Did John Caples Lie Through His Teeth?

Last week, my friend Ryan Healy blogged an interesting question.

It was about misleading people in advertising.

And how far is “too far” when telling stories in sales letters, where it goes from a perfectly ethical and legal sales tool to a blatant and misleading lie?

One of his examples was the famous John Caples ad:

Very successful ad.

But, IMHO, misleading.

In fact, here’s what I wrote on Ryan’s blog about it:

I’m going to give a counterpoint to the Caples thing.

I think his ad is highly misleading.

I am not judging Caples or anything.

But is it any different than if I wrote an ad telling a story about how a fictitious newbie copywriter beat a strong control ad right out the gate by 200%, and everyone in the forums he haunts was awe-struck and begging for him to reveal how he did it, and he said “It’s because I read Ben Settle’s ‘Copywriting Grab Bag’…”?

When, in reality, he did not read it because he does not exist?

I’d probably be strung up and cast out amongst the lepers if I wrote an ad like that. Maybe I’m wrong and am missing something with this, but that seems to basically be what Caples did.

Not judging anyone, BTW.

Just seems misleading to me.

Anyway, just one man’s opinion.

To judge for yourself, you can grab the ad here.

And if you’d like to chime in on this, click here.

Ben Settle

P.S. Last week I killed The Crackerjack Selling CD Club.

I’ll explain why in the world I’d end a program which did almost twice as well as expected soon. But for now, I’d like to give a heads-up to those who originally wanted the “Crackerjack Selling Secrets” book without being forced to join the continuity.

It’ll be available as a stand alone product probably next week.

Please let me know if you joined the Crackerjack Selling CD Club and did NOT get my special announcement sent to the customers last week.