The Most Interesting Ad in the World... What to Do If You Hate Your Job... the Big Bang's Little Brother... and Much, Much More
By Michael Masterson
Today, I explain why an eye patch was the key to one of the most successful ad campaigns in history. I talk about why you should always look on the bright side when you're sick, and I share one of my favorite JFK stories. Plus, Paul Lawrence, a start-up specialist, has a strategy you can use to rev up your new business almost instantly. Later in the week... Early to Rise's former Publisher and CEO MaryEllen Tribby tells how she turned "someday" into "payday" with her new business. Brian Tracy tells you what to do if you hate your work. (And it's not to look for another job.) Master copywriter Bob Bly reveals the dirtiest words you could ever use in your ad copy. And success mentor Bob Cox explains how astrophysics can help you improve your life. -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- The Simple Six-Figure Marketing Strategy Paul Lawrence spent less than $100 to start his first small business. He used just one marketing strategy to go after prospects. Soon he had so many customers -- he could hire an employee to do the actual work while he focused on getting new accounts. He used his marketing strategy again. And almost instantly, he was grossing $4,000 a month. The people he sold the business to (so he could finish college), used the same marketing strategy. They are making $100,000 a year.
"In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create." David Ogilvy Have you seen The Most Interesting Man in the World? I'm referring to the TV commercials for Dos Equis beer. They star a rugged-looking, silver-haired man who is always surrounded by beautiful women. In one version of the commercial, he arm-wrestles a Third World general and releases a grizzly bear from a trap. In another, the narrator relates that even his enemies list him as their emergency contact and that the police often question him just because they find him interesting. 
If you are a student of advertising, you know this is a knockoff of David Ogilvy's famous ad campaign: The Man in the Hathaway Shirt. If you don't know the history of this ad, you should. In Brief: It was 1951. Ellerton Jette, a shirt maker from Waterville, Maine wanted to grow his little business into a national brand, but he didn't have much money. He had heard about the advertising prowess of David Ogilvy. So he booked a meeting with him. "I have an advertising budget of only $30,000," he told Ogilvy. "And I know that's much less than you normally work with. But I believe you can make me into a big client of yours if you take on the job." If he'd stopped there, Ogilvy would have thrown him out of the office. But then he said something that sold the great salesman. He said, "If you do take on the job, Mr. Ogilvy, I promise you this. No matter how big my company gets, I will never fire you. And I will never change a word of your copy." There is a big lesson here. So let's stop for a moment and talk about it. What Ellerton Jette did was a little bit of genius, in my opinion. In two short sentences, he changed the mind of one of the most powerful men in the world of advertising. At the same moment, he made himself a very rich man. Not a week goes by when I don't get a letter from a complete stranger who sees me as his David Ogilvy. They are direct and to the point. "I know I can get rich if you help me, Mr. Masterson," they say. "So how about it?" What makes them think I have the time, if not the inclination, to help them? It never even occurs to them to offer me something in return for what they are asking. Jette's $30,000 budget might have put $3,000 in Ogilvy's pocket. Though it was a paltry sum then and a mere pittance now, at least it was something. But what really cinched the deal was the two promises Jette made. Going into the meeting, Jette knew he had one chance to forge a relationship with Ogilvy. He somehow understood that Ogilvy, as successful as he was, had two big problems. He worried that his biggest clients would walk away from him. And he hated it when his clients screwed with his copy. So, instead of thinking only of his own goals, Jette took the time to figure out how he could offer Ogilvy something that would be of immense value to him. (This, by the way, is one of many lessons you will learn when you read my Special Theory of Automatic Wealth.) When Jette made his two promises, Ogilvy realized that he was talking to a businessman who would eventually become a partner. He could see that Jette was a man of good faith who would let Ogilvy be in charge of his marketing. And that he would reward Ogilvy with a lifetime of loyalty. Now, let's get back to the story of the Hathaway shirt ad... After accepting Jette's offer, Ogilvy spent days doing in-depth research on Jette's client base. He came up with dozens of ideas. The one he settled on was a campaign built around the image of a distinguished man in a romantic location dressed in a Hathaway shirt. He selected a model that looked like William Faulkner and booked the first photo shoot. On the way to the shoot, he passed a five and ten cent store where he bought a few cheap eye patches. At the shoot, he asked the model to wear an eye patch for a few shots. The moment he saw the photos with the eye patch, he knew. The Man in the Hathaway Shirt campaign was an instant success. The ads were carried in papers around the country, and were mentioned editorially in Time, Life, and Fortune. Before long, hosts of imitators appeared. Other companies ran ads featuring eye patches on babies, dogs... even cows. A cartoon in The New Yorker shows three men looking into the display window of a shirt store. In the second panel, they are coming out of the store, with eye patches on.  Ogilvy got the idea for the patch, he said, from a photo of Ambassador Lewis Douglas, who had injured his eye while fishing in England. But he got the idea itself -- the idea of this aristocratic man with a romantic life -- from the James Thurber story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." (Actually, Kenneth Roman pointed out in The King of Madison Avenue, it could have been from the secret life of David Ogilvy. As a young executive, Ogilvy was prone to wearing capes and bowties while everyone else was in grey flannel suits.)
