I read a lot. And I advise you to read a lot, too. As an old English teacher once told me: Read a book a week. And then, in your spare time, read another one.
Non-fiction, and fiction. Newspapers and magazine excerpts don’t count. (One trick I allow myself: At any time, if l realize the book I’m into is a complete dog… I give myself permission to toss it across the room, and start a new book. I’d give even the worst-written book about 100 pages before making the call. I love reading, but I refuse to be bored or have my intelligence insulted or my time wasted. This relieves the pressure most people feel to “finish what they started”… because, when you’re stuck with a bad book you aren’t motivated to finish, it will sit on your bed stand for six months, and keep you from moving forward to something you do like.)
Anyway… I like to alternate my reading between current and “classic” stuff. Also, I love weird and off-beat stuff. But regarding this ad: I read “Black Hawk Down” as soon as it hit the market. If you don’t know about this book, shame on you. It’s about a fascinating military blunder in Africa, when we were trying to help the U.N. on a humanitarian mission. The book is an excellent moment-by-moment account of the action. But more interesting, to me, was the “after word”. Where the author came clean with what he had learned from writing the book. (His main conclusion: All humanitarian intervention in third world countries is doomed… until the people get past their tribal alliances. Tribes hate each other for things done centuries ago. It holds the entire continent back, and dismantles democracies before they can even get a foothold.)
Anyway, Ho11ywood quickly made a rather good movie about the book. For a while, “Black Hawk Down” was part of the American vocabulary.
And I was ready. This letter hit the same week the movie did.
As I was doing my sales detective work, I insisted on bothering the talent about any missions they’d been on. And what kind of helicopters they had ridden in. Now, military guys are extremely reluctant to talk about specifics to civilians. (Among themselves, it’s hard to shut them up. But insert even a single “civvie” in the group, and it’s clam-up time.)
It took a while… but 1 knew what I wanted. And, hey, guess what? Turns out, in Granada, this guy really was shot down in a Black Hawk helicopter. Heck, the ad wrote itself after that. I put in some cheap shots at Hollywood — real fighters hate the way Hollywood shows guys getting kicked in the balls, hit in the teeth with a baseball bat, and shot… and then getting up and shaking themselves like a wet dog, and suddenly they’re okay. It’s really dumb, and gives people the exact wrong idea about real-life violence.
Often, I don’t like to use “timely” things in my headlines, or in my copy. Because it “dates” the ad… and when the memory of that event fades, the ad loses power. As you know, I may hold the record for writing ads that last over 5 years in the marketp1ace.
That’s pretty impressive… but it’s just downright astounding when you realize that 99.99% of all other ads rarely last through a single year!
But this was just too good to pass up. The power of what I had, at that time, at that situation, helped me create an ad that killed in the mail, and did well for a long time in the mags. I suppose it’s power has faded faster than if I’d used a less timely concept…but screw it.
I went for the jugular, and hit pay dirt.
Notice, too, the “Special Civilian Entry Code” number. This lent a very selective “tint” to the piece. A special twist on the “take away” tactic.
Click here to see the “Black Hawk Down!” 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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