Introduction
1.Claude Hopkins
   Scientific Advertising - Pursuit of Effectiveness
   Focus on the Consumer

2.John B. Watson
   The beginning of Behaviorism

3.Goerge Gallup
   Developing public opinion polling
   Application for Advertising

Conclusion : Advertising as Science

     " The time has come when advertising has, in some hands, reached the status of science. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood. The correct methods of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective and we act on basic laws. Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest of business ventures. Certainly, no other enterprise with comparable possibilities need involve so little risk"- Claude Hopkins (Scientific Advertising, p 215).

     In modern societies, the influences of mass media can not be overemphasized. The communication networks which is mediated by mass media maintain our social systems. Mass media forms markets by making it possible to exchange product information between producers and consumers, and activates democratic political systems by making communication more effective between political parties, candidates and the electorate. The largest part of modern culture is the culture mediated by mass media. The media produces the environment of cultural discourses, symbolic interactions, and creates the modern cultural structure. In short, network reproduced repetitively by mass media becomes the fundamental frame which maintains modern societies. Advertising is the infrastructure which supports this mass media industry. Without advertising, the media industry can not exist since advertisers provide the financial backing needed.

     Few systematic studies about the aspects of advertising have been conducted. In fact, until recent days, advertising has not been regarded as one of the fields which needed to be examined scientifically. For the sake of practicality, science has two extremely important requisites: explanation and prediction. Scientists have to explain the cause and effect relations of a number of phenomena which they want to understand, and then try to draw a universal and objective law from many specific explanations. Using this universal law, they also try to "predict" the future direction. Is it possible to explain and predict something in relation to advertising? Can advertising be a science? There have been many controversies over whether or not advertising can be studied scientifically. This problem has always resulted in many fierce debates. The three most prominent advertising practitioners who stand in the center of this field of controversy over scientific advertising are Claude Hopkins, John B. Watson, and George Gallup.

1. Claude Hopkins(1867-1932)
     In the early 20th century, an ad-man declared that advertising can be a "science". He was born in a small town, and grew up fighting with poverty. He was not a highly educated person. He seemed to be a far cry from a scientist. Nonetheless, in his book, "scientific advertising," Claude Hopkins argued that advertising can and should be one of the most prominent scientific fields. His argument had no obvious and well-organized evidence to support it. His point of view depended on individual experiences rather than on scientific studies. His arguments were comprised of many inconsistent components. In spite of this weak point, the arguments in his pioneer work provided valuable germinal insights that became the foundation of scientific advertising research.

Scientific Advertising - Pursuit of Effectiveness
     Hopkins stated that the advertising of the past "was like a man trying to build a modern locomotive without first ascertaining what others had done. It was like a Columbus starting out to find an undiscovered land…They rarely arrived at their port. When they did - by accident - it was by a long roundabout course"(Hopkins, 1923, p 217). In his book, he finds fault with the very "long roundabout course" of the past advertising practitioners. He knew what was efficient, and he thought that science was the pursuit of "effectiveness." What was important for him was the idea of "cost per customer or cost per dollar of sale"(Hopkins, 1923, p 216); wasteful expenditures caused by trivial faults could not be tolerated. Since Hopkins thought that scientific approaches enabled an escape from a number of "needless and inexcusable failures," he provided a reasonable map that indicated a shortcut to the goal. He believed that there was fundamental laws for advertising in general, so advertising researchers must try to find these unvarying laws. Hopkins said with confidence, "No wise advertiser will ever depart from those unvarying laws"(Hopkins, 1923, p 216).

Focus on the consumer
      The most important point of Hopkins’ contributions to scientific advertising was to draw the advertising researchers’ eyes to the "consumers." He always stressed that advertising practitioners must understand consumer behavior. Hills(1991), in his article, following Hopkins’ idea, mentioned that copywriters do not always have to be interested in the product which they want to sell, but they must take into account why consumers buy the product. In fact, "consumer studies" is closer to science than any other part of advertising research and has a huge potential for future research. Hopkins mentioned, "Now the only uncertainties pertain to people and to products, not to methods. It is hard to measure human idiosyncrasies, the preferences and prejudices, the likes and dislikes that exist"(Hopkins, 1923, p 217). A number of variables result from the diverse characteristics of consumers. If advertising practitioners do not understand consumers, their advertisements will be unsuccessful and result in a serious financial loss. Hopkins captured this crucial point of advertising, which directed and generated more advanced scientific advertising research.

