Was Henry Ford the Best Thumbnail Designer?

Shem D'Castro

Jan 11 (edited) in Audience Growth📈

Well was he?

But he couldn’t be right?

The platform didn’t even exist back then.

Thumbnails didn’t exist.

There were no YouTube channels. There was no YouTube studio to measure their CTR. There was no subscriber count, no view counts, no likes, dislikes or comments.

But maybe there was and we’re just thinking about our channels all wrong.

I mean, they might not have had YouTube channels back then, but they certainly had businesses. They might not have had CTR, but they certainly had conversion rates.

They might not have had subscriber counts, but they certainly had customers, they could measure purchases, they could get public positive and negative feedback.

And that’s all YouTube is. A modern day, hyper-advanced online version of these games of synthesis and entrepreneurship that have existed since the start of civilisation.

And if that’s the case then we could be gaining access to literally thousands of years of information on how to market our content to get more views.

As a thumbnail designer myself I’ve spend an outrageous amount of time trying to learn how I can make the best thumbnails and most of that learning has come directly from modern platforms like Twitter or YouTube.

But as I started to read more books, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Dale Carnegie or Napoleon Hill it began to dawn upon me just how similar a lot of the principals of business and life in general are from all those years ago.

And with that new knowledge in mind I of course set out to see if, paradoxically, I could learn how to make better thumbnails from a time when they didn’t even exist.

And that’s when I found it. A little book by one of the fathers of modern advertising in Ford’s time. The man responsible for the reason you brushed your teeth this morning. They man who introduced the concept of the slogan in advertising. The man paid over $5,000,000 a year in today’s money to apply his principles of advertising to explode companies and their growth.

Enter Claude C. Hopkins.

Fortunately for us today, he was an adman (yes that’s a real term ikr) who ended up publishing a book, Scientific Advertising, at the end of his career and spilling all of his secrets. I recommend everyone buys the book as soon as they can, but until then I’m going to go over what I think are his top 3 immutable laws of advertising science that can help you make better thumbnails.

--- Number 1 - Headlines -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest. You wish to talk to someone in a crowd. So, the first thing you say is “Hey there, Bill Jones” to get the right person’s attention” writes Hopkins.

I think this raises a very interesting idea about how most people are going about making thumbnails. By definition, your content is only made to help a very small group of people around the world.

However, most of us write our titles and design our thumbnails in a way to capture the widest possible audience. Instead we must stop and ask ourselves “Why?”

Why do you care to appeal to more people?

Are these widely appealing thumbnails destroying the depth of audience connection?

Do you click on your favourite YouTuber’s videos because of the thumbnail, or because of a larger commitment to the brand and their content?

Perhaps clever tricks and slightly misleading or ambiguous titles and thumbnails will attract more views. But those views will consist of people who you don’t want to watch your content anyway. Why would you try to attract a viewer to your video only for them to realise that they didn’t watch to watch it anyway.

In addition, we already know that content exists far in excess of what can be consumed. People are busy. When they’re browsing or searching on YouTube they quickly skim videos to find what they really want to know. And they’re not going to click on your video unless the title and thumbnail actually convey what they want. It would be an absolute shame for your video, with potentially better content than the next one, would not be seen by the people who need it most.

“Address the people you seek, and them only.” So create thumbnails accordingly.

--- Number 2 - Individuality ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do people become fans of your channel?

Having the fanciest thumbnails? The best editing? The best music choice? The best set? The best camera?

No, no, no, no and no.

How about the best information?

Somewhat.

But what’s even more important than that is the person behind the camera.

An interesting statistic was recently released that 45% of people in the US would rather watch a creator break down a major event than watch the even itself.

People don’t just want the information anymore. To really stand out and become a special creator, people have to want you. They have to be part of that 45% that would rather learn from you than anyone else.

Think about the some of largest synthesisers on YouTube. Ali Abdaal’s audience are the people who want to learn about productivity and life from him. Graham Stephen’s audience are the people who want to learn about the latest finance updates from him. Andrew Kirby’s audience are the people who want to learn about making money, from him. None of these creators had completely special or unique information, but what was special and unique was them. Their personality and presence, their brand as a channel.

Thumbnails should lean into this. Yes of course take inspiration from creators around you to see what works, but at the end of the day make sure that all of your titles and thumbnails portray most accurately your individual brand.

As Hopkins writes, “to create the right individuality is a supreme accomplishment.”

--- Number 3 - Art -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’ve got to be honest, this one hurt me.

You see, back in the days of mail advertising, (yeah that’s how they used to promote stuff) pictures were extraordinarily expensive. Not only would they require a separate designer to create, but they would take also take up costly space on the ad itself.

As a result Hopkins learnt to be very selective with the images he included in the ads.

“Pictures should not be used merely because they are interesting. Or to attract attention. Or to decorate an ad” he declares. “Ads are not written to interest, please or amuse. You are not writing to please the holi-polloi.” (lol)

“Use pictures only to attract those who may profit you. Use them only when they form a better selling argument than the same amount of space set in type.”

As a thumbnail designer I love spending as long as possible in photoshop perfecting a design for a client or for a recreation to hone my skills. But that just doesn’t always make a better thumbnail.

It hurts to see a basic or almost lazily created thumbnail of mine outperform the far more technical and artistic one. But it’s the truth.

Your thumbnail and title should work together in a way to “sell” your video. The video idea always comes first. Followed by the thumbnail and title concepts. Artistic execution or beautiful thumbnail concepts come last.

You should always think about thumbnails with the viewer in mind first. What would actually make them click on the video. Not what would look the coolest. Of course artistic execution and having a good thumbnail designer are helpful, (especially if that thumbnail designer also helps you with ideas) but they are the last step in the process.

Now back to Ford. These were the laws of advertising during his time. And I’m sure you all know how well his company did not only then but even now it remains one of the largest car brands in the world. Ever. You could argue it’s one of the greatest businesses of all time.

Of course he wasn’t the greatest thumbnail designer of all time. Far from it. But he was one of the greatest businesspeople of all time. And that’s all a YouTube channel really is. A business.

The moral of the story is NOT just to learn about thumbnails from modern creators (including me!) and to instead learn the principles behind them from as long far back in history as possible.

On a side note, this is also how you can make your content even more valuable and increase your performance without falling victim to the plagiarism-ridden copying culture of YouTube but that’s for another post…

P.S. Maybe I should’ve introduced myself. I’m Shem, a thumbnail designer looking to become the best at helping people package their content. Feel free to ask me anything and give all of your feedback in the comments.

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