Of course, it wasn't just the eye patch that made the ads work. It was the combination of the model, the situation he was in, and the copy itself. And the copy was brilliant. Here's the first line of the first ad: "The melancholy disciples of Thorstein Veblen would have despised this shirt." Most readers of the ad had no idea who Thorstein Veblen was. But they got the idea. Veblen was some sort of snobby aristocratic. By posing a handsome, silver-haired model with an eye patch in a Hathaway shirt and putting that line underneath the photo, Ogilvy struck a chord in the American imagination. We all hate aristocrats, but we would like to be one. There was another brilliant thing about the ad. Putting the model in a romantic location gave the pitch a fictional element. It had "story appeal," as Ogilvy put it. Ogilvy said he discovered the concept of story appeal in a book by Harold Rudolph, a former ad agency research director. This was the first time, Roman says in his book, "that shirt advertising focused as much on the man wearing the shirt as on the shirt itself." And now, back to The Most Interesting Man in the World... I am a fan of these Dos Equis commercials. I like them both because they are a salute to David Ogilvy and also because they successfully replicate the key elements in Ogilvy's ads for the Hathaway shirt. They have the handsome, silver-haired model. They have the eye patch. And they have the anti-aristocrat touch. (The product is beer, after all.) They also have the romance and the story. Each new edition of the commercial is another episode in this most interesting man's life. They fall short only in one respect. They don't do a great job of equating the product with the concept. When I remember a Dos Equis ad, I remember the actor's face. I remember the pretty girls in the background. I'm aware that he is a man that women find irresistible. And that when he drinks he drinks... Wait a minute. What does he drink? There's the rub. We find out that The Most Interesting Man in the World drinks Dos Equis. But he could just as well drink Pabst Blue Ribbon. The creative people behind this very good ad campaign get a big demerit for that. Ogilvy, on the other hand, put the name of the product in the headline. The fact that his man was wearing a Hathaway shirt was integral to the story. Grabbing the prospect's attention with an entertaining story or idea or photo is essential for any sort of advertising campaign. But you have to do more than that. You have to sell the product. And to do that, you must link the initial sentiment created in the headline with the final emotion needed to close the sale at the end. In AWAI's copywriting program, I call this "the Golden Thread." It's pretty simple. The product is at one end of the thread. The prospect's heart is at the other end. Every element of the copy must be connected to the product as well as to the prospect. And the connection must be taut. If the thread goes slack, even for a second, you lose the sale. I will end this essay by saying this: You have just read about half a dozen of the most powerful marketing secrets I know. If you put this essay down and forget about it, you will be making a terrible mistake. Read it at least half a dozen times and think about it. If it doesn't make you a multi-millionaire, I'll eat my shirt. Hathaway, of course. [Ed. Note: The Golden Thread is a core idea behind AWAI's Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting. But when you join Michael Masterson, Bob Bly, John Forde, and a dozen other master copywriters in this program, you learn all the skills you need to enter this lucrative field. You could have your own Man in the Hathaway Shirt hit with their help. Find out more here.] -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended ----------------------------------------------------- Need Help Actually Achieving Your Goals? - We write about goal setting all the time in ETR. But we can't personally coach you in goal-setting techniques. Bob Cox can. He's the creator of our Epiphany Alliance program. Not to mention a millionaire business consultant, record-setting pilot, and co-founder of the original home shopping channel. Find out how Bob can help you here...
