Spectacles

My “War of the Worlds” warning for copywriters and marketers

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I’ve been studying Spanish, and so I was both pleased and displeased to find a bunch of Spanish-language NPR podcasts that cover Latin America.

Pleased, because the podcasts are obviously interesting, as I will show you in a second.

Displeased, because the podcasts are really above my level. For example…

I had to listen to the first podcast three times. And then I followed along twice more with with transcript, just to make sure I understood it.

​​I’m not sure would have done that for the Spanish learning alone, but the podcast was relevant to this newsletter.

​​In a nut, here’s the story:

On Saturday, February 12, 1949, a local radio station in Quito, Ecuador put on a “radio novella” of the War of the Worlds. “The Martians are coming!”

As you probably know, 11 years earlier, Orson Welles had put on the same in the US.

​​In spite of real-life panic and outrage that Welles’s radio drama had created, for some reason the Quito people thought it would be a good idea to do the same.

And so, a few minutes after 9pm, as a popular musical duo played on the radio, the announcer came on and said,

“We interrupt this musical evening to bring you an urgent news update. According to the information of our reporters…”

According to the information of their reporters, Martian spaceships were attacking Latacunga, a town a few hours away from Quito.

The Martians destroyed Latacunga and then started advancing. With lightning speed.

You can guess how it went from there:

As the Martians progressed towards Quito, the Quiteños listening to the radio, which included pretty much everybody on a Saturday night, became panicked.

​​Some hid in cupboards and others started running and screaming in the streets. Still others took refuge in churches, praying for some kind of divine help. A bunch of people confessed their infidelities to their husbands or wives.

So you could say the “Guerra de los Mundos” was both a big success and a huge disaster, much like the Orson Welles original.

But here’s where the story takes a twist. Because when the radionovella finished, the radio announcer came on and said,

“It was all just a show, people. There are no Martians. Calm yourself, and enjoy the rest of your night.”

The panicked and agitated Quiteños didn’t calm down. But they sure enjoyed the rest of their night.

A large mob assembled outside the Radio Quito building. As the radio employees huddled inside, the mob started throwing bricks and stones at the windows.

And, because at the time it was common to walk around the largely unlit Quito with kerosene torches, the mob started lobbing these at the building as well.

Soon the building set on fire.

The angry mob brought cans of gasoline to add fuel to the fire and make sure the entire building burned down. When firefighters came to try to put out the flames, the mob drove them away. “If you so much as pour out a drop of water,” the mob threatened, “we will kill you.”

Eventually, the police managed to disperse the mob and the firefighters put out the fire. But by then, eight radio station employees had died from smoke inhalation and from burns.

What’s more, another dozen Quiteños died from heart attacks during the transmission. At least a few people jumped to their deaths from tall buildings rather than be annihilated by the Martian rays.

The next day, the Radio Quito building was completely burned down.

Leonardo Páez, the director of Radio Quito who had written and produced the “Guerra de los mundos,” had managed to escape through a window to an adjacent building. He was now on the lam, hiding from the angry mob. Eventually, he would be forced to run away to Venezuela, never to return.

Curious story, right?

And like I say, relevant to this newsletter, which is about copywriting and marketing.

A few weeks ago, I heard a successful copywriter talk about his prospects as NPCs – non-playable characters. Basically, nonentities, without a soul, who are only there to advance your own quest.

From what I could understand, this copywriter was talking about it from perspective of,

​​”What does it do to you, as the copywriter, to interact with people in this way, and to treat others as just a means to your end?”

It may be bad for you psychologically.

And who knows. There might even be serious real-life consequences.

Like when you write a lead predicting the imminent End of America is here so you can sell stock picks… or announcing that fruits and vegetables are toxic so you can sell a greens powder… or breathlessly announcing an invasion of Obama clones, coming for your children, so you can sell a crank-powered radio…

In those cases, and even in less dramatic ones, who knows. Maybe one day an angry mob shows up outside your workplace and starts to throw kerosene torches at your windows.

But probably not, right? After all, the Internet provides us with way more insulation and security than those people at Radio Quito had.

Anyways, I don’t have a point here. I just wanted to tell you this NPR story and maybe get you thinking a bit. And also, to remind you I have a daily email newsletter. In case you’d like to sign up for it you can do that here.

The Psycho rules you MUST have for a stronger business and more successful customers

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Last night, as lights dimmed around the city and the streets got quiet and a lonely owl started hooting somewhere in the distance, I settled into bed and started watching…

Psycho!

(​​The trailer.)

