Sneaking In To Universal Studios

Or: "When Is An Ad Not An Ad?"

From Timothy A. Gross, Executive Director - Educated Media, LLC

Dear Friends: It's confession time...

In my early '20s, I wanted to get onto the Universal Studios back lot, for reasons I won't get into here. That meant getting past at least one uniformed guard, whose main job was to keep me (and others) from accomplishing that.

There were a couple different approaches I could have used:

1) Approach the guard and give him the name of someone I was claiming to be meeting inside
2) Try to sneak in when no one was looking
3) Challenge the guard to a bare-knuckle fight

…But the approach I finally decided on was this:

I put on the hat that employees wear at a nearby Italian restaurant and pulled up to the entrance gate with an empty pizza box in my car.

Instead of having to give a song-and-dance to the guard about who I was claiming to be meeting inside, or worrying about being seen as I tried to sneak in without detection, I just looked at the guard, nodded my head toward the pizza box I had with me, and said, "I'm delivering to building 7".

Couldn't have been easier. I went in under the radar. No worries, no problems.

In sales, most marketers don't seem to try to go "under the radar". Sure, in their sales letters they work at establishing their credibility, why potential customers should do business with them, they use risk reversals, etc., but at the end of the day, does the customer know he's being "sold"?

- You betcha. And that keeps their guard up.

When Is A Sales Letter Not A Sales Letter?

One of the most successful direct mail letters of all time was the infamous "Coat Of Arms" letter created by copywriting legend Gary Halbert.

If you're not familiar with the Coat Of Arms letter, here's the basic pitch:

Gary wrote a friendly-sounding letter, signed by his wife, stating that they'd recently done a historical search on their family name and had printed up some handsome documents including a family crest. The letter stated they'd "printed too many" and had gotten the recipient's name out of the phone book and wanted to offer them one of the extras, since Gary's wife had gone to so much trouble to create them in the first place, and it would be a shame to see them go to waste, etc., etc.

For a few dollars, the recipient could buy the Coat Of Arms with their last name on it, and then came the all-important upsell: They could also purchase an attractive frame to display their Coat Of Arms document if they so chose.

Result: It was one of the most successful direct mail campaign in history.

Why Was It So Successful?

-Because the recipients didn't perceive it as an ad. Their defenses were down. They were presented with a unique opportunity to get their family crest very inexpensively due to the "kind-hearted" offer of someone who had worked very hard to research the name for themselves.

In a nutshell: One of the most successful direct-mail "ad" in history wasn't even perceived as an ad!

You may have heard this case study before, as I have… But the crucial (and profitable) ingredient to it that I've never heard anyone ask is this:

How can we as marketers ADAPT THE CONCEPT of this runaway success to our own situation and marketplace?? Not much interests me in the abstract - I'm interested in knowing how I can USE information to make a pile of cash!

When Is YOUR Ad Not An Ad?

If you can answer that question, you may be able to break through to a new level of earning capacity. I hope it gets you thinking. :-)

To your success, Tim Gross

P.S. - Several years back when Clinton was Executive Director, there was a big "scare" when he was staying in a hotel close to Santa Barbara (where I grew up), because a pizza delivery guy accidentally went to Clinton's room (he meant to go to a different room) and no Secret Service people stopped him from getting to the door.

Moral of the story: You can open a lot of closed doors in this world if you're willing to carry a pizza box. :-)

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