HELEN RESOR: THE WOMAN WHO CHANGED COPYWRITING

Morning!

Gym session completed. Pancakes consumed. MMA starts at 5:30.

You couldn’t write a better weekend.

But before I kick back and watch grown men fight each other in a cage, it’s time to learn about one of history’s greatest marketers + what we can learn from them.

Today, we’re gonna learn from Helen Lansdowne Resor. 

You’ve probably never heard the name. But after reading this breakdown my hope is that you tell your friends & colleagues about her…

Because she’s arguably the most influential female copywriter to ever live.

Here are 7 marketing lessons from the woman who changed advertising:

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BREAKING DOWN THE STRATEGY

If I asked you who the best copywriters of all-time were, who would you think of?

Probably Ogilvy? Maybe Gary Halbert? Or Drayton Bird?

Interestingly enough, when I asked myself this question every person I came up with was a male.

So my curiosity kicked in and I Googled “Greatest female marketers to ever live.”

As I scrolled through the endless blogs Google served to me, one name kept popping up:

Helen Lansdowne Resor.

So I went down the rabbit hole to see who she was, turns out she has an incredible story.

Here’s the bones of it in under 30 seconds:

In the early 1900s, advertising was a mens game.

In fact, work in general was a mens game, with women making up only 23% of the workforce.

But Helen Resor had a passion for copywriting.

So she got a job as a bill auditor, before getting promoted to doing retail ads, which then led to her getting a new role as a copywriter at Street Railways Advertising Co.

As this point she was already causing a stir in the space.

So much so, that in 1908, Helen was offered a new job that made her the first female copywriter at J. Walter Thompson Co.

But this wasn’t the end of her journey to the top of the advertising world. It was just the start.

The big moment that changed everything for Helen was when she created one of the most infamous ads of all-time for Woodbury’s Soap.

“A skin you would love to touch”

To our tainted modern-eyes, this looks like any old ad from back in the day.

But this ad single-handedly changed the way we approach advertising.

• It was provocative.

• It was off the fence.

• It was targeting women.

And it was working.

Over the next 8 years, Lansdowne’s campaign increased Woodbury Soap sales by 1,000 percent.

But she didn’t just have success with this one ad. Lansdowne’s team ended up generating over 50% of the revenue J. Walter Thompson Co. brought in.

She was later made Vice President of the company and continued to spearhead their advertising efforts.

But that’s enough about Helen’s life, the real questions is - what are the marketing lessons she can teach us?

Answer = A lot.

I spent the past 4 hours going through past interviews and analysing her old ad campaigns.

Here are 7 marketing lessons from the great Helen Lansdowne Resor.

Lesson 1: Who Signs The Cheque ≠ The Person Making The Decision

At the time, men were the breadwinner in the household. They had the money and they were the ones who signed the cheque for purchases.

So advertisers targeted men.

But being a woman, Helen knew that although men were the ones paying for Woodbury’s Soap - women were the decision-makers of household purchases. 

So she targeted the Woodbury’s Soap campaign at women.

She used:

• Outcomes that women wanted.

• Ways that women wanted to feel.

• With copy that made women want to buy.

And it was a massive success.

It’s coined the first ever soap campaign targeted at women and ironically, I feel like all soap campaigns have been targeted at them ever since.

This reminds me a lot of how things work in the B2B world.

A lot of the time it is the founder or c-suite that gives the go-ahead, but it’s the marketing manager or head of marketing that gets in touch.

Lesson 2: Push The Boundaries

These days the “Skin you love to touch” ad is anything but scandalous.

We have 12 year olds shaking god knows what on TikTok nowadays.

But back in the 1900s this ad’s tagline was anything but tame. The promise of nice skin raised a ruckus.

Because back then positioning women’s skin as sensual was scandalous.

This is without mentioning that this ad was one of the first to picture men and women together.

It was risky, it was radical, but as we know… it worked.

