Posted by Denny Hatch
"UGLY WORKS!"
—Bob Hacker Seattle Marketing Guru
Note the hand holding the bottom of the
book, the arrow screaming “FREE” and the burst, “Yes… Take it FREE!” This thing moves the eye all over the place.
If the reader’s mind drifts off message, there’s always something up ahead—or to one side—to catch the eye and refocus attention.
This is an offer to receive the first volume of a set of books—FREE!
The book is really FREE. No cost. No risk. No obligation. Yours to keep forever, no matter what you decide about the rest of the books.
If the reader’s mind drifts off message, there’s always something up ahead—or to one side—to catch the eye and refocus attention.
This is an offer to receive the first volume of a set of books—FREE!
The book is really FREE. No cost. No risk. No obligation. Yours to keep forever, no matter what you decide about the rest of the books.
In the 15 years I published, edited and
wrote WHO’S MAILING WHAT! roughly 3,000 mailings a month passed through my
fingers. Many were duplicates. Some were from minor fringe players.
But generally the monthly archive listed an average of 2,000 mailings in 193 categories.
But generally the monthly archive listed an average of 2,000 mailings in 193 categories.
I saw hundreds of offers like this one—persuading
readers, listeners and viewers to join a club or program to collect books,
records, CDs, movies and audiotapes.
The above full-page ad is truly the ugliest,
busiest copy and design I ever saw in all my years reporting on junk mail.
I love it!
The Technique: Interrupt
and Keep
Interrupting Until Action Is Taken.
“Neatness rejects involvement,” proclaimed my
great mentor, Lew Smith, who went on to become EVP of the Wunderman Agency and Lester
Wunderman’s right-hand man.
If an advertisement, a letter, a special
report, a memo or an article is too neat, Lew explained, it is not visually
involving. It’s up to the author (and designer) to break the monotony.
“Ugly works,” said Seattle direct
marketing wizard Bob Hacker. It is the explanation why direct marketing copy
and design are generally ugly and why they work.
Above is a full-page ad for a now-forgotten
set of books—The Made Simple
Self-Teaching Library—published by
Greystone Books in the late 20th century.
This ad—the apotheosis of ugly, ugly, ugly—is the work of Greystone’s creative director, Fred Breismeister.
This ad—the apotheosis of ugly, ugly, ugly—is the work of Greystone’s creative director, Fred Breismeister.
Hold your nose.
Sneer at it.
But Breismeister’s wild wizardry made
Greystone’s owner, John Stevenson, a millionaire many times over.
Too Often an Untrained Creative Team Flouts
Direct Marketing Rules and Goes Neat-‘n’-Tidy.
Direct Marketing Rules and Goes Neat-‘n’-Tidy.
This plain-Jane, consummately boring little self-mailer arrived amidst
a postbox full of glitzy, glorious catalogs, sale news from Costco and our favorite
magazine, Majesty.
Audible—an Amazon Company—sells a subscription to audio
books. The mailing elements:
• Three 5”x7” folded
panels (6 pages front-and-back)
• A total of 267 words.
• Teeny Illustrations
• Mini-mouse-type
makes it difficult to read. Here’s a sample, full size:
The Rest of the Little Self-mailer
The Rest of the Little Self-mailer
Panel #3 Panel #4
Panel #3 Panel #5 Panel #6
How Come I Noticed This Sad Sack Self-mailer?
It Breaks a Cardinal Rule of Direct Marketing!
It Breaks a Cardinal Rule of Direct Marketing!
"Always make it easy to order."
—Elsworth Howell, Proprietor of Howell Book House
—Elsworth Howell, Proprietor of Howell Book House
If the prospect cannot figure out how to place the order, the effort
will bomb.
Period.
I read and re-read the damn
thing four times and could not figure out how to place an order.
Finally… FINALLY! I
found the answer as a very cleverly concealed afterthought in mouse-type running
across the bottom.
If it breaks this basic rule of direct marketing—print ads, mail, digital,
broadcast and telephone—what other rules did it break?
It didn’t take long to
realize I had hit the jackpot of broken rules!
Here Are Four Huge Winners
In Clubs and Continuity Series
In Clubs and Continuity Series
These 4 mailings are Grand Controls by marketers of books, records,
CDs, DVDs, Movies and Audio Books—received over 3 or more consecutive years.
The little handwritten
squiggles are the dates received over the years.
All grand controls are the result of millions of dollars spent on testing by the smartest and most successful companies, agents and creatives in direct marketing.
What has been tested over many years?
• Offers
• Prices
• Copy Approaches
• Headlines
• Order Devices
• Letters
• Brochures
• Lift Pieces (Little
goodies that “lift” response).
Quite simply, the Amazon/Audible mailing doesn’t faintly resemble the
proven winners in terms of interruptive design, offers, prices or copy.
All 43 Grand Controls in my clubs and continuity series category are full-dress direct mail packages. They contain long letters, brochures, myriad illustrations, slews of premiums, features and benefits and easy peasy obvious order mechanisms.
All 43 Grand Controls in my clubs and continuity series category are full-dress direct mail packages. They contain long letters, brochures, myriad illustrations, slews of premiums, features and benefits and easy peasy obvious order mechanisms.
And with the hidden
mouse-type order information, this silly rogue effort is ipso facto a loser.
Direct Marketing Rules Not to Be Broken
• “Ugly works!”
• “Neatness rejects involvement.”
• "Avoid gray walls of type." —David Ogilvy.
• "Avoid gray walls of type." —David Ogilvy.
• “Make it easy to order.”
• Interrupt and keep on interrupting until a decision is made.
