“Over lunch, a colleague’s young nephew asked me how we tweeted before the Internet. Pneumatic mail tubes and a lot of stationery, kid”
-Lester Wunderman on Twitter 3/25/2012
After last week’s post about my “entry drug” into direct response marketing, and mentioning Mad Men pioneers such as David Oglivy and Lester Wunderman, I received multiple emails from current copywriters and marketers alike who had heard of Ogilvy…but not Wunderman.
As we approach the 7th anniversary of his death, I want to once again profile this legendary figure who most of us stand on the shoulders of…without realizing it.
And I have some new insights on Wunderman based on this email I received after last week’s post from a seasoned, A-List copywriter:
I am stunned by the arrogance of the new breed of copy and paste copywriters.
We revered our teachers. We each had a “Mount Rushmore” who were our heroes.
No one flaunted fancy cars. No one bragged about how many millions they sold.
Thoughts on why the arrogance?
My response…and I admit I was spitballing a bit (and I invite your feedback, whether you agree, disagree or if you have a different take):
I feel you ☹
I tried to deal with this topic in my post “Confidence without arrogance.”
But I didn’t get too much into the psychological aspects of this phenomenon.
One thing I have explored more recently is the new breed of copywriters (and marketers) who confuse “innovation” with “invention.”
Obviously, AI, ChatGPT and all derivatives (have directly caused the “copy and paste copywriters” you mentioned.
But an indirect cause may be that many think that every thought they have–especially when it comes to AI–they invented.
And they have no “desire” (pun intended and nod to Gene Schwartz) to give others credit for the idea that they assume is original…when it’s not.
I wrote “Invention is overrated” to explore that.
They also believe that non-humble brags and showing off the millions they are making are the ultimate “proof elements”…because those writers are unwilling (or unable) to do it “the Gary Bencivenga way.”
My underlying thesis (remedy?):
Begin from a place of humility…attribute everything you feel a need to claim as your own to someone else…which leads to more kudos and respect…and personal satisfaction…and makes innovation the Holy Grail, not invention.
Connecting the dots, not creating the dots, is what really counts.
In short, respect real inventors…while making variations of their inventions your own.
That ensures at least a small dose of humility.
It is harder to teach this when students begin from a place of arrogance rather than humility, always trying to be the smartest person in the room.
I know it’s not that simple…but simply put, knowledge is not wisdom.
Lester Wunderman tracks as one of those inventors, a man with utmost confidence without arrogance…and more than ample humility.
He seems to have slipped into the future almost unnoticed…but he helped create it…and I noticed…as did thousands of others.
His book, Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay, was one of a few “bibles” I read early in my career.
And if he hadn’t stolen that title from me (20+ years before I thought of it), it would have been the title for my book. 🙂
Note: My early working title for Overdeliver was Measurable Marketing which was an homage to Wunderman’s masterpiece. But my subtitle, “Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing” did the trick (in 2019 language) re: “Being Direct” and “Making Advertising Pay.”
I have often lamented that I wish guys like Gene Schwartz, Bill Jayme and Dick Benson could have had the opportunity to strut their stuff online…but unfortunately, they were all gone before this Internet/email thing caught on.
However, Lester Wunderman is proof positive how a direct marketing original (heck, one of the “fathers of direct marketing”), and the definition of an “old schooler,” can embrace online marketing.
Unlike many of my other mentors and heroes from my “childhood,” he was able to do that since he lived until he was 98.
We don’t have to ask, “what if he was alive today (during the online marketing boom)?” because he was…and he was also alive and well during the ramp up.
For those of you who have never heard of Lester Wunderman, he was the chairman emeritus and co-founder of what became the world’s largest direct marketing ad agency.
He founded a “general advertising agency” in 1958, the year I was born (Wunderman, Ricotta and Kline) …and later created Wunderman Direct as its own sub-agency, beginning a trend of Madison Avenue agencies getting cozy with direct marketing…making sure they were able to create advertising that paid out for their clients.