2. John B. Watson(1878-1958)
     Hopkins suggested that advertising practitioners must concentrate their attention on consumers. Their psychological characteristics, lifestyles, preferences and so on must be investigated for making advertising more scientific. It was, however, still difficult to make a direct linkage between traditional psychology and advertising research. Traditional psychologists used "introspective methods" for studying human psychological aspects. The results gained through these methods could not be translated for application to practical advertising research. In short, the results were too subjective; not objective or scientific. Dr. John B. Watson recognized this point, and asked psychologists to turn their eyes to "what people do."

The beginning of behaviorism
     Watson’s behavioral turn began by redefining the subject of psychological research. He excluded all unscientific subject matter from the field of psychological research. His point of interest was the psychological characteristics of "human behavior". Behavior could be directly examined by the physical senses, and could be easily transformed into quantitative data for practical usage. He believed that only empirical observation could make human psychological aspects understandable scientifically, and make psychology one of the most useful sciences. He also redefined the goal of psychology. "The final target of Watson’s controversial effort was a redefinition of the goal of psychology, which he said was not to be merely description and understanding, but prediction and control"(Kreshel, 1990, p 50). Watson seemed to be deeply influenced by American Utilitarianism or Pragmatism. In his point of view, science should be useful in the real world. Scientists must intervene in the real world to solve real, practical problems, and to control the situations. It seems very natural that the business community welcomed Dr. Watson’s behavioral turn. Business had recognized the indispensability of the control of consumption, but it seemed to be impossible to control the consumption of consumers and to manage the market scientifically. The behavioral perspective showed them a new direction in scientific advertising research to generate more advanced studies about consumer behavior, crucial to scientific advertising.

3. George Gallup(1901-1984)
      As mentioned before, Hopkins did not pay attention to the "method of obtaining scientific and useful information." From his perspective, advertising research methods were already established well, and all that needed to be done is to use it. He believed that there were no uncertainties in scientific research methods. However, unlike Hopkins’ diagnosis, the problems caused by the research methods of those days were not simple. There was no public opinion research on a national basis before 1936. At that time, all advertising practitioners had no data or knowledge about public on a national basis, therefore, their advertising research could not be scientific yet. After 1936, everything changed.

Developing public opinion polling
     Before George Gallup appeared, most psychologists and advertising researchers concentrated their attention on small group experiments and individual observations on a regional basis. Gradually, researchers became curious about what will happen in a real, natural situation, not in artificial experiments, but there was no way to generalize nationally results derived from regional research yet. George Gallup developed a new sampling technique and applied it to investigate public opinion about the presidential elections of 1936. While a dominant poll in those days predicted the victory of Alf Landon, young Gallup predicted the victory of Franklin Roosevelt over Alf Landon, and Gallup was right. This new public opinion polling technique was spotlighted. This new sampling technique enabled advertising practitioners and researchers to examine consumers on a national basis, and made it possible to move advertising from the stage of intuition to that of "social science."

     "Perhaps because he[Gallup] had been born in Jefferson, Iowa, a typical midwestern town, it seemed natural to him that the views of a small sample group might reflect those of all Americans"(The Economist, 1997, p 95).

Application for Advertising
     Gallup developed the measurement of print recall for advertising research, and the recall test is based on the assumption that advertisement leaves a mental residue with the viewer. His development of the recall test aroused fierce controversies over which test is more appropriate for advertising research; the "recall test" or the "recognition test." Recall tests and recognition tests are the two branches of memory tests. Biel(1995) reported that "recall was eventually declared the winner, largely on the grounds that recognition was too ‘easy’ a task; recently, however, there has been renewed interest in recognition because of its greater ability to measure the visual component of advertising(p 2)." The recall test of George Gallup made it possible to make a more obvious link between advertising research and behavioral psychology, while the recognition test gave advertising researchers valuable opportunities to explore the world of cognitive psychology. He also devised pre-testing and post-testing advertisements. Using this test, we can measure commercial impact and consumer attitude change. His contribution to developing tests enabled many advertising researchers to use more advanced quantitative research methods on a national basis, and to obtain more scientific, general findings from diverse studies.

