Shortly after leaving Boardroom in 2015, I was offered an opportunity to co-write and edit a book with my good friend Craig Simpson.
I was already considering my own book (which became Overdeliver in 2019)–but when Craig told me about what he was planning, I couldn’t say no…it was too good to pass up:
“We are going to explore in depth the groundbreaking work of six Legends of advertising, marketing, and copywriting and bring to life some of their most important techniques and concepts, many of them implemented almost 100 years ago. The thesis will be that what they invented is the foundation all marketing is based on today. If we want to work most effectively, we must go back to the source.”
Chapter Two of Overdeliver on “Original Source” became a continuation of the book I published with Craig, The Advertising Solution.
After all, you gotta know where babies come from… which I am re-learning by writing these posts, thinking about my two books…and literally re-learning this, waiting for my daughter to deliver my first grandchild next month.
Yes, I will “officially” be the grandpa that tells you to “get off of my lawn and listen to my (marketing) war stories”…finally…with some credibility. 🙂
I have talked about my life’s mission to be the bridge between the eternal truths of direct marketing of the past and how those truths can be applied to everything we deem as state-of-the-art in the multi-channel marketing world in the present…and on into the future.
And it’s amazing how much the six Legends profiled in The Advertising Solution realized the importance of measurability, testing, and what makes people tick (and buy) without a computer, the Internet…or Facebook, YouTube, Webinars, ChatGPT…and all before 1995 too.
I know what you’re saying:
“There he goes…being grandpa at the picnic AGAIN (with some newfound credibility?)…talking about the good old days of direct marketing.”
I can’t help myself. Sorry/not sorry.
However I acknowledge the good old days are now…the best time ever to be a marketer…but always with a nod to how we got here.
Just this week, I received an email from a reader from my online family with a 49-second video of one of those six Legends, David Ogilvy, on why direct marketing (led by O.G.’s like the great Drayton Bird) is the only form of marketing worth paying attention to.
And I will toot my own horn…well, I will have another Legend toot it for me…from his blurb/endorsement of Overdeliver (which made me cry after receiving it, when he implies that I am in synch with David Ogilvy as well):
As would be expected, Brian Kurtz has put together [with his book, Overdeliver], a definitive presentation of direct marketing, as apart from all other marketing.
Drawn from rich, maybe unparalleled experience inside one of the great direct-to-consumer publishers, and as advisor to many in our field.
Pros will find it fascinating. Those new to the disciplines will find a vital crash course. Pin-head executives in big, dumb corporations wasting oceans of money on utterly unaccountable brand and image and ego advertising should be forced at gunpoint to read it.
Ogilvy was right when he ranted to his own agency’s staff [that’s what he did in the 49-second video above!] that only the mail-order [i.e. direct response marketing] people knew what the hell they were doing, and were Ogilvy alive, he would applaud Brian’s work here.
-Dan Kennedy, multi-millionaire serial entrepreneur, sought after consultant to the direct marketing industry, professional direct-response copywriter, and author of at least 25 books including the popular NO BS series (NoBSInnerCircle.com)
It’s funny (not “ha-ha funny”) that most of the people I grew up with in the direct marketing trenches in the 80’s and 90’s sort of gave up when the Internet came along…too much to learn and too much forced adaptation…and a traditional “retirement” filled with travel and golf looked more attractive to many.
I don’t slight them and they earned it. But that lifestyle is not for me.
In addition, as I have said in the past, too many of my mentors I grew up with are dead.
That is, when I was in my 20’s and 30’s I gravitated to folks in their 60’s and 70’s (because they had all the accumulated wisdom)—but most of those giants are no longer with us.
It’s both a math and actuarial science problem…no one escapes their ultimate demise…but in this case, their (enormous) legacies live on.
And this group of Legends from my book never would have given up…they would have embraced the Internet…but they ran out of time to experience that embrace.
That’s why it’s in my job description to continue to embrace them.
Being one of those 60–70-year-olds now, I want to take advantage (i.e. embrace fully) every waking hour of marketing goodness even more.
That is, I see this whole “Internet thing” differently since I am still a young man (?)…and I believe it will catch on. 🙂
The Internet is the ultimate direct response medium—with infinite possibilities which can give us immediate feedback and tons of applications.
And I am always thirsty for more education.
Lucky for me, the education I had gained during my first 20 years in the business was applicable to everything I learned over the second 20 years…and beyond.
And that cumulative education has been my golden ticket into the rooms where it’s happening now.
