What Made This The World’s Most Profitable Advertisement?

Strangely enough, the most profitable advertisement ever was not an advertisement as most marketers think of them.

It was a mailing for The Wall Street Journal which ran for 20 odd years without being beaten in tests, producing at least $1.25 billion in subscriptions.

(Why people are too thick to realise that direct mail is advertising I do not know – but that’s another matter).

“Creative” people detest formulae – ignoring the fact that most good stuff is done to a formula – from Mozart’s symphonies to all successful TV series.

In this case the formula was a comparison. Comparisons work for just about anything – good versus evil being the most obvious.

The mailing compared two young men, one successful, one not, explaining that the difference between them was – surprise, surprise – that one read the Journal and the other didn’t.

My former colleague Steve Harrison does a tremendous (and very funny) talk about what is essentially the same subject, where he suggests that all good advertising is just problem/solution. He will be covering this at my EADIM event in October.

“Creative” people seek originality – denounced by Rosser Reeves and after him David Ogilvy as “the most dangerous word in the advertiser’s lexicon.”

The Wall Street Journal mailing was not original. It copied a much earlier one by Bruce Barton about two young man returning from the Civil War. It has itself been copied many times.

Best,
Drayton
www.directmarketingcourse.com