You already want to know more, don't you? Was this person male or female? Was s/he my age, younger, or older? Was s/he honest, hard working, and down-to-earth, or just a polished and slick snake-oil salesman? Did s/he reach the largest customer base in the land? And if s/he did, how can I do it, too?



Your prospective customers are people, just like you. They want to know more when faced with a rare – but very effective – technique of great copywriters. It's sometimes called “the character formula,” and you can begin now to put it to work for you.

A great advertising man of the 1950s, Leo Burnett believed in what he called “inherent drama.” He said that every product or service, no matter how boring it might first appear, had an inherent quality that could be highlighted to attract its customers. He knew that people are attracted to stories. They want to experience new characters and encounter mystery, romance, and anything different from their usual experiences.

He knew what great moviemakers know, that history and folklore provide the characters that will trigger a viewer's interest. At the heart of inherent drama is the character used to represent a product or service. Burnett is probably most famous for his creation of the “Marlboro Man.” Marlboro was a minor cigarette brand, until this character made it a big seller.

Leo Burnett also created such characters as the Jolly Green Giant, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and Tony the Tiger. He was quoted as saying, “Make it simple; make it memorable; make it inviting to look at; make it fun to read.” It's clear he did all of that when he created these characters that are forever part of Western pop culture.

Thirty years earlier, another marketing legend created a concept of character that can be used for any sort of business there is. Maxwell Sackheim made a character out of his client, the advertiser. He wrote his ads as if the clients themselves were talking.

Here's part of a letter he wrote for his client Frank E. Davis, a.k.a. The Gloucester Fisherman:

“There is no use trying. I've tried and tried to tell people about my fish, but I wasn't rigged out to be an ad writer…I can close-haul a sail with the best of them. I know how to pick out the best fish of the catch. I know just which fish will make the tastiest mouthfuls, but I'll never learn the knack of writing an ad that will tell people why my kind of fish…is lots better than the ordinary store kind.

“I can't explain it; but at least you can taste the difference. So you won't mind, will you, if I ship some of my fish direct to your home? It won't cost you anything unless you feel like keeping it…”

This letter, and others like it, sold tens of thousands of tubs of fish across the country. It succeeded because of the authentic character of the Gloucester Fisherman and Sackheim's technique of letting that character communicate directly to the consumer.

Try this for yourself. Tell people who you are and what you have to offer them. Or maybe you are a professional marketer, but your clients aren't. Let them talk “person-to-person” – by direct mail, an open letter in the newspaper, or online – with the customers they're trying to reach. That way, the entrepreneur can reach all the customers of the land, and you just might live “happily ever after.”