Groups and masterminds grandfather me in…and I won’t even be a grandfather for another month. How about that?
Anyone else want to invite me into their inner circle?
I just need to get in the door and connect the dots.
Thank you to those who let me in on a technicality (i.e. my advanced age…with a little bit of wisdom). 😊
Also critical was how I re-defined “retirement” thanks to the top coach in the world for entrepreneurs, Dan Sullivan:
I am retired from all the things I’m not good at and I’m retired from all the things I don’t like to do; and I am retired from people I don’t want to hang out with anymore.
I may not be “good” at online marketing, (i.e. far from world’s best) …but I do like it a lot…and I love the people I meet along the way—so I realized I will never retire from being a lifelong learner (i.e. student).
And that’s the reason why I said yes to The Advertising Solution.
I found it fascinating once I dug in how much these six Legends understood, clarified, and demonstrated principles that have become the lifeblood of all we do in marketing today—both offline and online.
What that means is, regardless of what type of product or service you offer… and whatever media you are involved with…whether it’s direct mail, email marketing, blogging, social media (or anything else)…the principles the Legends profiled inside the pages of The Advertising Solution invented and innovated remain core fundamentals we all must understand—and apply.
They are as vital and practical today as they were when they were first put forward.
You’ll get a better sense (i.e. more details about them) by reading the P.S. and watching the 10-minute video inside the P.P.S.
With these principles in your tool kit, you can put them into practice through all the infinite marketing channels available to us.
I am on a lifelong quest to convince everyone that this is true.
I’m getting there.
The Advertising Solution was an early and critical step.
I am a student in one way or another of these six incredible men—true heroes to me (and so many others)—and now I am a student of everyone who is inventing and creating today as well.
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In summary, here’s the overriding thesis from these six “old timers”:
The universal truths they wrote about are timeless
Yes, some things will sound and feel outdated since they are not talking about anything digital; but consider how much of their work has stood the test of time—and how it transcends technology.
One of my favorite quotes is from one of the great advertising men of all time, (let’s call him a “7th Mad Man”), Bill Bernbach (who I quoted in both The Advertising Solution and Overdeliver):
“Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.”
It’s not “I want to advertise using AdWords or Facebook”; it’s “I have an idea—what platform or medium is most conducive to working for that idea?”
I don’t want to get too dramatic here, but these six guys are the “builders of the pyramids,” creating something incredible without the use of modern technology.
And I am not going out on a limb to say that if these six Legends were alive today, they would see the Internet as the ultimate direct response medium (as they should).
If you want to go deeper on their mindsets, with some specific things they said and taught, I have done some of that in the P.S. (i.e. why we chose these six Legends)…and in the P.P.S. is my favorite “10-Minute Talk” which I delivered at Joe Polish’s Genius Network Mastermind when the book came out…with one eternal truth per “Mad Man”…because I had to do the talk in 10 minutes. 😊
And if you don’t know the reference to “Mad Men,” that’s a reason in itself to read the P.S. and watch the “13 minute talk” in the P.P.S.
These six guys—direct marketers trapped in the bodies of general advertisers– would have a field day applying their genius to marketing online (especially because they would not have to pay for printing and postage).
It’s true that the newsletters and videos/speeches/presentations these Legends left us can be a little difficult to get through–they were often written in a style that sounds a bit foreign to us today.
The Advertising Solution takes the essence of their work easy for you to understand, assimilate, and start applying in your own work.
And the P.S. and P.S. will be a cheat sheet for all of that.
Basically, we created, in one volume, a way for you to access these Legends without having to read everything they wrote.
A marketing and copywriting checklist for the ages.
And if you want the full Monty, you can shell out $14.57 for the book here (with a boatload of bonuses) …which I make nothing on.
It’s really a payment from me to these 6 Legends…paying them forward…and continuing to fulfill on my mission.
Warmly,
Brian
P.S. Below is a quick synopsis of why Craig and I chose these 6 Legends:
Claude Hopkins “invented” Scientific Advertising; and knowing that he wrote his masterpiece in 1923 and that it still holds up to this day tells you a bit about how influential he was then…and now.
His book is one of very few on a short list I recommend to anyone beginning a marketing career today.
In one of the later editions of the book, it was said:
“Hopkins is hopelessly out of date, and amazingly current.”
And I admit, as did the writer of the foreword of that edition, there are things that Hopkins wrote about that have been disproved in various ways; but the fact that he was all about “scientific advertising” in a time when there was very little “science” available (i.e. the ability to track and create automated metrics wouldn’t happen until decades later) is astounding.