• “If you want to dramatically increase your response, dramatically
improve your offer. —Axel Andersson
• “It’s the offer, stupid!” —Bob Hacker
• A club or continuity series is a complicated offer consisting of
up-front premiums, announcements, rejection correspondence, bonus products (“Get
a Free audio book with every 4 you buy!”), etc., etc.
• The idea that Amazon’s audible attempt to create excitement, understanding
and new business for a complex product or service using a small, 6-panel self-mailer
with a total of 267 words with tiny illustrations, mouse-type copy and no order
device is preposterous!
• The way to be successful
in direct marketing is seeing:
— Who’s marketing what,
where and how…
—In print, digital, broadcast,
direct mail, space ads, telemarketing, social media, etc.
• Study those promotions, prices, copy platforms, headlines, features
and benefits and offers you see over and over again and then...
• “STEAL SMART!”
—Dorothy Kerr, U.S.
News & World Report.
• “There are two rules and two rules only in direct marketing.
Rule #1: Test Everything.
Rule #2: See Rule #1.
—Malcolm Decker
• Ed Mayer’s Corollary: “Don’t test whispers.”
Don’t test $49.95 vs. $59.95
or blue background vs. pink background.
Go for breakthroughs.
• If you haven’t seen this Special Report,
it’s yours FREE. Email me and I’ll be glad to send you the link. dennyhatch@yahoo.com
###
Word count: 983
Absolutely love it. I witnessed the "shock and awe" on the faces of some precious digital creative types when our testing showed that old school DM standbys like the word "FREE", or Limited Time Offer or big ugly red "BUY NOW" buttons outperformed all the cutesy shit that they loaded up on their sacred web pages. (Yes, snarky)I also had to wage constant war on their desire to test trivial insignificant tweaks. I wish I had know the quote “Don’t test whispers.” A perfect retort. Thanks for igniting those fond memories.
ReplyDeleteRichard,
DeleteGreat hearing from you.
There was a time when direct mail was lotsa fun.
And tests would give you accuracy down to gnat’s ass.
Do keep in touch!
Cheers.
Denny, I'd prefer to say "pretty doesn't work" as there is always a way to incorporate smart design as long as the essentials are in right place.
ReplyDeleteI do recall that Ralph Ginzburg was a design freak -- famously collaborating with Herb Lubalin -- while getting great response. Even Gene Schwartz's ads corresponded to the organized newspaper-style layout of his day.
Keep in mind that the newspaper DR ad for all intents and purposes no longer exists, and the direct mail letter exceeding two pages is growing increasingly scarce. So these historic conventions do need to be adapted to more current styles.
Peter,
DeleteThanks for taking time to write.
IMO: As a headline “Pretty Doesn't Work” is weak next to: “UGLY WORKS!”
Long letters v Short letters… DR Newspaper ads…? Hey, everything is testable.
Do keep in touch!
I've said this for advertising and other things... "Go ugly early."
ReplyDeleteWill,
DeleteThat’s good!
Do keep in touch.
another memory, ugly is sometimes inadvertent. Talking to a cataloger years ago and he told of the time that a significant portion of a print run was totally messed up and the cover had been printed out of register.. a total snafu, but the mailing had to go out anyway. You guessed it. The ugly cover out pulled the regular cover by a significant margin. He argued that the butt-ugly cover just leapt out the stack of otherwise bland mail and demanded attention.
ReplyDeleteRichard,
DeleteI love stories like these!
In the immortal words of the announcer on the old Lucky Strike Hit Pararde (radio); “Keep those cards and letters coming!
Cheers
Reply
I remember back in the good old days I was sitting in front of a prospective new client. "I need at least a 50% lift...NOW", said the DM manager, "but I can't change the offer or copy because it takes me six weeks for internal review and approvals."
ReplyDelete"I guarantee a 50% lift and I can get you a new package to review in 48 hours. Will that do it for you?"
He hired us. We went DM ugly with callouts, arrows, underlining, "Yes" "No" stickers and a post-it hiding half the Johnson Box. All primary colors. Fugly for sure.
More than doubled response. After that, every time we presented a new package, the only question was, "Is it ugly enough"? Great client.
Bob,
DeleteYou—and maybe (the late, alas) Lester Wunderman and, of course, Ogilvy—are the only three guys with brass balls that go “CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!” who tell clients what the hell you are gonna do, then do it (driving their internal creatives nuts) and create winners.
Love it!
Cheers.
My former boss -- and splendid mentor -- Lew Smith emailed the following comment and said I could share it with readers:
ReplyDeleteTo:Denny Hatch
Nov 9 at 9:29 AM
I was creative director of Wunderman, Ricotta and Kline when we were acquired by Young & Rubicam in 1973.
After the merger, I was included in the creative conferences hosted by their creative director, Alex Kroll, at which we all made presentations of current work.
Their work was prettier than mine, prompting questions about Wunderman’s "production values.” I finally explained that direct marketing was an interruption, whereas general advertising was a diversion.
This did not endear me to my new colleagues, so after that I left off the part about advertising being a diversion.
Another question that inevitably arose concerned long copy: “Do people really read all that?” Here I hearkened back to the inimitable Fred Breismeister: I had asked him that same question when I was a fledgling direct mail copywriter at Grolier.
As Breismeister explained, it didn’t matter whether they read it all or not; what mattered was that they saw there was so much to say about it.
The fundamentals, like human nature, never change.
Lew Smith
Hi Denny, Can you elaborate/clarify your post above "Avoid gray walls of type." —David Ogilvy. Thanks Dan
ReplyDelete