This infatuated advertiser credits David Ogilvy’s “Confessions of An Advertising Man” for the inspiration to create a headlineless ad…with the order coupon curiously stuck on the top.
Worth trying?
Doubt it.
Since this advertiser only ran it once, it’s safe to conclude that it’s not a money layout.
If anyone knows different, I’m all ears.
60 KB PDF “Coupon At The Top.”
Filed under Copywriting Swipe File by 
Warning: if you want the long answer to this, it’ll take about 20 minutes to read this behemoth of an ad from Victor Schwab. Also, unless you’re comfortable working with electron microscopes, printing this on an 8 1/2 x 11 will be a slog
(Just click on the ad image to download the almost one megabyte PDF file.)
There are so many timeless observations in this piece, that it’s hard to beleive it first appeared in print 55 years ago.
Much of this ad was repurposed into Victor Schwab’s classic, “How To Write a Good Advertisement.”
Here is one of my favorite sections called:”
“22 Ways to Hold Interest Longer“More on How Long Should An Advertisement Be?
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In 1960, the Famous Writers School opened its doors and followed in the profitable footsteps of its business twin, the Famous Artists School.
In the year 2000, American Writers and Artists Institute or AWAI, first cast its wide net in the biz-op market. I remember my mailbox was pelted for several years with AWAI’s magalogs. One of its mainstay headlines was something like: “Last year I went through a bitter divorce. I needed time to laugh…time to cry…and time to make millions writing simple sales letters.”
I don’t remember seeing a biz-op offer in magalog form before them. They still seem to be going strong though I’ve wandered off their list.
So what did the Famous Writers School and AWAI both have in common?
They were following a well established business model in the writer’s market developed by the Newspaper Institute of America in 1926.
Pretty authoritative sounding name…isn’t it?
Actually, that seems to be one of the keys of making this type of business take off. It’s doubtful the numerous versions of the above ad would have run for 34 years had they been called Ajax Direct, Inc.
And since this is a mail order business, location is hardly important. Newspaper Institute of America was run out of an office at 1 Park Avenue in New York but they could have likely succeeded in the sunny yet rough and tumble stretch of Delray Beach, Florida that’s home to AWAI today.
Interestingly, AWAI has combined the best of the names of these three entities: Famous Artists School, Famous Writers School and Newspaper Institute of America.
The success of this little N.I.A. ad demonstrated the depth of this market for years to come.
“To People Who Want to Write But Can’t Get Started” is still a potent headline. It efficiently translates to a multitude of areas, like:”To People Who Want to Blog But Can’t Get Started.”
Here is the heart of the ad.
Newspaper Institute of America offers a free writing aptitude test. Its object is to discover new recruits for the army of men and women who add to their income by fiction and article writing. The writing aptitude test is a simple but expert analysis of your latent ability, your powers of observation, imagination, dramatic instinct, etc. All applicants do not pass this test. Those who do are qualified to take the famous NIA course based on the practical training given by big metropolitan dailies.
Like it’s predecessor, the Famous Artists School, it’s doubtful the N.I.A ever “rejected” a respondent to their ad. That qualifier, however, turned the ad into one of the best lead generation ads ever published.
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Here’s an ad that should be placed in the “could-of-been-a-contender” category.
It starts off with a flash and quickly burns out.
“Ten years ago a good friend pointed a solid gold gun at my skeptical head and pushed me into a real estate profit of l000%! Since then, I’ve turned modest land investments into the kind of money I never hoped to have. I have nothing to sell-no ax to grind. But I know this:
You can make your money grow in western land , as you can in no other investment. All you need to know is
THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT WESTERN LAND INVESTMENT
Talk about a great hook — “Ten years ago a good friend pointed a solid gold gun at my skeptical head…”
But the reader quickly discovers this advertiser has pulled a fast one. Not only is there no pay-off of the captivating pre-head, but it’s clear the ad writer has cheaply embellished to snag our attention.
No solid gold gun. No story. Max Sackheim would call this a Deadly Advertising Mistake.
