In the News, Under the Radar

I’m about to hurt someones feelings. Probably a graphic artist.

Kevin Halbert, son of the late and legendary Gary Halbert, is a good man. He sends me stuff. Stuff I’m very interested in.

This week he sent me a letter written by his father in 1987 about newspaper advertising. There was a little tidbit in this incredibly informative letter I wanted to share with you. And if you follow his advice, you’ll be able to tame your graphic artist, save a packet on advertising design, get waaaaaaay better response from your advertising dollar, and of course… rake in the cash.

But before we talk about that, lets quickly build a case for why you should listen to anything a dead man like Gary Halbert has to say.

For starters he spent almost his entire working life in advertising. But not anything like a regular advertising agency. His businesses and every ad he ever wrote was tested and measured. He closely watched such mystical things as;

• Response Rate (What percentage of people who saw the ad, bought the product?)
• Cost per Customer Acquired (how much did you spend to get each new customer?)
• Return on Investment (How many dollars did you get back for every dollar you spent?)

Here’s a quote by Gary that should put things in perspective for you.

And his advertising was outrageously successful. So are we clear? Gary halbert knows a thing or two about newspaper advertising.

Sooooo, what was this tidbit of information I found in the letter that I wanted to share with you? It’s this:

Graphics, line art, borders, arrows, fancy fonts, colours etc make your ad look like an ad. And people do not read newspapers for the ads. Except of course people like me, Kevin and Gary. People deeply interested in advertising.

The first challenge with any advertising is not to get an action from the reader. Noooooo.

It’s not even to get them to read the ad. Nope!

The first challenge is to get them to look at the damn ad in the first place. And the method that works is to make it look like the very thing people bought the newspaper for. An article. Same font, same font size, everything. Everything the same as any other “Real” article in the paper.

And you write it in the style of a newspaper article. Write it like a piece of news. A piece of news which causes action on the part of the reader. The action of responding to the ad and buying your stuff.

Every time I hear of an advertisement winning some creativity award I am left with a deep feeling of dread. The purpose of advertising is not to be creative. It’s not to be entertaining. And it’s not, most definitely not to win awards.

The sole purpose of advertising is to bring in new customers and make sales. Period. Let your competitors go the the advertising agencies who boast about their numerous creativity awards. They will pay, mark my words, they will pay.

You on the other hand can do what works, and build a solid business by providing customers with a solid REASON to buy from you.

Of course there is more to newspaper advertising than just what we’ve talked about today. But hopefully you can see the deep wisdom of Gary’s letter. And you can use it to judge the quality of any advertising work you have done for you.

Remain Awesome.

Scott Junner
The Unlikely Ad Man