“Right message, Right person, Right time”: the half-truth that fooled David Ogilvy
- Diego Chicharro
- 3 days ago
- 7 min read
We’ve all heard it countless times. And though it became wildly popular with the rise of digital advertising, its origins go much further back — all the way to the early 1900s.
In 1923, Claude C. Hopkins published the legendary Scientific Advertising.
He’s widely considered one of the founding fathers of advertising effectiveness. And I wholeheartedly agree - the man was a genius.
But Hopkins didn’t enter the industry as a celebrity. Without a college education, he learned the trade the hard way, selling sweepers and mail-order remedies where every dollar had to prove its worth.
His breakthrough came when he started visiting factories, watching how products were really made, then turning those hidden details into simple, memorable promises. He mailed test letters, tracked responses, pushed for product variants, and pitted headlines and offers against each other. Keeping whatever sold, cutting whatever didn’t.
One beer climbed the rankings when he told the public about its meticulous brewing; a toothpaste campaign helped turn brushing into a daily habit for the modern world (yes, really).
Later he wrote down the method: research first, “reason-why” copy, constant testing, and measuring everything: he basically came up with the backbone of modern slogans, targeting, and effectiveness.
“The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales. It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself.”
David Ogilvy was given a copy of Hopkin's book in 1938 by, of all people, Rosser Reeves.
Reeves - another great advocate of salesmanship - would later coin the term Unique Selling Proposition (“USP”).
Ogilvy famously said:
“Every time I see a bad advertisement, I say to myself, ‘The man who wrote this copy has never read Claude Hopkins.’”
Hopkins practically invented the idea of treating advertising like a science - testing, measuring, and targeting as if done by experts in white coats.
He advocated presenting clear, persuasive product facts (“right message”) that spoke directly to the prospect’s needs (“right person”), and testing timing, headlines, and placement to discover what produced the strongest response (“right time”).
Imagine if Claude had access to the kind of data and evidence we do today.
If you’re looking to buy toothpaste, you have yellow teeth, and you see an ad promising “Pepsodent makes teeth far brighter” - it might nudge you to buy. Here, “Right message, Right person, Right time" holds true.
The problem? That scenario happens only 0.8% of the time. Only about 5% of people are in the market to buy your product at any given moment (1). And of those, 84% already know what brand they’re going to buy (often on autopilot) even before they enter the market (2)
That means only 0.8% of your total audience is likely to buy your brand because of an ad shown to them at the right time, or in the right place.
Hopkins wrote:
“The waste in advertising comes largely from trying to sell people who could not be interested.”
It turns out, the real waste is neglecting the 99.2% who aren’t interested now, but might be later - if we do our jobs right.
Claude Hopkins turned a half-truth into a mantra, and marketers have been lost in its shadow ever since.
He may not have coined “Right message, Right person, Right time" but he built the foundations for modern marketing’s obsession with that 0.8%.
How the phrase caught fire:
Late 1920s: The idea takes form
An advertisement in the November 8, 1928, issue of Printers' Ink coined "The Three P's: The Product, The Place, The Paper".
The promotion highlighted the importance of placing a product advertisement in a trusted and influential newspaper to reach the right customers in the right location.
It claimed “Given the right product, distributed in the right place and advertised through the right paper - aren’t sales bound to come?”
1990s: The Direct Marketing Crowd coins the phrase
The explicit wording “right message to the right person at the right time” starts appearing in direct-marketing and database marketing literature.
Late 1990s: The digital boom
DoubleClick’s DART platform promoted real-time targeted ads, promising the ability to deliver the “right message to the right person at the right time.” It cemented the phrase in digital ad-tech culture.
2000s–2010s: Mainstreaming adoption
By the 2000s, variants like “right person, right place, right message” appeared everywhere: in agency decks, vendor marketing, and Google’s own “moments” framework.
2010s–2020s: The cracks appear
As perfect targeting proved elusive - thanks to fragmented journeys, privacy limits, and ad fatigue - the mantra evolved. “Context,” “content,” and “channel” were added; practitioners reframed it as a useful shorthand, not a literal promise.
The end of the "Right message, Right person, Right time" era?
