A letter about the state of direct marketing, from the year 2105…

Dear friend,

Nearly 200 years ago, Claude Hopkins first published Scientific Advertising — a book that described the very essence of our craft, that still to this day far too many marketers and advertisers have not read.

Perhaps they fear something that old is no longer relevant. Certainly not — not the principles it outlines, at least.

However old “Uncle Claude” was proven wrong in one thing. At the very end of the book, he wrote…

“The time is fast coming when men who spend money are going to know what they get. Good business and efficiency will be applied to advertising. Men and methods will be measured by the known returns, and only competent men can survive.

“Only one hour ago an old advertising man said to the writer, ‘The day for our type is done. Bunk has lost its power. Sophistry is being displaced by actuality. And I tremble at the trend.’

“So do hundreds tremble. Enormous advertising is being done along scientific lines. Its success is common knowledge. Advertisers along other lines will not much longer be content.

“We who can meet the test welcome these changed conditions. Advertisers will multiply when they see that advertising can be safe and sure. Small expenditures made on a guess will grow to big ones on a certainty. Our line of business will be finer, cleaner, when the gamble is removed. And we shall be prouder of it when we are judged on merit.”

How wrong Claude was!

For nearly 200 years, Hopkins’ prediction has been proven wrong.

Direct marketers — “scientific” advertisers — were and remain the bastard children of the advertising world.

You see, I don’t think businesses really want the market to judge them — there’s too much accountability! And stupid doesn’t like accountability.

Entrepreneurs can’t afford to be stupid, or else their business fails.

Folks in big businesses can’t afford to be smart though, or their career fails. If they were to actually apply scientific principles to their advertising, they’d prove how little they knew. If they were in middle management, their boss would see their results and they’d be fired. If they were an executive, the board would see the results and they’d be removed. If they were on the board, the shareholders would see the results, and they’d be forced to step down. Big businesses can’t afford smart advertising — not the bureaucratic and publicly-traded ones, at least — because everybody’s too busy protecting their own necks.

Look back to the growth of the internet, and folks like us assumed everything was changing.

Sure, throughout the 20th century, you could use direct mail, coupons, and then phone numbers to track the results of your advertising. And still the empty platitudes of Madison Avenue triumphed over the tested wisdom of direct response.

But with the internet, all the trackability was hidden behind the scenes, and done with push-button technology — it became easy. And yes, direct response did flourish.

Yet not as much as you’d expect. Yes, some of the principles of direct response were applied on a broader basis, as technology made new media more trackable.

And yet, willful ignorance butted its ugly head into the picture. “Brand impression is unmeasurable,” it cried! And a new regime of advertising ignoramus gave excuse to the advertising middle management who didn’t want to be held accountable for their job performance — lest their salary payments be abruptly stopped.

And every technology that has come since has only made it easier and easier to measure responsiveness.

The fact that we can embed advertising videos on the side of a food container? Our ability to display a corporate logo on the full moon? Our instant access into the senses of our prospects through visual, auditory, and olfactory input? The new internet that’s on every wall, device, and surface of every home and business on the planet?

None of it makes a damn difference. It still seems that going on 200 years after the first major publication on direct marketing principles was released… A good 80% of advertisers apply practically nothing in terms of direct marketing best practices… And of the 20% that do, maybe 20% of those — or just 4% of advertisers — have any real clue what they’re doing… And again of those, 20% of 20% of 20% of 20%… The masters of our craft continue to be rare indeed.

While “Uncle Claude” predicted the beginning of the end of sophistry and bunk, direct marketing’s best principles, trackability, and technologies have done little to hasten their demise.

And yet, that does little to dissuade me from being a direct marketer. Sure, I get an occasional pang when I realize how much the new Madison Avenue folks are making still selling good feelings over trackable results to CEOs and CMOs of multi-trillion-dollar corporations. But I’d never be able to sleep at night.

And so when every new medium is hailed as the next big thing, I continue to go back to the principles in Scientific Advertising.

With every new technology, human psychology hasn’t changed. The need to test and track what works and what doesn’t hasn’t changed. The fact that we can learn from the direct marketers who came before us, and emulate their best, hasn’t changed.

And still, with every generation of new marketers coming into the fray, they remain as dumb as the last. Entrepreneurs and rabid direct marketers understand. But for folks who don’t HAVE TO be held accountable to their results, they’d rather not. And so they ignore the wisdom we’ve amassed over the last two centuries.

I guess we’ll continue to thrive in relative obscurity, but that’s okay. We can quietly enjoy our success over here. And it always has been, and always will be, one heck of an interesting ride.

To your direct marketing success,

Bill