Richard Armstrong

Captain Midnight: The perfect direct response prospect

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On the evening of April 26 1986, millions of homes on the eastern half of the US were tuning in to the spy drama The Falcon and the Snowman.

​​It was being broadcast on HBO. But not for long.

Soon after midnight on the 27th, the picture flickered and changed. The SMPTE color bars appeared along with a message:

GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]

This weird interruption only lasted 4 1/2 minutes, but it had big consequences.

The next day, network news picked up the story.

​​People around the country got to jabbering about the unfairness of HBO’s prices.

​​HBO was furious, and they put pressure on the FCC to catch Captain Midnight, whoever he was.

​​Several months and an investigative manhunt later, that’s just what happened.

In July of that year, Captain Midnight was arrested and exposed as a 25-year-old electrical engineer named John MacDougall.

​​MacDougall lived in Ocala, Florida. He had a part-time job there at the Central Florida Teleport satellite uplink station.

Turns out, MacDougall also had a satellite dish installation business.

His business was doing well, until changes in HBO’s pricing turned people away from the idea of getting a satellite dish installed.

MacDougall’s business tanked. He was personally offended by HBO and financially hurt.

And so, while monitoring the satellite uplink of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, he made an impulsive decision.

He pulled up the character generator and typed up the above message. Once Pee-wee’s Big Adventure finished, he pointed the giant 30-foot dish straight at the Galaxy 1 satellite. And he jammed Transponder 23, which carried the eastern feed of HBO.

MacDougall’s message appeared on millions of TVs across the country, and Captain Midnight was born.

I thought this story was interesting. Almost as interesting as Richard Armstrong’s How to Talk Anybody into Anything.

That’s the little book Richard wrote about 44 points he learned by studying con artists. Point 3 is about how con artists choose their marks.

I won’t tell you what RIchard’s point 3 is here. You can find that at the link below.

What I will tell you is that, when you’re writing direct response copy, you might feel your prospects are gullible nincompoops.

But they are not. At least if they are good prospects. In order to sell big with direct marketing, you want to sell to people like Captain Midnight.

How do we know? Well, that’s what Richard Armstrong says, and he’s what you might call an A-list copywriter.

Richard’s How to Talk Anybody into Anything could probably sell for hundreds of dollars. Once upon a time, it was only available behind a paywall, as a bonus for RIchard’s novel the Don Con.

But right now, you can download a copy of RIchard’s 44-point con man guide, for free, without any obligations. In case you are interested, here’s where to go:

​​​​https://www.thedoncon.com/

Free sample: Why you are not “bombarded with information”

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Yesterday, I started reading a book called Metaphorically Selling. It looks promising, but…

The first chapter is all about the NEED for metaphor in sales and marketing. Here’s the gist:

“There is nowhere you can turn to escape the barrage of pitches vying for your attention and your disposable income. Twenty five hundred bids for our attention bombard us daily, from the television, the radio, the newspaper, the …”

How many times have you heard the same “bombarded with information” argument? I guess each marketing book, course, and seminar has to make it at the start, like a doctor putting a stethoscope around his neck to look professional.

I can tell you this:

This argument didn’t make me nod my head in agreement. Instead, it made me think of a talk that copywriter Richard Armstrong gave at AWAI bootcamp. Richard said:

“Nowadays it makes no more sense to say we are bombarded with information than it would be to say that a fish is bombarded with water. No, a fish is swimming in water. He’s living in water. He’s breathing water. To a very large extent, he’s actually made of water. And so it is with human beings and information.”

I probably heard Richard’s talk 3-4 years ago (it’s up on YouTube). I only listened to it once.

And yet, this one idea, that we are like fish swimming in an ocean of information, has stuck with me ever since. It pops up in my mind whenever I hear the cliche claim about being “bombarded by information.”

And if you take a moment to think about what I just said, you will find a recipe for messages that stick with your prospect for years… that pop up in his mind regularly… and that he shares with others, like I just did with you.

