They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano

Why it works

One of the most imitated headlines in advertising began as a mail-order ad for piano lessons by post. John Caples, a Naval Academy graduate barely a year into copywriting at Ruthrauff & Ryan, said almost nothing about the course itself. He told a story instead: a guest sits down at the piano to jeers, then silences the room after a few months of lessons by correspondence. The headline stages the humiliation and promises the reversal; the long copy pays it off. Ad Age, ranking it No. 45 of the century, called the promise dubious but said its triumph-of-the-underdog approach still informs direct response. The ad was an instant success and inspired scores of imitations, and the line kept surfacing in ads, comics, cartoons and greeting cards into the 1990s. Caples moved to BBDO in 1927, stayed 55 years and pioneered copy testing, writing Tested Advertising Methods in 1932. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History holds his papers.