Proper targeting, timing, and context matter, but the myth is believing they’re everything, rather than the small part of the equation they truly are.
When we obsess over relevance and data, we risk losing what makes advertising worth watching - and making.
As hyper-targeting, personalisation at scale, and AI take over, we have to ask:
What happens to the craft?
What happens to our right to privacy?
How will the world see our profession?
And what will become of effectiveness in this dystopian advertising future we seem to be hurtling toward?
Ogilvy discovers "The long of it"
Thanks to Les Binet, Peter Field, and Byron Sharp, we now know that advertising’s biggest contribution isn’t in short-term persuasion of the “right person at the right time,” but in long-term brand building that entertains and seduces the masses.
Even David Ogilvy came to realise this, 70 years ago.
In a 1955 address to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, he admitted:
“I must confess that I have changed my mind on this subject. When I first arrived in this country eighteen years ago, I bought the wicked old Chicago philosophy, as practiced by Claude Hopkins.
I used to deride advertising men who talked about long-term effect. I used to accuse them of hiding behind long-term effect. I used to say that they used long-term effect as an alibi to conceal their inability to make any single advertisement profitable.
In those intolerant days, I believed that every advertisement must stand on its own two feet and sell goods at a profit on the cost of the space. This short-range philosophy was being peddled by agencies which had started out in mail-order advertising. Those mail-order agencies knew how to sell—once. That was all they cared about. That was their job.
But they made a profound mistake in applying the principles of one-time mail-order advertising to the creation of campaigns which can only be successful if they sell not once, but time after time, year after year.”
Unearthing the gold of advertising history
It was philosopher George Santayana who said:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Those of us working in marketing and advertising should take note - or, as Tom Roach would say, embrace Bothism: Do performance marketing like Claude Hopkins. Build brands like David Ogilvy.
So, if only 0.8% can be persuaded today, what are you doing for the other 99.2%?
Sources:
(1) “The 95:5 Rule: How to Build Mental Availability and Future Demand” Professor John Dawes (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute), "95:5 rule estimates across B2B and B2C categories" Dale W Harrison
(2) Analysis of 1.1m consumer journeys across 72 touchpoints, Oxford University & Wavemaker Uk, 2025
Bibliography
Scientific Advertising, Claude C. Hopkins
FAQs
Is “right message, right person, right time” wrong?
No. It’s incomplete. Targeting and timing matter — but they only influence a small fraction of buyers who are actively in-market. The majority of growth comes from building memory structures with the 95% who are not buying today.
What is the 95:5 rule, and why does it matter?
The 95:5 rule, developed by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, shows that at any given time only around 5% of buyers are in-market. Growth therefore depends on building mental availability with the 95% who will buy in the future — not just converting the 5% who are ready now.
Does this mean performance marketing doesn’t work?
Performance marketing works - especially for capturing existing demand. The problem arises when it becomes the only strategy. Without brand investment, acquisition costs rise, growth plateaus, and pricing power weakens.
How should scaleups balance brand and performance?
Evidence from the IPA suggests that a balanced investment - often cited around 60% brand / 40% activation in B2C (and more brand-heavy in B2B) - drives stronger long-term profit growth and reduces volatility. The right balance depends on category maturity, growth stage, and competitive pressure.
Why do brands over-invest in hyper-targeting?
Because short-term metrics are visible, immediate, and comforting. Brand effects are broader and compound over time. Boards and investors often default to what can be measured instantly — even if it’s not what drives enduring growth.
Has AI made targeting the dominant growth lever?
AI has made targeting more efficient. It has not changed how brands grow. Mental availability, distinctiveness, creative quality and share of voice still drive long-term effectiveness. AI is a tool - not a growth strategy.
What does “Bothism” look like in practice?
Capture demand like Hopkins. Create demand like Ogilvy. Use performance channels to harvest existing intent while investing in distinctive, emotionally engaging brand activity that builds future demand.
What does this mean for investors and leadership teams?
If growth is stalling and CAC is rising, the issue may not be media optimisation. It may be under-investment in brand memory structures. Sustainable growth requires thinking beyond quarterly conversion metrics.
