Something Old Is New Again
If you like certainty, and most of us do even though it’s a fallacy, then here’s proof positive some things OLD can easily become NEW again.
Recently while sifting through some of the ‘classic’ advertising books written by the likes of John Caples, David Ogilvy, Victor O. Schwab, Melvin Powers, Joseph Sugarman, Robert Collier, to name just a few, I found ads selling products and services like a home study course to “Learn How to Play the Piano” or “How to Bring Up a Happy and Healthy Baby” or “How to Write a Hit Song and Sell It” or “How to be a World Poker Champion” or “A Miracle Cure for Foot pain” or “How to Win at the Races” or “How to Make Money as a Writer” or “How to Meet the People You Want to Meet, Friends and Lovers” or “How to Attract Good Luck” or “How to Get Rich in Mail Order” or “How to be Sexually Fulfilled” or “How to Speak In Public” or “How to Make a Fortune Today Starting from Scratch” or “Crafts and Beads” or “Learn Professional Landscaping” or “Fulfill Your Most Romantic Fantasies” or “105 Ways to Make Money at Home” or “Free Government Money” or “Free Things from the Government” or “How to Improve Your Golf” or “The Secret to Perfect Putting” or “How to Flatten Your Stomach” or “How to Pick Up Women” or “How to Get Your Hair to Grow”. That’s just to name a few. Some of the ads even offer things for free.
Most of these ads originated from early in the last century. Do any of them look familiar to you today being sold in all manner of media, in one form or another, 100 years later? The one certainty of course is COMMERCE, making a sale, exchanging something for value NEVER stops. Hence, advertising, marketing and sales NEVER STOP EITHER.
Other things do change of course. Kinds of businesses, careers and skills come and go. Let’s face it, there’s not too many carburettor repair businesses left. Few if any typesetting businesses. Conversely, there will ALWAYS be a need for sales people, ALWAYS be a need for emotional direct response marketers. What may change of course is the media.
Importantly though, it’s those trained in Emotional Direct Response marketing that are the first to take advantage $$$$ of any NEW media. The overriding valuable skill of course is to put words together in a way that motivates people to buy from you or do what you want them to do.
Put simply, copywriting. Why do the ads, products and services of yesteryear still work today? It’s because people’s reasons for buying, fortunately, DO NOT CHANGE.
They want to know what other’s know that they don’t know. People will always want to know how to do things better, mostly to improve their lot in some way. Impress other people. Save money and make money. It’s no surprise that we all want to be attractive to the opposite sex and have great sex.
We even want to be more attractive physically, emotionally and feel good about ourselves. And we want a magic pill that does it all tomorrow. We want to get the latest new widget and live in the best neighbourhood. If you think about it, some things haven’t changed at all, and in fact we are neither sophisticated or complicated, that’s why old things are new again.
Best regards
Mal