Although the first exclusively “direct marketing/mail-order agency” was founded in 1921, the appetite for it soared when guys like Wunderman, David Ogilvy, and Bill Bernbach launched these direct marketing units inside their general advertising agencies.
He understood to his core that advertising that was measurable and accountable was…well…the only kind of advertising worth doing.
And it started with “mail-order.”
From his obituary:
“He never graduated from college, had no formal training in advertising and got into the mail-order business on a two-for-one offer: one salary split between him and his brother. It proved to be a big bargain for Madison Avenue.”
His brother Irving was a gifted copywriter who I had the privilege of sharing a few meals with in his later years and I learned a lot from him in a very short time.
Also from Lester’s obituary:
Long before anyone had ever heard of Internet sales or interactive communications, Mr. Wunderman was widely credited with coining the term “direct marketing.”
For decades he championed an industry that sent personalized ads to pre-selected people for products and services that they might want to buy, as opposed to the scattershot approach of general advertising for the mass audiences of printed publications and broadcast media.
Chapter three of Overdeliver which is titled, “How Paying Postage Made Me a Better Marketer” could have been dedicated to him. Maybe I will do that in the next edition. 🙂
He also invented (or brought into the mainstream) things like:
- Toll-free telephone numbers for ordering (read my post about Joe Sugarman for more about that)
- Postage-paid subscription cards
- Buy-one-get-one-free offers
- “Loyalty reward programs” for brand buyers who came back again and again
He was quoted in an interview before his death, while reminiscing on his early days (when he figured out how to make advertising pay out):
“Direct marketing was out there. I didn’t invent it. But it had no definition and no strategy.”
Studying the life’s work of a man like Wunderman is not just a stroll down memory lane—studying him, and others like him from his generation, is an inquiry into “original source,” where bedrock principles come from; and that inquiry is the best way I know to apply those principles as “scientific advertising,” a phrase (and the title of a book) coined (and written) by another pioneer, Claude Hopkins, in 1923.
No…there were no computers or anything “scientific” to calculate ROI in 1923 (or 1958 for that matter).
Guys like Hopkins (and Wunderman) were always ahead of their time.
They did it with pencil and paper.
And thousands of ledger books, the precursor of spreadsheets.
My first book, The Advertising Solution, profiles six legendary copywriters who were direct (scientific?) marketers trapped in the bodies of general advertisers.
The eras they toiled in had something to do with that as well…but they strived to let the direct marketer inside of them to come out to play as often as possible.
Wunderman is not one of the six but could have been…Hopkins is one of them…and The Advertising Solution is also not about nostalgia…but more about “where babies come from” (in a direct marketing sense, that is).
When the TV series Mad Men came out in 2007, which depicted the advertising industry of the 1960’s in New York City, Lester didn’t just watch it…he tweeted about every episode…and this tweet is quite revealing:
“I liked this episode of #MadMen better the first time, when I lived it”
Lester spent parts of seven years watching his career play out on TV and became known as a weekly tweeter over multiple seasons (until 2015) as he devoured Mad Men, rating each episode on a “1 to 5 martini scale” which is an homage to the drinking habits of the Mad Men.
Not only were we hearing from someone who was there to confirm what was (or close to) fact and what was fiction, we were also witnessing a guy in his 90’s tweeting regularly.
He never lived in the past.
He simply took what was needed from the past that was relevant to direct response marketing today…and he was one of the first to understand that the Internet was the ultimate direct marketing medium.
Rather than run away from it, like so many of his (and my) colleagues did…he embraced it.
On that topic he tweeted:
“Enjoying the nostalgia of #MadMen, but the golden age of advertising is here and now.”
I’ll use Lester’s “wunderment” (a new word) as being anecdotal evidence that all of my direct marketing my heroes would have felt the same way had they lived as long as he did.
Lester spoke often in his later years about the “here and now golden age of advertising” being about technology and marketing techniques he never could have dreamed of, even while almost inventing direct marketing.
But I think he would combine that with the fact that human beings are still human beings…fundamentals are still fundamental…and no matter what technique or technology we use…communication, connection, and relationship trumps all.
And that includes everything AI.
