A pioneer of modern advertising, Claude C. Hopkins was born in 1866
to an austere, very religious family in a small town in Michigan. His
father, a Baptist pastor and owner of the local newspaper, died very
early in his life, so at the tender age of 9, a young Claude found
himself having to work hard to help his family, whilst also continuing
his education at school, to be able to fulfil his destiny of joining the
church. He continued his ecclesiastical studies until he was 18, more
because it was familiar to him than as a chosen vocation, until an
argument with his mother made him decide to abandon the path of religion
all together. He did, however, inherit his father’s passion for work
and a parsimonious nature from his Scottish mother, characteristics
which later stood him in good stead in his advertising career. In fact,
Hopkins always created adverts that guaranteed the clients real value,
and thanks to the method that he himself developed to measure this
value, which enabled his clients to reduce waste on their investment to a
minimum, and maximise profit. “Safety first”, was always his mantra.
Cutting costs and being careful were instinctive to him, because he was
aware that most failures in business (particularly in advertising) were
due to the recklessness of exceeding the limits. Small failures in
advertising are to be expected and they don’t mean much, in the scheme
of a job well done. The important thing is a company learns from its
mistakes and uses the lessons to make adjustments. Thanks to this
approach, Hopkins was always able to minimise his losses and they never
affected people’s trust in his impeccable reputation. Compared to the
little mistakes, the profits that Hopkins earned for himself and his
clients were often in the millions, and they brought him great prestige.
As well as being cautious, Hopkins’ excellent results came from an
enormous number of hours and energy dedicated to his work, and his
conviction that a man who does three times the work of another, also
learns three times as much, both from his failures and from his
successes. So he almost always worked until late at night, and very
often over the weekends. Having said that, work was a game for him, a
passion that he cultivated relentlessly.
