Having just finished Joseph Sugarman’s Advertising Secrets of the Written Word (now known as The Adweek Copywriting Handbook) I decided to look around my household and choose random items that I love – and some that it would be a challenge to write enthusiastically about – and create a long-form direct response ads for those items in the style of the ubiquitous JS&A advertisements of the 1970’s and ’80’s.
I spared no detail. Visually, you’ll notice the bad clip-out job on the photography – reminiscent of old “camera-ready” film stripping. The dot pattern is coarse, maybe a little exaggerated on my part, and I shut off the software-based automatic type kerning adjustments that would not have existed in the early 1980’s.
Pop psychology buffs will recognize the basic Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques that make an appearance. Sensory modifiers are carefully used to appeal to all five of the V.A.K.O.G. representational systems, establishing rapport with a broad audience. Also, unconscious right-brain resources are accessed through isolated instances of emphasis in the text as well (e.g.: the italicized words in Iron Man‘s first column of text that together read: “father – must – own – cast iron – cookware”). Not sure how authentically Sugarman-esque these last elements are, but Sugarman did serve in military intelligence and the C.I.A. Who knows what tricks he had up his sleeve.ΜΤ