Are you “being direct” with all your communications regardless of the medium?
Lester had the privilege of crossing over into the “golden age of advertising” from many other ages…and we are all better for it.
His book was originally published in 1996…maybe closer to the stone age of marketing…but things were heating up; and he issued a 2nd edition in 2011 which speaks directly (pun intended) to his ambitious nature to update what he thought was incomplete in 1996 (even though it held up pretty well)…and shows his passion for embracing change.
But that doesn’t mean being married to technology every minute of every day.
Proving you are not a robot has nothing to do with living in the past…it is also part of the future…and “being direct.”
Seeing some of the Wunderman tweets makes me long to read his emails…I’m sure he thought about every word he wrote, since it’s today’s most direct (and personal) way to communicate, survey, engage and learn.
I need to dig up those archives.
You can’t have a relationship with someone unless you start a conversation in the first place…email is still the best way to do that…sometimes even foregoing an automated response, believe it or not. 🙂
I encourage you to set your boundaries in a way so that you don’t lose touch with all people worth interacting with, who might get lost in autoresponder hell.
I’m sure Lester would highly recommend that.
Since I believe that email is still the best way to create one-on-one relationships most intimately and efficiently, I am focusing mostly there; but reading what your audience is telling you, and then responding, is not unique to one medium (e.g. YouTube, Facebook et al.)
There is special gold in emails from any person who takes the time to communicate with you—and if you open them and read them carefully, looking for key words and nuance, you will find that out.
I’m sure many of you do this regularly.
Even when you are sending thousands of emails to a large audience, all automated, you would be amazed if you take the time to try and respond to every one (or most…or many…some?…even if not immediately) with an attempt to go beyond “all auto responder all the time,” what you will learn.
And dare I say sell more completely too.
Pro tip (which any amateuer can do as well): When sending out a mass email, ask a question or encourage feedback or try to get a response.
Write to engage.
As I attempted to engage with you above to let me know what you thought of my response to that A-Lister regarding the arrogance of some young copywriters.
I meant that, by the way. 🙂
When you do this, figure out a way to respond one-on-one as much as you can and read responses for clues on how you can make a relationship deeper right away.
Engagement is also important so people will never forget you.
(Check out the P.S. for a shortcut to do that)
Being Direct is not just the title of a game changing book…it’s a way of life.
Thanks Lester.
Warmly,
Brian
P.S. Speaking of books written by pioneers, I regularly go to Amazon and search for a book, written by a contemporary of Lester Wunderman, who was a fellow inventor…and mentor…and I am always astounded by what I find.
The book—often considered the “other book” written by one of the most prolific copywriters (and teachers) of all time (Gene Schwartz)—is The Brilliance Breakthrough: How To Talk And Write So That People Will Never Forget You.
What astounded me was the price…click here and see what it is selling for as a USED “lost classic” on Amazon right now.
That’s a show…not a tell.
The tell: Yes…that’s $1,500 for the cheapest version …and only 2 other copies available for $2,000.
What could be so special about this book?
Because it’s Gene Schwartz’s “manual” for writing…and not just about writing sales copy.
And it was rare (and unavailable) for a long time…but not anymore…so please don’t buy a copy for $1,500 or $2,000.
Writing and choosing the right word for every occasion (and audience) can be taught, grammar be damned (well, at least grammar is overrated) …and “writing in images” is also something worth learning…all of which are core premises of this book.
Learning these and other keys to writing effectively from one of the greatest writers and observers of human behavior of all time is what makes this book so special.
When Gene teaches you how to write, it’s worth a lot more than $2,000.
In fact, many folks who have bought it exclusively through me (at a much more reasonable price) …with a workbook included…are buying it for their kids (with extra workbooks).
Not to mention the world class copywriters who couldn’t wait to get their hands on a copy once I was able to bring it back to life.
I think you will enjoy the foreword even if you don’t buy the book.
And if you want to buy the book at close to a 90% discount of the price it is selling on Amazon, click here.
And my version includes a workbook…with extras available for your kids.
Just being direct. 😊