Conclusion : advertising as science
      Can advertising be a science? This question is still tough to answer. A general law from large amounts of phenomena in relation to advertising is still hard to find. It is still very difficult(or impossible) to explain or predict something scientifically in relation to advertising. For example, Winston Fletcher(1995) mentioned "the most important finding is that advertising is not homogeneous. Because different ads have completely different objectives, they work in completely different ways. Campaigns for new brands work differently from campaigns for existing brands, retailers’ ads work differently from fmcg ads, direct -response ads work differently from image ads"(Fletcher, 1995, p 16). According to his point of view, accurate explanation and prediction of advertising effects is not possible. He also argued that "the science that advertising most resembles is not physics but biology. Certain types of campaigns can be grouped together, like species, because they are fairly similar. But even members of the same species behave differently in different circumstances. In the future we will, I believe, begin to build up a cosmology of campaigns, putting into categories those that can be so grouped. In doing so we will learn, as we are already learning, how to make advertising more precise, more cost-effective"(Fletcher, 1995, p 16). In short, his argument means that a causal relation should not be the focus of a study when dealing with advertising. Instead, like the biological sciences, a host of advertising cases should be classified in order to create a huge, useful database to make advertising more effective. Advertising researchers can only "describe," not "explain" something. His argument is placed in opposition to Hopkins’ optimistic ideas and many advertising theoreticians’ hopes. Is this database the ultimate goal of advertising research? The answer is that the limitation of scientific explanation in advertising phenomena results from not only the substantial limitation of advertising research, but also that of the social sciences. Social sciences including advertising deal with humans and their social interactions, and other phenomena which can not be examined physically. Nonetheless, there is a difference between the methodology of social sciences and that of natural sciences. Therefore, making more appropriate and advanced methods for advertising research should not be forsakened, since the social sciences were developed through overcoming these methodological troubles. The three advertising practitioners, Hopkins, Watson, and Gallup who were overviewed above show us the very direction needed in the development of the science of advertising.

References

Bergmann, Gustav(1956). The contribution of John B. Watson, Psychological Review, 63, (4), 265-276.

Biel, Alexander L.(1995). Do you really want to know?, presented at the ARF Advertising and Copy Research Workshop held in November 1995.

Cohen, David(1979). J. B. Watson - The founder of Behaviorism, London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Keagan Paul.

Dr. Gallup’s finger on America’s pulse.(history of public opinion polls), The Economist, Sep 27, 1997, v344 n8036 p 95-97.

Fletcher, Winston(1995). Don’t apply laws of science to the advertising arts, Marketing, Nov 9, 1995, p 16.

Fox, Stephen, R.(1984). The mirror makers: a history of American advertising and its creators. New York : Morrow.

George Gallup, Time, Aug 6, 1984, v124 p 58.

George H. Gallup. RIP. National Review, Aug 24, 1984, v36 p 17.

Hills, Shane A.(1991). 5 wise sayings about copywriting, Target Marketing, April 1991, v14 n4 p 56.

Hopkins, Claude C.(1990). My life in Advertising & Scientific Advertising : Two works by Claude C. Hopkins, NTC Press : Lincolnwood, USA.

Kreshel, Peggy J.(1990). John B. Watson at J. Walter Thompson: the legitimation of "science" in advertising, Journal of Advertising, Spring, v19, n2, p 49-59.

Lessons from Hopkins - Classic mail-order technique from a legend, Target Marketing, February 1996, p 22-24.

Which half? Advertising. (debate over the effectiveness of advertising), The Economist, June 8, 1996, v339 n7969 p 72-73.