle-appearing version. Advertising professionals can visualise what this will turn into. Others can’t!

Put enthusiasm into copy

I found out that the founder of a biomed company had talked to groups of young stockbrokers for hours, telling them what wonderful possibilities the new research had and how they were doing their clients a favor by selling them stock in the startup. This process of selling the sales stuff was kept up until all the young men and women there were armed with an enthusiasm more compelling than years of training in the techniques of salesmanship.

He didn’t give his enthusiasm a chance to cool off. That is one secret of enthusiastic writing. If you are excited about something, grab a pencil or sit at your keyboard and get your excitement down on paper immediately.

Always carry with you a note pad or small hand-held dictation device. Capture the inspiration that has been working in your subconscious before it can disappear. If you wait, all too often others interrupt with their own enthusiastic ideas and yours is lost even through you know it was better.

Here are some of the things you should notice about the various Readers Digest openings:

• They are fact-packed
• They are telegraphic
• The are specific
• They have few adjectives
• They arouse curiosity

”The advertising profession is an integral part of the life of a free nation. It has helped create markets where markets did not previously exist. It has not merely sold products which the public wanted. It has sold products which the public did not know it wanted. More important still, it has made possible the only free method of the large scale manufacture of goods on a mass basis“ Thomas E Dewey

”The prosperity of every country in the world is directly in relation to the amount of advertising“ Col. Robert R McCormick

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