John Caples

Known as the “father” of direct response advertising, John Caples wrote one of the most quoted lines in advertising history: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano… but when I started to play!” He spent all but two of his 57-year career at BBDO, where in one of the depression’s bleakest years (1930), he wrote his famous “To men who want to quit work someday.” A pioneer in copy testing, Caples wrote what is now considered to be one of the field’s standards: Tested Advertising Methods (1932).