"Sarah," an interior designer for yachts, had just come back from a very successful business trip. Her boss, who never complimented her, was oozing with praise. She was so excited (and confident big money was coming her way) that she signed a lease on an expensive apartment. Then she discovered that her boss was planning to let her go. His praise was intended to keep her happy for a few weeks while he found someone to replace her. It was a disaster. Sarah had no idea what to do, and almost no money in the bank. Then her boyfriend, "Rob," had an idea. "Why not go into business for yourself? he said. And he told her about a low-cost start-up strategy he had read in my Cheapskate Marketing program. For less than a hundred dollars, Sarah and Rob wrote and had printed a flyer advertising her design services. They distributed hundreds of them to Florida residences that back up to the Intracoastal Waterway. And they mailed hundreds more to people in local upscale neighborhoods. Within 24 hours, Rob told me, Sarah had her first client. She continued to use my flyer strategy, along with a few others I recommend in my program, and more jobs came in. What looked like a financial disaster turned out to be a blessing in disguise. With her billing rate of $50 an hour, Sarah will soon be making more money than she did as an employee. Plus, she will be in charge of her own future. You don't need to spend a fortune to launch a business. The trick is to understand a little about the science of direct marketing and have the gumption to knock on doors and hand out flyers. [Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence is the publisher of the "Cheapskate Marketing" program, where he shares many secrets like the one above on getting customers with little to no money. For more information, click right here.] How the Power of Positive Thinking Affects Your Health
By Michael Masterson K almost never gets sick. And when she does, you can hardly tell. That's because she doesn't complain. She insists she'll be in fine shape "after a good night's sleep." I, in contrast, assume that every sniffle is an indication of a terrible disease with a dark outcome. Needless to say, I get sick more often than K and suffer much more than she does. One reason for this difference might well be her immune system. But an equally important factor, I've always suspected, is her optimistic attitude. According to a report recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, I'm probably right. A patient's outlook really can have a measurable effect on their rate of recovery. Researchers reviewed 16 studies done over a 30-year period. "In each case, the better a patient's expectations about how they would do after surgery or some health procedure, the better they did," wrote the author of the report, Dr. Donald Cole. There seems to be some sort of cause-and-effect relationship at work here. I've been told that you can accelerate healing by imagining the affected parts getting better. The better you are at visualizing, the stronger the effect. So the next time you come down with a cold or flu, imagine your lungs and sinuses clearing. Imagine the inflammation ebbing. Imagine yourself feeling better. It can't hurt, right? (I might even try this myself.) How to De-Fang Emotionally Charged Criticism
By Michael Masterson When one of my clients fired "Bob," he sent me a vitriolic e-mail criticizing nearly everything about the company he had worked for. My first impulse was to argue with him. Most of what he said, it seemed to me, was sour grapes, and I said so in the e-mail I wrote back to him. But instead of sending it, I let it rest for 24 hours. (This is a practice I've adopted that has saved me lots of time and trouble.) The next day, I read it over and deleted it. Then I wrote a new e-mail. Instead of arguing with him, I acknowledged the legitimate points he'd made and poked fun at myself for not fixing those problems earlier. What followed was a progressively more benevolent exchange that has matured into a friendly correspondence that benefits both of us. He still shoots off occasional verbal torpedoes, and I continue to deflect them as best I can with self-deprecating humor. That's what then-senator John F. Kennedy did in 1958. The press and his political opponents were accusing him of using his father's wealth and influence to win the democratic nomination for president. He could have argued the point. Instead, he defused the allegations during a campaign speech by reading aloud this "telegram" from his generous daddy: "Jack, don't spend one dime more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I am going to pay for a landslide."
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She wanted to do more, so she turned into a mommypreneur! MaryEllen Tribby (ETR's former Publisher and CEO) has started a new business, and she's giving Early to Risers the first look in a featured essay in tomorrow's issue. Don't miss it.
"Thanks for sharing." "My name is Gene Pepper. I have been an early riser since I was a teenager. My dad insisted that I learn that hard work pays off the earlier you get a start on the day. He was a surgeon (Yes, Dr. Pepper) who always operated first thing in the morning. We were out of the house by 5:30 a.m. I was 15 and had a job in the produce market in my hometown, Salt Lake City. "Later, I went to Stanford and got great grades while my fellow students were still sleeping off their night-before escapades. I went on to have a great career as a business consultant, specializing in turnaround/workout crises in distressed companies. "I work because I want to... not because I have to. One more thought to pass on to you: Anyone who wants to achieve greatness, success in life and parenting, and financial freedom must be goal-oriented with specific deadlines. Your time-management plan is a winner. Thanks for sharing that." Gene Pepper -----------------------------------------------------Highly Recommended----------------------------------------------------- Nobody's Going to Visit Your Online Business... Unless You Give Them a Reason Everybody and his uncle has a website these days. But 99% of them aren't making any money. The first step in gaining Internet wealth is getting people to visit your site. Until now, that has been a difficult task. But thanks to a technique you already use every day -- but don't recognize the potential of -- you can attract thousands of "primed to buy" visitors. And it's totally free. That's ZERO in marketing expenses. Read more...
Today's Words That Work: Prowess Prowess (PROW-is) -- from the French for "goodness" -- is exceptional ability, skill, or strength. Example (as used by Michael Masterson today): "He had heard about the advertising prowess of David Ogilvy. So he booked a meeting with him."
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