This ties perfectly back into modern-day marketing and one of my favourite quotes from Seth Godin:

“The riskiest thing you can do now is play it safe.”

Lesson 3: Highlight The Want, Behind The Want

Before Helen stepped on the scene soap was sold to keep you clean.

It was something everyone needed.

The genius behind what Helen did, was that she targeted the want behind the want.

Why do women want soap?

To be clean.

Why do women want to be clean?

To be attractive towards possible partners.

So Helen repositioned the Woodbury’s Soap as more of a skincare product that gave you silky smooth skin - whilst also making you more attractive.

The result: Women were chomping at the bit to try it!

Lesson 4: Make Ads Valuable

The easiest way to get someone to read your ad? Make it valuable.

Back when Helen got into the ad world ads were simple.

• A simple product description.

• A photo of the product.

• + how to buy.

But Helen knew that if she was going to convince women to actually read her ad she was going to have to give them a reason to.

So she started making educational ad pieces like the one below:

She highlights a simple problem.
↓
Explains how to solve it.
↓
Then plugs Woodbury’s as the solution.

And it converted like wildfire.

It’s like the UGC content you see today. Influencers breakdown how to do something (like their skincare routine) then show what products they use for it.

Helens son was quoted saying, "Advertising, after all, is educational work, mass education."

You can bet who taught him that!

Lesson 5: Get Great People To Say Great Things

Now, you probably already get that Helen has a lot of firsts on her resume.

But one of the things she doesn’t really get enough credit for is that she was the first ad pro to popularise celebrity testimonials in advertising.

Granted “Celebrities” weren’t like the celebrities we know today.

But they still had an impact.

This ad Helen wrote for Ponds is a prime example:

She got people seen as beautiful at the time — princesses & Lady’s — to say that the product helped them look so beautiful.

This campaign was another massive success achieving a growth rate of 27 per cent for Pond’s Cold Cream and with Pond’s Vanishing Cream growing at 60 per cent between 1914 and 1916.

Another great example of just how great Helen was at what she did.

Lesson 6: Know What’s Happening

If Helen had launched the “Skin you love to touch” ad 5 years earlier it would have been a catastrophic failure. 

But she timed it perfectly.

Helen saw the crumbling social barriers around her female consumers and took advantage of it.

Women were getting more confidence, the feminist movement was growing, and women wanted to feel beautiful.

All Helen did was give them a product that helped them do so.

Lesson 7: Always Highlight The Problem

I’ve never really thought about this before, but no one is more qualified to market to women than, well… women.

• They understand their wants better.

• They understand their problems better.

• They understand how to communicate to them better.

So it makes sense why Helen did such a great job with these soap ads heavily targeted at women.

In particular, ads like the one below that go deep into a problem:

This is a beautiful bit of copy.

It feels inclusive with the “Every girl knows…”

It digs deep into a problem close to the customers hearts with “Nothing can make you look right if your skin is not right.”

But most of all, it beautifully sets up a chance for Helen to sell the product.

She was clearly good. Very very good.

 🌱 THE GREENHOUSE

Things I’ve saved this week that are worth seeing:

• 6 Iconic Women Who Shaped Copywriting History. (See here)

• Eddie Shleyner breaks down a Helen Lansdowne Resor ad. (See here)

• Julian Shapiro on practical writing. (See here)

TL;DR

1/ Who Signs The Cheque ≠ The Person Making The Decision
2/ Push The Boundaries
3/ Highlight The Want, Behind The Want
4/ Make Ads Valuable
5/ Get Great People To Say Great Things
6/ Know What’s Happening
7/ Always Highlight The Problem

I honestly can’t believe I had never heard of Helen Resor before this breakdown.

I started this weekend not knowing 1 famous female copywriter. I’ve finished it knowing about one of the best ever.

Now you can walk into work on Monday with a fun conversation starter + some lessons to share.

Hopefully you learned something!

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of Helen Resor’s advertising. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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