What the ad might have been if there was a drunken, midnight poker game and the cowboy’s New York host suddenly pulled a revolver on him to emphasize the value of real estate investing in the Western United States. This is likely why there were so few insertions for this ad in the mid 1960’s — a mere generation after the Florida Land Boom of the 1920’s — curiously not mentioned in the ad. Perhaps, this is also why Doubleday & Company sold so few of the books.
Nevertheless, it’s looks like time to start hording some good real estate advertising templates. “Be greedy when others are fearful” and all that.
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Unlike traders, marketers have the luxury of choosing a Plan A and a Plan B.
What I mean is we don’t have to pretend we’re smart enough to time the market. And we don’t have to make any pronouncements about what will or won’t happen next week — though it pays to be just far enough ahead of the curve.
All we have to do is figure out what people want to buy now and find a way to sell it to them. And one of the best facilitators for doing this is studying successful ads of the past.More on Investment Ad #17: How To Prosper In The Coming GOOD Years
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Imagine having to wake up each morning and come up with a startling, new headline to sell your product.
Furthermore, imagine you’re in a cut-throat industry in which yesterday’s laurels mean diddley and constant threats like union strikes hang over your head.
To top it off, industry or niche specialization offers no advantage. Your market is any literate person with a pulse. Your only job is to sell, sell, sell.
Your headline must be so arresting, it causes an i-banker racing down the street…with a briefcase in one hand…a Starbucks cup in the other…and a Bluetooth headset on his ear…to crane his neck and soak up the marvel of copy calling out to him like a blue collar siren.
Tough assignment…huh?
This is precisely what the publishers and editors of the New York City tabloids have had to deal with for decades and that’s why they house some of the deftest headline writers.
Take, “Headless Body In Topless Bar.” If this isn’t the most elegantly compact and titillating crime headline ever written, then I’ll freely stand in the way of that hood’s front page kick.
Or New York Daily News editor, William Brink’s masterful “Ford To City: Drop Dead,” a day after Ford vowed to veto any proposed Federal bailout of the City.
These are two of the most memorable newspaper headlines ever written. The Post and The News seem destined to battle each other in this gladiatorial headline game till one or both of them drop.
And what of the “old gray lady,” The New York Times?
Unintentionally, it can be just as entertaining as its lesser colleagues. Like this 1984 classic, “Unknown Arm of Sicilian Mafia Is Uncovered in the United States.”
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I’m not a fan of “collecting” ads nor nostalgic in any way for advertising itself.
The ads I want in my swipe file are ones I can model to help my own ads pull better and enhance the revenue of my business.
Since I’ve invested hundreds of hours compiling the largest swipefile of actionable direct response print ads, I also tend to buy swipefiles as well.
Usually, these collections have a sprinkling of relevant ads today but mostly, they contain a lot of “filler ads” from the early 20th Century. While there are some good headlines to be found and a few timeless ads — especially those by Max Sackheim, Claude Hopkins, Bruce Barton and Frank Irving Fletcher — they’re not something you can easily model for your business.More on FREE Advertising Swipe File (3,234 Ads)
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Here’s one of the most interesting info marketing offers I’ve encountered in a while.
It hails from ex-billionaire, now high performance coach, Bill Bartmann. Despite the atrocious audio quality, the talk he gave several years ago at the Harvard Club is something all serious entrepreneurs should listen to.
It’s about how “doing the right thing” can categorically be the wrong thing, when you or your company are charged with financial impropriety.
Bartmann’s presentation is the third down under “Our Most Popular Talks.”
The business opportunity though intriguing isn’t really the point of this post. Briefly, It has to do with profiting by investing in “bad loans” and that’s interesting considering Bartmann made his fortune by revolutionizing the debt collection industry in the 1990’s, transforming it from a broken kneecaps business into a “kinder, gentler” industry.
This is the landing page one arrives at after a 60 minute teleseminar. It’s a concise, short-copy offer filled with bullets and interesting sub-heads like: “The Only Homeless, Bankrupt Gang Member Ever To Become A Billionaire.”
But it’s the testimonials he’s garnered that really get you to sit up and take notice: one from Mother Theresa, one from Muhammad Ali and one from a Supreme Court Justice.
Overall, a fascinating vat of proof.
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