We disprove current stuff every day and in every way as well…even Legends can’t escape that…but there is pure gold in Hopkins work.
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Robert Collier wrote the Robert Collier Letter Book in 1937—a dense read—with lessons in writing sales letters for a lifetime.
While it is not talked about as the “must read” as often as the masterpieces from Ogilvy, Caples, and Hopkins, Craig and I learned as much studying how Collier analyzed the sales letter, a deconstruction for the ages.
One of the most exciting things about what Craig and I have done with Collier’s opus, a somewhat forgotten classic, is that we were committed to distilling the gems into usable advice and techniques for anyone writing sales letters today.
Collier, despite being relatively unknown (and less read), might have been the premier sales letter copywriter—ever.
It is so satisfying to expose Collier’s wisdom to a new generation.
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John Caples was probably the first person to understand direct marketing measurement, metrics, and testing methodology. Tested Advertising Methods is in its fifth edition and is still a must read for anyone who writes copy or promotes anything in any medium.
The fact that this “bible” of proven advertising techniques has continuously been updated to reflect all the changes in marketing today tells us that Caples was clearly on to something.
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David Ogilvy was THE direct marketer trapped in a general advertiser’s body.
And he was the inspiration for Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), the main character of the TV series Mad Men, without the bawdy stuff and emphasizing only non-accountable advertising.
He was a creative genius (Ogilvy, not Draper)…and pioneer who understood “direct marketing” before it was ever talked about separately from “advertising.”
Check out this 49-second video if you bypassed it earlier. 😊
In addition, he did NOT…
“…regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”
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Gary Halbert is a Legend from this book who I had the pleasure of meeting, and his influence has expanded decades after his premature death.
We lost him way too early…but his “children” live on (both literally and figuratively).
Over the years, I have met dozens of copywriters he mentored, some of whom are the best copywriters in the world today.
Through his writings and interviews he continues to influence the marketplace in a major way.
When I started in the newsletter business in 1981, I read a Halbert quote that guided me and helped me grow one of the largest consumer newsletters ever, Bottom Line/Personal.
He simply said:
“People subscribe to your newsletter for what they think you will do for them; they re-subscribe because they like you.”
That shaped the way I acquired new subscribers and how I renewed them…sort of like “they come for the information and stay for the inspiration.”
And renewals are everything.
I know Halbert influenced everyone he touched.
I don’t know of any great copywriters working today who have not studied Halbert in some form…learned from him…and continuously re-read the incredible body of work he left behind in swipe files, videos, recordings, readily available to everyone on that thing called The Internet. 🙂
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Gene Schwartz, the one Legend I knew well and someone I consider a personal mentor, was (and still is) as influential as anyone who has written copy or marketed products in the history of advertising.
Schwartz was a true Renaissance Man, as well-read as anyone I have ever met, and someone who really understood what made people tick—and buy.
Schwartz was able to get into the psyche of all the audiences he wrote to…and the clients he worked with intimately.
His landmark book, Breakthrough Advertising, is considered the most important book ever written on copy, creative…and human behavior.
Written in 1966, not one word has been changed in the current edition…and it remains 100% relevant and is considered a masterpiece and a must read for anyone who wants to be a master.
I know many copywriters today who follow Schwartz’s methodology like a religion.
Gene Schwartz didn’t write copy—he assembled it.
The copywriters who say they learned their craft from him (and from Breakthrough Advertising) are some of the best writers our industry has ever produced.
And they tell their students and followers to read Breakthrough Advertising (and his other masterpiece, The Brilliance Breakthrough) before embarking on their career.
Clicking on the titles above will enable you to buy either one at the lowest price possible…since I have the exclusive rights to both (with Gene’s wife Barbara) …which I consider an honor…and I am grateful for the opportunity to be the shepherd of Gene’s work.
As Barbara tells me, in one way or another, after I send her each royalty check, which represents sales from over 75 countries:
“Gene is more popular today…now a global phenomenon…than he was when he was alive. Which I know makes him smile down on us with delight…with pride…that he is now educating a new generation of marketers, copywriters…and maybe even some behavioral psychologists.”
P.P.S. If you want to see my favorite “10-Minute Talk” (the video is 13 minutes) with one eternal truth from each of the 6 Legends from The Advertising Solution, click here.
P.P.P.S. Oh…I almost forgot…
If you want to buy a copy of The Advertising Solution with all the free resources, go to:
Go forth and multiply!