(March 2025) I needed to pull an old rabbit out of a hat for a client recently, and THIS was the swipe… foundation for the promo… that leapt to the fore.
Here’s a hypothetical to demonstrate how powerful this little known headline is. [Read more…] about The Case Against Swiping Part 1 (UPDATE)
As Rosser Reeves noted: “A gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen.”
This evergreen book is a textbook example of that quote.
Over thirty years later Getting Straight A’s is still touted by students and parents alike.
This ad had THOUSANDS of print insertions from 1986 till 2000. [Read more…] about All Time Top 10 Ad in Education (“How to Become a Straight-A Student”)
Recently one day, I stumbled across this remarkable print ad and asked myself the question: “How’d this ad get into my possession?”
Then it hit me.
Surely, this full page ad was no “mere mortal” ad. I reached for the 520-page transcript from the Bencivenga 100 Seminar with hope… and sure enough this ad on page 346 looked right back at me.
Imagine a newspaper reader in 1951 coming across this ad and exclaiming: [Read more…] about SMASHING 800-Pound Gorilla Objections in Your Headline
Here are some hard won secrets for selling in the golf market…
From one of the ablest marketers of our time. [Read more…] about The Golfer Struck by Lightning… and the Marketer Who Struck Millions in Mail Order (UPDATED)
What do advertising and martial arts have in common?
A lot actually.
The world of general advertising is still largely clueless about sales. Many advertisers never make an offer or ask for the sale — they have no idea whether their ad’s been read, watched or listened to.
For many years, a similar blissful ignorance pervaded the world of martial arts. [Read more…] about One of the Greatest U.S.P.s You’ll Ever See
Anyone wandering around Midtown Manhattan from the 1980s to the early 2000s remembers the electronics and furniture stores with the giant gaudy “Going Out of Business” signs plastered on the store fronts. [Read more…] about This Ad Reminds Me of the Midtown-Manhattan Store with the Giant “Going Out of Business” Signs… for 17 Straight Years!
No supplements for sale in this 1,971 word epic.
This weight loss ad lasted the equivalent of several lifetimes (from 1992-2004) at a time when outrageous claims dripped off the page of almost every diet ad.
This one is different.
What are the 15 fat-burning foods? You’ve GOT to read the ad. [Read more…] about 12-Year Diet Plan Control That Beat the Odds in a Sea of Charlatans
The Guinness Guide to Cheese is featured in the essential Ogilvy On Advertising.
Yes, this is a brand ad and a damn fine one in the annals of food advertising. The layout with the photos and summaries of the various cheeses make for irresistible reading and of course, all paths lead to Rome… uh, make that Guinness. [Read more…] about One of the All Time GREATS in the History of Food & Beverage Advertising
Silver is HEATING up as the dollar continues to bleed and inflation ratchets up.
You’d need a small warehouse of these silver rounds just to service the debt for a mere hour on the $30 trillion of U.S. debt. But that’s a topic for another time.
GovMint.com is one of CHAMPS at marketing to budding numismatists. [Read more…] about Copy That TRANSCENDS the Product for Sale Part 2 (“Your Silver Passport to Travel the World”)
This financial lead generation took the world of print by storm in 1974.
I’m virtually certain it’s the work of copywriting legend, Dan Rosenthal.
This 330 word ad to the left was so successful at sucking out red hot leads in the silver market — it had hundreds of insertions as a fractional space ad in 1974 — that it was tested as a MASSIVE 3,300 word (DPS) double page spread.
The great mail order copywriter, Gene Schwartz said: “You can’t create demand, only channel it.”
And after the World Chess Championship in Iceland in August of 1972, there was a tidal wave of demand for learning how to play chess.
The title had been held by Soviet players since 1948, so when an upstart kid from Brooklyn stormed on the scene in the late 1950s, and eventually challenged and triumphed against the might of the Soviet Chess School, it was a BIG deal. [Read more…] about The Power of Demonstration… During a SEISMIC WAVE of Demand
This was one of the most successful advertorial series of all time.
NGC Sports were BIG TIME in sport fishing and golf and had TENS of thousands of insertions in everything from local newspapers… to trade publications like Oklahoma Farm Bureau… all the way to Newsweek magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
These are advertorials that would make John Caples PROUD.
What happened to them? [Read more…] about Charlie Allen’s AMAZING Golf & Fishing Advertorials
It doesn’t get much better than Ogilvy’s travel advertising from the 1960s through the 1980s.
And who better than the famous Scotsman to promote the British Tourist Authority?
How I wish I could go back in time and REPLY to receive one of these “great value” brochures.
Travel advertising is all about SELLING the DREAM. You want the reader to be able to taste the Bass Ale, smell the fish & chips and see the cottage in the Cotswolds. Indeed, that’s what makes Britain great!
[Read more…] about “525 Castles & Palaces $15” (“Ogilvy Orchestration” Travel Advertising)
How is this for a HOT headline?
“What would your profits be if you didn’t have to pay any taxes?”
It definitely gets your greed glands going.
This ad was part of the legendary BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT series from Ogilvy & Mather for the Economic Development Administration of Puerto Rico. [Read more…] about “What would your profits be if you didn’t have to pay any taxes?”