But if you don’t want to take the time to figure out the recipe, don’t worry. I’ll write more about it in a book I’m putting together. You can consider the above a free sample of that.

Anyways, the reason I watched Richard’s talk is because I read his own free sample book. And I was so impressed.

Richard is what you might call an A-list copywriter. His free sample book is a collection of his most successful and interesting ads. Along with his funny commentary.

And the best part? Richard’s free sample book is completely different from everything else out there.

Perhaps you don’t believe me. Or perhaps you’re curious. In either case, if you’re the type of person who wants to check things out for yourself, you can take a look at the link below.

But before you go, in case you’d like to take a daily swim in the ocean current that is my email newsletter, you can do that here.

And here’s the link to Richard’s free sample book:

https://www.freesamplebook.com/

Captain Midnight: a perfect direct response prospect

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On April 26 1986, millions of homes on the eastern half of the US were tuning in to the spy drama The Falcon and the Snowman.

It was being broadcast on HBO, but not for long. Soon after midnight on the 27th, the picture flickered and changed. The SMPTE color bars appeared along with a message:

GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]

This weird interruption only lasted 4 1/2 minutes, but it had big consequences.

The next day, network news picked up the story. People around the country got to jabbering about the unfairness of HBO’s prices. HBO was furious, and they put pressure on the FCC to catch Captain Midnight, whoever he was.

Several months and an investigative manhunt later, that’s just what happened.

In July of that year, Captain Midnight was arrested and exposed as a 25-year-old electrical engineer named John MacDougall. He lived in Ocala, Florida. He had a part-time job there at the Central Florida Teleport satellite uplink station.

But what was MacDougall’s motivation for this stunt?

Was he a modern-day Robin Hood?

Had he been planning this for months?

Turns out, MacDougall had a satellite dish installation business. He’d been doing real well for a few years. But then, HBO (and other paid cable channels) started giving satellite dish owners the shaft. Instead of getting HBO for free, satellite dish owners now had to pay $500 for a decoder box plus $12.95 a month.

So people stopped buying satellite dishes. MacDougall’s business tanked. He was miffed. And so, while monitoring the satellite uplink of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, he made an impulsive decision.

He pulled up the character generator and typed up the above message. Once Pee-wee’s Big Adventure finished, he pointed the giant 30-foot dish straight at the Galaxy 1 satellite. And he jammed Transponder 23, which carried the eastern feed of HBO.

“I had no animus and I had no malice in my heart,” said MacDougall. “It was the act of a frustrated individual who was trying to get his point across to people who didn’t seem to listen.”

I thought this story was interesting. Almost as interesting as Richard Armstrong’s How to Talk Anybody into Anything. That’s the little book Richard wrote about 44 points he learned by studying con artists. Point 3 is about how con artists choose their marks:

“Look for intelligent, emotional & impulsive people”

That’s good to remember and easy to forget. Because when you’re writing direct response copy, you might feel like you have people’s inner motivations at the tips of your fingers. You might feel you can manipulate them into doing what you want. You might even feel your prospects are gullible nincompoops.

But they are not. At least if they are good prospects, like Richard Armstrong says. In order to sell big with direct marketing, you want to write to people like Captain Midnight. Intelligent, frustrated, lacking a feeling of control.

“The customer is not a moron,” said David Ogilvy. “She’s your wife.” But let me finish the story of Captain Midnight.

In the following months, HBO devised a system to identify unauthorized uplink transmissions. Congress passed a new law, which made satellite hijacking a felony. But MacDougall was charged under the old law, with just a misdemeanor, and got away with a $5,000 fine.

He still lives and works in Ocala, FL, where he continues to make an excellent prospect for bizop offers. As for his legacy, MacDougall says,

“I do not regret trying to get the message out to corporate America about unfair pricing and restrictive trade practices. That was the impetus for doing what I did; that’s the reason I jammed HBO; that’s the reason I sent them a polite message.”

