Outrage

I thought “fake news” was stupid but this is not

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A few weeks ago, I was reading an article about Ozempic, the diabetes drug that celebs are using to lose weight quick and easy. The article appeared in the New Yorker, which is not ashamed of its left-leaning proclivities.

One of the points in the article is that the main harm from obesity is negative perception both by doctors and obese people. In other words, it’s not the fat that’s the real problem.

​​To make its point, the article used the following statistics sleight-of-hand, which put a smile on my face:

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A recent study examined subjects’ B.M.I.s in relation to their blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and insulin resistance. Nearly a third of people with a “normal” B.M.I. had unhealthy metabolic metrics, and nearly half of those who were technically overweight were metabolically healthy. About a quarter of those who were classified as obese were healthy, too.

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A few years ago, there was a lot of fuss over fake news. I always thought that fuss was stupid. Predictably, it has passed now.

I’m not advising anyone to write fake news or to make up stuff.

But you can and in fact you must spin. You must twist facts and figures, cherry pick quotes and stories, and direct and misdirect your readers’ attention at every step.

Not only to make your point, like in that “metabolically unhealthy” quote above.

But also to give people what they want. I mean, I read the New Yorker because I find the articles interesting and horizon-expanding. But I also read it because I enjoy agreeing with the writers’ points of view, and I enjoy even more disagreeing with their point of view.

I hope I’ve managed to get you to disagree with at least some of the points I’ve made in this email.

But if I’ve just managed to make you agree, I’ll have to settle for that today. Tomorrow, I’ll work to do better.

That’s the beauty of writing a daily email. You have a chance to constantly get better at influencing your audience, and to make your case anew, and to get people to agree or disagree with you. If you want to keep agreeing or disagreeing with me, starting tomorrow, you can sign up to my daily email newsletter here.

“Pharma Bro in contempt”: Everything going to plan

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I’m signed up for the Federal Trade Commission newsletter, because I like to get news of marketing scams, pyramid schemes, and other skulduggery that can be useful for business. So a few days ago, I got a press release with the unlikely but highly satisfying headline:

“FTC Asks Federal Court to Hold ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli in Contempt”

You probably know Shkreli. He’s a young guy who caused mass outrage a few years back. He bought a pharma company that sold a lifesaving drug, and then raised the price of that drug 55x, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Shkreli then schemed to suppress competition, to make sure desperate patients were forced to pay the new 55x price for his drug.

When this became international news, Shkreli smirked at cameras, and said the one mistake he made was that he didn’t raise the price even higher.

“Why are people coming after you?” asked one interviewer.

“It might have something to do with me being very handsome,” Shkreli answered with a smile.

People were fuming.

“Martini Shkreli,” said one irritated TV announcer, doing what he does best: looking like a real slappable prick.”

So the FTC headline is very clever and very fitting. The new news, by the way, is not that Shkreli is now officially contemptible — which is what the headline makes you think, and which is what most people feel — but that he disobeyed court orders, and is therefore himself “in contempt of court.”

Whatever. Point is:

Maybe Shkreli is a natural-born “slappable prick.” Or maybe it’s an act he’s putting on for reasons of his own.

Either way, I think Shkreli’s behavior is worth studying — and even emulating.

“Whoa whoa hold on there,” I hear you saying. “John, you don’t want to go down that road! There are many better ways to get attention than to become contemptible. It’s not worth it!”

No doubt. And I’m not actually planning on getting into the pharma business, or doing anything to taunt the FTC, or playing around with people’s lives.

But that doesn’t change the fact that specific strategies Shkreli is using — whether instinctively or consciously — can be very valuable if you run a completely above-board, highly moral, or even noble business.

That’s something I will write more about in a future book on positioning, which I’m working on now.

But to twist the advice of James Altucher:

“The best way to promote your next book? Get people to read your current book.”

And so let me remind you of my 10 Commandments of A-List Copywriters.

​​Get it now if you want, because tomorrow I will be raising the price of this baby to $200 for the ebook and $250 for the paperback — the highest prices Amazon will me allow me to charge. You can watch the price increase at the page below:

https://bejakovic.com/10commandments