This was a 6-minute promo movie, made by Alfred Hitchcock, to drum up anticipation for the real Psycho movie.

The Psycho trailer features Hitchcock himself, showing off the Psycho set as if it were a real crime scene.

​​With cheery music playing, Hitchcock walks around the set, hints at the murders that happened in different rooms, and occasionally pouts and frowns at camera as if to say, “You there, in the second row, what odd thing are you doing?”

At the end of it all, Hitchcock walks into the motel, to the bathroom.

“Well they cleaned all this up now,” he says. “Big difference. You should have seen the blood. The whole place was… well, it’s too horrible to describe.”

In spite of this, Hitchcock continues his cheery tour. He points out the toilet — an important clue — and then the shower. The camera zooms in as he reaches for the shower curtain, pulls it back swiftly, and—

A screaming woman’s face flashes and the famous Psycho slasher music cuts into your ears.

The closing credits appear, and then a notice:

“PSYCHO: The picture you MUST see from the beginning… or not at all! For no one will be seated after the start.”

“What?” I asked my laptop. No one allowed in late? Is this for real?”

It turns out yes.

Hitchcock made a rule for the release of Psycho. Nobody would be allowed into the theater, any theater, anywhere around country, after the movie had started.

Studio honchos were worried that this arbitrary rule would hurt ticket sales.

But you, my dear marketing psycho, probably know better.

What do you think happened?

Did people hear they won’t be allowed in late, and decide to stay away?

Did a few people who did come late, and who got turned away, and who fumed about it… did these people sour everybody else from seeing the movie?

Of course not.

Lines formed around the block, in cities around the US, made up of people waiting to see Psycho, at the appointed time.

Of course, these people were not there only because of this “No late admission” rule.

But I’m 100% sure this rule contributed to the fact that Pyscho broke box-office records in its opening weekend, and has become such a keystone of pop culture since.

Maybe you see where I’m going with this.

People loooove draconian rules and restrictions, particularly in a take-it-or-leave it setting.

Sure, some people get turned away. Either because they know in advance they can’t make it to the theater in time, or more likely, because they dawdle.

But some people will be intrigued who wouldn’t care otherwise. And more important, many people will treat the person setting the rules with a new level of respect and deference.

Ben Settle recently wrote an email about his Psycho rule not to allow people who unsubscribe from his Email Players newsletter to re-subscribe down the line. Ben wrote:

“I’ve tested, tweaked, experimented with, and practiced this policy for nearly 10 years. And I have found, without exception, the harsher I am with this policy, the stronger my business gets with far more successful customers. On the other hand, the more lenient I am with this policy, the weaker my business gets with far more weak-minded customers. It’s such an integral part of what makes my business model work, that it’s ‘part’ of my marketing now, just like clean parks are ‘part’ of Disneyland’s customer service.”

So there you go. If you want a stronger business and more successful customers, stop allowing anyone into your theater after the lights dim.

Or stop allowing them back in, if they ever leave for a pee break.

Or come up with yer own Psycho rules. Ones that match your personality, your preferences, and your business objectives.

“Here it comes,” some oddball in the second row is saying, while rubbing his hands together. “Here come Bejako’s rules. He always likes to write about an interesting marketing and business idea, and then implement it in the same email.”

True. I do like to implement good ideas as soon as I write about them.

But another thing I like to do is to take a really important idea, and sit on it for a while, and then implement it in future emails, and throughout my business.

This particular idea, about Psycho rules, is big enough and important enough to warrant more time and space than I want to take for a single email.

But keep an eye out, if you have an eye to spare, and maybe will see me pulling back the shower curtain some time soon, and with scary slasher music suddenly playing, startling my list with one of my new Pyscho rules.

Meanwhile, if you want my advice, insights, and guidance (no copywriting) when it comes to your existing email marketing funnels, you can contact me using the form below.

No arbitrary rules or hoops to jump through — yet.

​​Here’s the link:

https://bejakovic.com/consulting

How to create positioning that your more established competition will eat itself alive for

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Around 10:20pm, a tiny dot appeared in the skies above Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, France.

A crowd of thousands of people, happy and slightly drunk, waiting at the airport, started to cheer and push forward. Men took off their hats and waved them in the air. Women, a little more dignified, kept their hats on.

The dot grew larger. It was now visibly a gray and white monoplane.

At 10:22pm on May 21 1927, exactly 95 years ago, the plane landed. The drunk and happy crowd ran out onto the tarmac and immediately surrounded it on all sides.

