My Life In Advertising & Scientific Advertising

Claude Hopkins reflects on his lifetime of advertising experience and distills the principles of advertising that he has learned from it.

He builds everything from the idea that advertising should be treated the same as in-person on-on-one sales. He focuses on understanding the needs of the common man and catering to them. His advertising approach emphasizes simplicity and working with human psychology over untargeted attention seeking and embellishment.

David Ogilvy, the "Father of Advertising," famously said "nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times."

Learning from Hopkins' career in _My Life in Advertising_ felt like building intuitions directly from life experience. This also helped to integrate ideas in _Scientific Advertising_ with more references.