John Carlton’s Best Ads: So Why Does a Famous Doctor Urgently Need To Speak With You?

I still don’t know why Rodale came to me for a letter to the burgeoning Christian health market. I was the guy who wrote their “sex” letters, and was briefly blacklisted for causing trouble and generally not being a “team player”.

I mean… I use very strong language in my copy, as you no doubt have noticed. Not exactly the sort of words you’d choose when the Vicar comes to tea.

But I was also the “outsider”, the writer expected to deliver something different and brash and new. They didn’t want to go after this lucrative new market with their usual stuff. So they tricked me into taking the job.

It’s been mailed, off and on, to various religious lists for over a year now. I don’t believe it’s a monster winner, but the jury’s still out. Like I said, it’s a new market they’re testing.

I’ve included this letter in the collection because it’s a great example of taking the same techniques I use for martial arts, bodybuilding, golf and other “harder” markets … and softening those techniques up enough to work to a more “sensitive” audience (which is also primarily female). It’s still simply a matter of finding the right hot buttons, attaching eye-opening benefits, and driving the sale home.

I just leave out the words that raise the hair on grandmothers.

Click here to see the “So Why Does a Famous Doctor Urgently Need To Speak With You?” ad.

(It will open in a new window or tab, so you can toggle between the ad and Carlton’s commentary.)

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