One of my favorite “marketing” books is called:
“Mail-Order Mysteries”
The author, pop-culture historian Kirk Demarais, goes through some 150 products he bought from direct response comicbook ads back in the 60s, 70’s, and 80’s. Everything from authentic laser-gun plans, x-ray specs, and even 7-foot-tall monsters with glow-in-the-dark eyes… to 100 Toy Soldiers in a Footlocker… to Count Dante’s World’s Deadliest Fighting Secrets… to Hypno-Coins, Life-Size Monsters, Sea Monkeys, Soil From Dracula’s Castle, and a ho’ bunch more.
Spoiler:
Very few did anything near what they promised.
All the ads are well-worth studying, though. (The products sold, not so much)
But, one offer that was especially useful to read about was a book called:
“Very Special People”
It was a 400-page book about… the abnormal. Like, for example The Elephant Man (it was written by the author of the popular book The Elephant Man), the original Siamese twins, “Hop” The frog boy, the Mule-Faced Woman, the Elastic Skin Man, The Heaviest Man in the World, The Tallest Man in the World, Living Skeletons (ooh yeah!), Fat ladies, Bearded Ladies, and limbless men like Prince Randian the Caterpillar Man (who is pictured in the ad), and probably a bunch more.
It was a smash success, too, from what I understand.
The reason?
Because people are irresistibly and morbidly drawn to freak shows.
Case in point:
Elaine’s dancing in the TV show Seinfeld or, for that matter, Taylor Swift’s dancing everyone makes fun of. For a more down to earth example, take my Copy Troll book cover — which was intended to give people the creeps. It was inspired by a painting I saw in an hotel when speaking at one of Agora Financials’ offices many years ago, where the character in the dayem painting’s eyes followed me wherever I was in the room, and I couldn’t help but stare back and examine it.
Anyway, freaky things are hard NOT to look at.
We’re talking instant and probably near-guaranteed engagement.
And it’s one of many reasons why the visual & design-side of marketing is both so potentially very powerful, yet so extremely underrated for whatever reason. You can potentially get a lot of engagement, sales, and new customers by tapping into forces like this. What you do with that engagement, of course, is what determines if you are going to be able to monetize it or not.
Something to think about.
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Ben Settle