An open letter to those bombarded by information

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Here’s a pop quiz for you. What do…

Michelle Obama…

Dave Chappelle…

And Spike Lee…

All have in common?

Take a moment and get past your first gut reaction. No? Nothing else comes to mind? Here’s the answer then:

All three of these cultural figures have publicly complained about being “bombarded with information.”

Of course, it’s not just the three of them.

This information bombardment thing has become a big cultural cliche, and thousands of people are out there right now, on Facebook and Twitter, repeating the same line.

Which ​probably means this idea of being bombarded with information — if if ever was true — is not very accurate any more.

​​In that case, it’s ripe for being replaced by a different, more useful point of view. And just in time, here’s A-list copywriter Richard Armstrong on the matter:

“It makes no more sense to say we are bombarded with information than to say a fish is bombarded with water.”

In Richard’s point of view, we are NOT bombarded with information.

Instead, we’re swimming in it.

We’re living in it.

And to a large extent, we are actually made of it.

The fact is, we’re all adapting very quickly to the increasing quantities of information around us.

Most of us realize on some level that all sources of information — newspapers, personal blogs, online forums, Facebook ads — are biased and are trying to sell us something (even if it’s just a point of view).

The thing is, it doesn’t seem to matter too much.

That’s because we are not independent fortresses trying to protect ourselves from information grenades…

Instead, we are spongy organisms that soak up information all the time, based on what we find tasty.

I’ll stop with this post here, because I am worried it’s getting too abstract.

But this philosophical discussion does have very practical applications. And if you want to know what those are, and how you can use them to communicate more swimmingly with your audience, you might like my upcoming book:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

Copywriting lessons from a knife-wielding burglar

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Back when I was in college, I lived in a slum house with four other guys.

One of them eventually turned out to be a weed dealer. Which I didn’t mind for a while — it was Santa Cruz, after all.

But that all changed one sleepy afternoon.

I was taking a nap in my room, as I tend to do. And then a strange rasping noise woke me up.

Rasp rasp rasp.

I tried to go back to sleep.

But the rasping wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t even so loud — but it was such an unusual noise, and coming from somewhere so close, that I got curious to find out what was going on.

So I got up, opened the door of my bedroom, and stepped outside into the hallway.

There was an unfamiliar man there.

He was ​​holding a large kitchen knife, and trying to carve a hole in one of the other doors. The door belonging to the room of my weed-dealing housemate.

The burglar and I looked at each other in the darkness of the hallway. He collected himself first and said, “Go back to your room.”

Which I promptly did. I locked the door behind myself and called 911.

Of course by the time the police came, the burglar was gone.

All that was left was the kitchen knife lying in the hallway, and the random pieces of door that he had uselessly chipped away.

Which brings up today’s marketing lesson.

You see, this knife-wielding burglar attacked the door from all angles.

In fact, the area that he was trying to carve through was about the size of a dinner plate.

If he had focused his energy on a smaller part of the door…

Or even better, if he had just clawed away at the door knob…

Then he probably would have gotten to the money and the weed on the other side.

And that’s the marketing lesson I mentioned.

When you’re writing a sales message, you don’t want to spread yourself thin, and hope to have a breakthrough by chipping away at all parts of your market.

Instead, you should always aim for the white-hot core — the fanatics, the ultra-devoted, the people with the most consuming pain. ​​

Why?

Well, because the experts say so. I’ve heard the above sentiment from at least two A-list copywriters (Gary Bencivenga and Richard Armstrong). And whenever I’ve taken it to heart, I’ve found I get better results than when I try to make too many different appeals.

Sometimes, business owners find this hard to accept. Which is why it helps to get an outside perspective with your marketing and sales copy.

And in case you want to see how I’ve helped some big supplement businesses by applying the above principle, you might like to get a free copy of my upcoming book. You can sign up for it here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/