My daughter—who was blessed (cursed?) from birth with curly hair—asked for a “Brazilian Keratin Treatment” when she entered high school so she could avoid being late to school every morning.
As she explained it:
“Do you want me to be an on-time, attentive student, always ready to learn…and who will be ready for college after four years of high school…OR someone who spends wasted hours detangling her hair instead?”
When she put it THAT way, I had no choice but to say “yes” to the first Brazilian Blowout I encountered in my life.
I miss her curls…but she doesn’t. 😊
When I received an email last year from the top publisher in Brazil (of non-fiction and marketing texts) …with a suggestion of a third “Brazilian Blowout” (don’t worry, I’ll tell you about the second shortly)…I couldn’t resist.
It was a request to translate Breakthrough Advertising (Gene Schwartz’s one-of-a-kind masterpiece) into Portuguese for the Brazilian market…a growing universe of marketers and copywriters I have been aware of for quite a while…and less than a year later, Breakthrough Advertising Brazil will be published and launched later this month.
I am doing an interview for Brazilian marketers to kick off the launch, and I will share the recording with you…which I believe will add to the legend of this miracle of a book…and the launch will add to its global impact.
It’s already a global phenomenon…I have sold over 15,000 books in over 75 countries…and Portuguese is the third language it has been translated into (after French and Italian) …with more editions to come.
The lesson learned from the creation of the Brazilian edition of Breakthrough Advertising is once again to pay attention to what is in your Inbox (i.e. email) and not simply respond with an autoresponder…which is a lesson that I’ve learned many times in the past.
In 2016, sandwiched between my first and third Brazilian Blowouts, a young copywriter from Brazil sent me an innocent email (which eventually led to my second Brazilian Blowout) …which also could have easily been ignored.
I’m telling you this story because I didn’t ignore it. 🙂
Here is his initial email:
Hello Brian!
Hope you are fine!
I got your contact in the Halbert FB group.
I have the book [Breakthrough Advertising] myself already, but I’d like to ask if you would eventually be thinking about creating an MP3/CD version as well.
Last year the audio version of The Robert Collier Letter Book was released on Audible, so maybe it could be possible to do the same with Gene’s classic?
Have a great week, and happy holidays!
Regards,
Luis
Two clues here as to the potential of creating a pen pal relationship with Luis:
- A level of awareness of me and Breakthrough Advertising (by finding me in the “Halbert FB Group”). He worked at finding me.
- A level of sophistication of the “craft” (marketing, copywriting) since he has bought and read Breakthrough Advertising…AND he’s hanging out in a sophisticated copywriter forum on Facebook.
I responded that my plan is to do an audio version eventually, but the delay is because I want to be the one who reads it.
[NOTE: An audio version of Breakthrough Advertising has been on my “to do list” for a few years…and now remembering this correspondence with Luis today, it has been added as a “must do” for 2026.]
I also shared with him some details regarding my special relationship with Gene Schwartz (and his wife Barbara), sending him a link to this post.
And that being the shepherd of this masterpiece is something I hold very dear.
I also sent him a link to The Brilliance Breakthrough (Gene’s other masterpiece) and I sent him a complimentary copy for being a model student.
Everything in my email to him was in the spirit of service to a curious new friend from Brazil…whether he was looking for my service or not.
He followed that up with this:
I’d like to suggest an idea for you, Brian… as you know, Eugene’s books are packed with solid content and there’s a huge demand for such information nowadays (as we see by the interest in his books).
So, could it be possible to release a course (maybe with video/audio/workbooks) on Breakthrough Advertising, eventually?
I know it’s a difficult task but certainly will be unique.
Maybe a course like John Carlton’s Simple Writing System, with a workbook, a video lesson explaining the concepts of each chapter of the book, and a forum for the students to ask questions and interact.
The idea is to breakdown the book, and make the contents more accessible to normal guys like me… lol
There are many courses with that format, but none with the high level of content we see in Gene’s book.
Or, for starters, maybe create a private FB group on “Breakthrough Advertising”, where we could discuss the book, interact, etc., and by the level of engagement you see if the idea to make a course is viable.
This follow up email from Luis must have gone into my “parking lot of ideas” …because I DID launch a short course, “The Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp”…albeit 5 years later.
And the 10th Bootcamp is set to begin on May 11th…stay tuned.
This correspondence took place in 2016.
And if I never heard from Luis again, he had delivered value beyond my wildest dreams…but as most students of the craft tend to do, he wasn’t finished with me yet. 😊
Fast forward to October of 2021 when he wrote to me again:
We’ve exchanged some emails in the past, about Eugene and Breakthrough Advertising.
BA always fascinated me, and I decided, some years ago, to be brave enough and study it from cover to cover.
So, I worked with the original book, trying to understand the concepts, and in the meantime, I edited the layout, titles, and looked for the ads Gene mentions in the book (to study them even deeper).
I collected about 150 ads.
In fact, that was my own way of studying and assimilating the book and as a work of love, of gratitude to Schwartz, who left us his masterpiece.
Now, 55 years after the first edition, from 1966, I thought you could be thinking of releasing a special edition, to remember this date.
Would you be interested in this version?
Luis continued:
I’d like to give the 150 ads to you as a personal gift, totally for free, of course.
If you eventually decide to do something with them, I’ll also be glad to help.
I worked as a webmaster and book editor, but now I’m mostly focusing on my copywriting career.
While I had no intention of creating a “55th Anniversary Edition” of Breakthrough Advertising, his offer led to this:
I incorporated the ads into Breakthrough Advertising Mastery, which then became a 500-page companion volume we were already creating from the resources and worksheets from the first few editions of the “Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp.”
Adding Luis’s swipe file would make this new book much more complete and a must for anyone interested in Breakthrough Advertising and Gene Schwartz.
His timing couldn’t have been more perfect.
I also found out that the 150 “Breakthrough Advertising related ads,” is part of a swipe file of over 16,000 classic ads Luis has compiled, some going back to the late 19th century.
I recently shared some of those ads from the 1880’s with my Titans Xcelerator Mastermind, including ads selling the works of Charles Dickens, tandem bicycles, and the best miracle hair dressing of the day, something called Cocoaine.
Luis is the email buddy who keeps on giving.
And he is a lifetime member of Titans Xcelerator at no charge.
You too can have a Luis (and many others like him from many other places beyond Brazil) in your life.
The only requirements:
- Open all personal emails (except for the ones from a Nigerian prince or the ones letting you know about “the pictures you requested”).
- Read all those emails…with an eye towards the level of awareness and level of sophistication of the author…about you or what you offer.
- Respond to every email…with your own personal touch relating to what they told you about themselves…with an intention of getting paid…maybe even with money.
Warmly,
Brian
P.S. If you are interested in checking out Breakthrough Advertising Mastery, and the 150+ ads Luis compiled for the book (in full color), click here.
It’s available in both physical and digital editions.
Or…if you don’t have a copy of Breakthrough Advertising (which I find hard to believe), click here.
And if you are interested in attending the 10th “Breakthrough Advertising Bootcamp” in May, click here to get on the alert list so you will be the first to know when seats become available.
Happy New Year!
2026 will once again be a year of “the Schwartz being with you” (nod to Mel Brooks and Spaceballs). 😊