Out of the plane, a slim, worn-looking young man staggered out and raised his hand in greeting. After 55 hours of non-stop flying, across more than 3,600 miles, he had finally done it.

An incredible feat. Celebrated around the globe.

Worthy of being remembered even a century later.

Charles Lindbergh, the Lone Eagle, had become the third man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic.

Yes, third.

What? That’s not how you know the story? You know Lindbergh as the 25-year old flier who gained instant worldwide fame by becoming the first man to fly nonstop across the Atlantic?

I’m here to tell you it wasn’t so. In June 1919, two British fliers, John Alcock and Arthur Brown, made the first nonstop transatlantic flight. They flew from Newfoundland to Ireland.

Sure, Lindbergh’s flight from New York to Paris was longer, almost double the length. And he was flying solo.

But on the other hand, Alcock and Brown did it eight years earlier, with much wonkier technology — planes were developing fast in those days. So perhaps their feat was braver and more impressive than Lindbergh’s.

It’s kind of a puzzle, isn’t it?

Why did Charles Lindbergh become an instantaneous celebrity by flying across the Atlantic? And why has nobody ever told you, until I told you today, that two other guys flew across the Atlantic almost a decade earlier?

I’ll give you one good reason:

Spectacle.

Lindbergh was flying to win a much talked-about prize of $25,000, worth over $415,000 in today’s money, put up by a French-American businessman, and left unclaimed for over 8 years.

Days before the famous transatlantic flight, Lindbergh flew from San Diego to New York, setting a record for the fastest transcontinental crossing, and building up anticipation and interest.

Also, 1927 was a mostly peaceful and stable year in Europe and the U.S. Newspapers were hungry for a story, and young Lindy was a good-looking kid.

And then, there were all the idle and drunk crowds in New York, the idle and drunk crowds in Paris, the American ambassador to France putting in an appearance, and a collection of the best French aviators at the time, circling the Paris skies in anticipation of Lindbergh’s arrival.

Poor Alcock and Brown didn’t have any of those advantages. And that’s why nobody ever celebrates them today.

So my point is:

If you want people to remember you, get yourself some spectacle.

Think big. Create anticipation. Enlist slightly drunken crowds to stand around and cheer as you do whatever it is that you do.

It can turn you into worldwide celebrity, a daredevil star, someone who is talked about for years or decades or even a century later.

Or if your ambitions are smaller, and mainly focus on making money and having a business, it will give you positioning. The kind of positioning that others in your industry, who were there long before you — working hard, risking it all, for not much acclaim — will eat themselves alive for.

For more positioning ideas and advice, you might like my spectacular email newsletter.

John Bejakovic writes only for the Letter

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I’ve got a quirky history lesson for you today. But before you run and hide, let me say this lesson is as valuable and as relevant as an NFT investing tip. Here goes:

The first full-page advertisement in the U.S. appeared in The New York Herald, on June 7, 1856. It repeated the same phrase nearly a thousand times, all the way down the page:

“Fanny Fern writes only for the Ledger”

The ad was taken out by the extravagant Robert Bonner, the owner of the Herald’s rival newspaper, The New York Ledger.

​​Bonner had hired a then-popular writer, Fanny Fern, to write a story for his newspaper at an astronomical $100 per column. And now he was advertising the fact, over and over, in a single ad, in his rival’s newspaper.

Result?

The circulation of The Ledger doubled, to nearly 50k.

Bonner didn’t repeat this exact ad in the future, but he kept his eccentric advertising practices to promote his newspaper. Sometimes he repeated a phrase in an ad over and over, sometimes he ran a full-page ad that was almost entirely empty.

His newspaper circulation grew and grew. Bonner died a millionaire, back when a million bucks could buy you a skyscraper or three.

So what’s the point?

Well, I won’t try to massage this little story into a stiff lesson for you. Rather, I’d like give you a meta-point:

A clear example or two, or fifty, are often more valuable than a bunch of rules.

And if you truly are interested in persuasion, influence, copywriting, and the like, then there’s an entire history of real-world experiments out there, just waiting for you to discover and rediscover.

Maybe you can reduce these experiments to theoretical rules. Or maybe, more profitably and usefully, you can just use them for new ideas you can imitate, sometimes verbatim, in your own marketing and influence efforts today.

Speaking of which:

My headline above says, “John Bejakovic writes only for the Letter.”

The Letter. Yes. That’s the name for my daily email newsletter. The John Bejakovic Letter. In case you want to join the growing circulation of this little rag, I still have a few copies available, and you can sign up to get one, on the regular, for free.