![]() | | ||||||||
| | #1 |
| Internet Marketing 007 War Room Member Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 288
Thanks: 70
Thanked 292 Times in 81 Posts
|
Hello Warriors An image database of over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian advertisements covering five product categories
dated between 1911 and 1955 All You Have to Do Is Tap Into the Power of Colloquial Words, Phrases and Speech! ![]() |
| | |
| | |
| | #2 |
| HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: North Carolina
Posts: 99
Thanks: 50
Thanked 19 Times in 13 Posts
|
I appreciate this...it got my creative juices flowing...
|
| | |
| | #3 |
| Mal Lambe War Room Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: The Bunker, Paris
Posts: 2,269
Blog Entries: 2 Thanks: 703
Thanked 1,234 Times in 586 Posts
|
Oh yeah! I love old press ads - everything about them - layout, copy, images. They were killer. I notice quite a few are from J. Walter Thompson - which used to be the world's biggest agency with offices in every major western country and some third world countries. I worked there. In the "olden days" when they took you on in the mail-room and then moved you round various departments until you found your groove. Every month or so they'd have a viewing of TV spots from all the other JWT offices. And they were killer. You'd walk out of the theatre totally inspired. But they never shared the press ads around. Don't know why. I think they may have had an in-house journal or something for that. Its a bit hazy in my memory - it was back in the Sixties after all. And you know what they say about remembering the Sixties. Um...actually, I've forgotten. Something about "If you can remember the Sixties - you weren't there". Thanks so much for sharing this. |
| | |
| | |
| | #4 |
| Copy Champion War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 1,000
Thanks: 45
Thanked 507 Times in 302 Posts
|
Another good place to find old ads is Google Books Advanced Search ... Advanced Book Search I'm sure there's a ton of space ads from the 1970s to 1990s there. I recently did a search on "Green Tree Press" and found 6 space ads written by Bud Weckesser. You can learn more about Bud Weckesser here ... Bud Weckesser: Master of Case Study Marketing Alex |
| | |
| | #5 |
| Warrior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Dallas Metro
Posts: 16
Thanks: 3
Thanked 7 Times in 3 Posts
|
WOW! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the words "Green Tree Press." It brought me back to my early days - in 1979, right after I started my first company in Dunkirk, NY - the original home of Green Tree Press and Bud Weckesser. I actually met him a few times and he gave me some advice on how to write a successful ad. Until this day I never knew I was getting advice from a copywriting legend. But I will say this - when I implemented his advice and created that first ad - I stirred up such a controversy and easily got a couple thousand dollars worth of free advertising. My new little business went from being unknown to the talk of the town. |
| | |
| | #6 |
| Active Warrior Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Fort Worth, TX
Posts: 37
Thanks: 12
Thanked 3 Times in 1 Post
|
A great resource! I have been looking for examples of copy that interleave the promise, emotion and the image of the end result to the reader. Thank you. Frank C |
| | |
| | #7 |
| Ace Copywriter War Room Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Tropical Island...
Posts: 380
Thanks: 35
Thanked 48 Times in 36 Posts
|
Is there any indication of which ads did well - and which were a waste of time and money? Swiping dud ads is not going to help anyone. B. |
| | |
| | #8 | |
| Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 732
Thanks: 168
Thanked 610 Times in 234 Posts
| Quote:
This past summer I've spent a lot of time at Green Tree going through their 35 year archives. A couple of points. This one minor. Bud started his company in Akron, OH, he was a professor at Kent State University at the time. He had a friend in Dunkirk who operated the fulfillment house for him until he moved the entire operation to Erie, where it has been for the last couple of decades. The other point, like the poster below says, you need to know the history and details of the ad, how it actually performed, if it was a direct response ad, and you need to know the life of the ad and the product. I'll respond to that poster's comments below. Bud Weckesser started with small classifieds in the Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, went to small space ads, and then mastered the art of full page space ads. He also pioneered the ads run on the front page of the LA TIMES Classified section too. gjabiz | |
| | |
| | #9 | |
| Advanced Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 732
Thanks: 168
Thanked 610 Times in 234 Posts
| Quote:
The MEDIA is just as important as the AD. An could work great in, say, the Wall Street Journal but be a total dud in another publication. HARD details to find. And it is significant for a copy writer to know the details too. Some are starting to argue that the PAST is dead and what worked is unimportant. Ask Dan Kennedy, a modern master, what he thinks about this "history is unimportant" type of thinking. So here is an example of a successful ad. The Headline: What is this woman doing? And a picture. You can see the ad on Bernstein's page that Alex Cohen linked to. This ad ran for over a decade, with at least 6 differetn pictures and minor changes in the copy that Bud wanted to test. So you know that ad was a winner, but how did it pull in various publications. It killed in the "Women's" pubs and did OK in more general publications. A variant, What is this man doing, featuring Bud instead of his wife Mary, was tested and....it sucked. So what is this woman doing ran for over a decade and sold millions of dollars of books for Green Tree Press. Now a more recent test by Green Tree Press made a remarkable discovery, they added ONE line of copy to the end of the ad and it REDUCED response by 20%. Can you guess what the one line of copy said? I bet you can if you think about it. They took this line out, and sales jumped back up to where they were before the line of copy was added. You are 110% right on, it does NO good to swipe from a dud ad. Even Bud Weckesser "borrowed" from the best selling ads of his day. gjabiz | |
| | |
![]() |
|
| Tags |
| copywriting, file, library, swipe |
| Thread Tools | |
| |
![]() |