Claude Hopkins Apple Pie Secret
The right marketing appeal can make all the difference between winning and losing.
Often, what you think will win, ends up losing. But something you never considered, ends up winning.
Here’s how Claude learned a unique lesson about pie and human nature.
At the end of Chapter 3 in My Life in Advertising, Claude Hopkins described how he was hired by Mr. M. R. Bissell, president of the Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company.
Remember, Hopkins hadn’t yet found advertising, but was working as a bookkeeper for the Felt Boot Company in Grand Rapids, MI. He saw a chance to advance to a better paying job.
He approached Mr. Bissell on his way to lunch. His appeal to him would be based onstruggle and poverty.
“I pictured the difficulties of a young man living on $4.50 per week. There was no need to exaggerate. There on his way to lunch I told him of the two meals weekly I was obliged to miss. Above all, I pictured my dream of pie…my greatest ambition at the that time was to get that pie”
Well, Claude did eventually get that pie. But it wasn’t because of his sob story of missing meals, or his appeal of struggle and being flat broke. No, those appeals fell on deaf ears because Mr. Bissell considered struggle and poverty “good for a fellow”
However, Claude was talking to a man who “loved pie, and had never been denied it”. Mr. Bissell invited him home to eat pie. And eventually hired him, which proved to be a pivotal and profitable moment for both their futures.
That was a secret about human nature Claude would file away for later use. And make him alot of money.
