In 1962, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV envisioned Costa Smeralda (in Northern Sardinia) as an exclusive destination for the well-to-do.
By 1968, he and a consortium of investors had pumped £30 million into the project including high priced ad insertions in premium publications like Country Life and Harper’s & Queen. [Continue reading]
Caples on Copy, published in 1978, was part of the brilliant “The Wall Street Journal. It Works.” campaign. This print ad is like getting a bite size version of Tested Advertising Methods. (Note: the 4th edition or earlier of that book is the way … [Continue reading]
This ain't your grandma's penny pitch. Most feature a phantom publication or some absurdly priced newsletter nobody's ever heard of. Lee Bellinger, by contrast, has been publishing for decades. The mailing is going to paying subscribers and lapsed … [Continue reading]
Here's an ad that EXCELS at capturing leads for prospects who would otherwise disqualify themselves... and turn the page on an offer that could surely help them. It doesn't matter how sparkling the copy is if the prospect finds a giant ESCAPE … [Continue reading]
Here's a magalog that mailed after the turn of the century. It promoted the now defunct Sinatra Health Report. Mind you Dr. Stephen Sinatra is still the marquis doctor for Healthy Directions and now he's rolling with the second generation of … [Continue reading]
In the mid-1980s, Gevalia was on the cusp of breaking into the North American market. The venerable Swedish brand, with a storied history, began running double-page spreads like this one alongside the pioneering launch of the subscription model … [Continue reading]
The late, legendary direct response copywriter, Jim Rutz, wrote this unbeatable package in 2006. It was in the mail as recently as 2020 with minor modifications by my last reckoning. I don't know of many financial direct mail packages with … [Continue reading]
In 2016, I was having lunch with European marketing magnate and world class value investor, Norman Rentrop. Norman is remarkably down to earth, so you might not take him for a billionaire... UNTIL you spend a few hours with him, observe his … [Continue reading]
I never tire of the "Marty and Mel Files" and this 2002 ad, though running 8 years after Mel Martin's passing... has all the deft touches of the publishing and copy legends respectively. This print insertion highlights the copy and marketing of … [Continue reading]
Barry Kaye was a 40 year fixture in direct response advertising in the areas of insurance, taxation, wealth creation and seminar marketing. Here's a great piece of lead generation that's NOT for everyone -- both the headline and the BANNER in … [Continue reading]
Here we've got some sublime food copy -- either from Gary Bencivenga himself or from David Rosengarten his student -- for the short lived "Rosengarten’s Fruit-of-the-Month Club" from 2005. … [Continue reading]
When HealthSource stormed on the eighteen years ago, chiro copy was already highly evolved when it came to generating leads with long copy. Dr. Chris Tomshack, the founder of HealthSource, took it to another level with even better copy and … [Continue reading]
Ed O’Keefe was a struggling Chicago bartender when he became fascinated by NLP and direct response marketing. I first heard about him on a Jeff Paul teleseminar (before Jeff’s fall from grace), when Ed was already establishing himself as a serious … [Continue reading]
For my money, this phase of Gene Schwartz's career is close to his apex. I recently read (August 2023) that the landmark mail order book, How To Double Your Child's Grades In School, sold over 800,000 copies worldwide in multiple languages, but … [Continue reading]
Just look at the composite words of this headline: You... BIG MONEY... home... TV. … [Continue reading]
Show this 1900 John Wanamaker ad to most modern SaaS (Software as a Service) marketers and they’ll probably sneer. But what they don’t realize is this: It took hundreds of thousands of subscription-selling ads and millions of tests to arrive at … [Continue reading]
How do you sell a $14,615 piece of exercise equipment with print advertising? Rom (Range of Motion) of North Hollywood, California showed how from 1990 through the mid-2010s. … [Continue reading]
Here's a display ad for a miracle supplement called "Honey Shield." It has all the hallmarks of a circa-2010 affiliate scam. … [Continue reading]
This promotion was one of the true Energizer Bunnies of alternative health direct mail. This 20-page magalog for revatrol (red wine extract) -- also marketed by the name resveratrol and resvatrol by other manufacturers -- mailed in the MILLIONS … [Continue reading]
Way back in Bullet 21, Gary Bencivenga lauded an hysterical short film that captured the spirit of a piece of direct response history: the correspondence course from Art Instruction Schools, Inc. This unassuming ad was the launchpad for a … [Continue reading]
I'm still a sucker for self-help products. I've got bookshelves loaded with 'em... from books to DVDs to (I'm dating myself) cassettes and VHS tapes. And of course, there are more than a few direct mail packages laying … [Continue reading]
Barry Kaye began his life insurance career in 1962 with The New England, where he shattered all first-year sales records, and established himself as a rainmaker in a field known for high attrition. Kaye made copious stacks of cash over the years … [Continue reading]
It's hard to excel upon the book advertising Rodale Press churned out in the 1990s. The most striking thing about Rodale ads a quarter century later is both the products AND the advertising seem just as relevant today. The evergreen title The … [Continue reading]
The “Creative Leaders” series, better known as The Wall Street Journal: It works., ranks among the longest-running trade advertising campaigns ever created, featuring in-depth profiles of advertising agency heavyweights. … [Continue reading]
This package from yesteryear is NOT your typical pitch for a financial newsletter. I was looking for this one for Steve Sjuggerud 's "True Wealth." (Glad my life doesn't depend on my pronunciation of Scandinavian surnames.) Glad I found it … [Continue reading]