Go all Sea-Monkeys on dat ad

“I think I bought something like 3.2 million pages of comic book advertising a year. It worked beautifully.” — Harold von Braunhut Inventor of the Sea-Monkeys Since I’m teaching infotainment this week: Back in 2019 when I was packing to move here to elBenbo’s Bluff, I saw several boxes of comicbooks and started flipping through them. And, as any self-respecting copywriting fanboy would do… I started looking at all the ads that stretch back to the 1950’s through the mid 2000’s when I stopped collecting. And as I poured through these ads, I was reminded by how the ads in the 50’s through the 70’s were almost entirely direct-response and, frankly, some of the best infotaining ads I’ve ever seen. I have since done some intense research on the ads of that time, and it was no surprise at all that some of these advertisers literally became mail-order millionaires with a single ad that ran through various titles every month. Like, for example, the infamous — and notorious — Sea-Monkeys ads. "Sea-Monkeys” were simply a species of brine shrimp. But they were packaged, sold, and marketed as literally pets that live in their own magical-looking kingdom, that you can observe for hours in a bowl, endlessly fascinated by them — complete with illustrations (drawn by a popular comicbook artist of the day) in the ads showing humanoid-like creatures, living in a castle, underwater. It was an example of the advertising being more fascinating than the content. You almost had to stop reading the story to look at the dayem ad. Now, some would say they were selling utter bull shyt. And while I do not share that belief, I do get the sentiment for the literalists with no imagination. Either way, that didn’t stop people from buying them by the millions. Or from Hollywood creating a TV show about them. Or, from being so embedded in popular culture even to this day. Like for example, they’ve shown up on The Simpsons and even in a South Park episode. All as a result of the fascinating ads used to sell them that were more interesting than the content the reader was paying for in that issue of Spider-Man or Batman or Superman or whatever title it was running in. Now, I cannot say for sure. But, I’d bet the Sea-Monkeys ads were the single most profitable and effective comicbook ads ever created. Maybe Charles Atlas’ “How An Insult Made A Man Out Of Mac” (also pure infotainment and far more fascinating than the comicbook stories they appeared in, in many cases) ads did better. But, I’m putting my money on the Sea-Monkeys for sheer cultural impact. Same with many comicbook ads back then. Those copywriters knew how to tap into your soul, and create an itch you HAD to scratch to the point of kids begging parents for the $1.00 to send away for the product, and adults blowing their paychecks. Now, “flash-forward” a decade to the 80’s: Comicbooks stopped accepting “Sea-Monkeys” kind of ads. Instead, they sold only to big corporate accounts, churning out the usual boring big corporate ads that are practically invisible to anyone reading, and did nothing to stop them to read. Which brings me to the small reveal: The single best way to stand out in advertising — whether in a cold ad, an email inbox, on social media, or in any other media (print, online, whatever)… is to make your adverting more fascinating and engaging than the content and other ads surrounding it. Just like the Sea-Monkey ads. Yes, you have to be selling something they want. I’m not saying to do stupid Super Bowl-level advertising. But, what I am saying is to make them infotaining. i.e., combining information & entertainment. Enter the July Email Players issue. I drill deep into how to do this in your marketing. And, in many ways, just as deep as I do in my Infotainment Jackpot book — with ideas and strategies and examples I’ve been applying to my own business since I published that tome back in 2019. Consider it a lost chapter of the book. And no, you don’t need Infotainment Jackpot to use the July issue. If you already possess it, it’ll simply give you more tools for your belt. If you don’t yet possess it, it’ll give you some very practical, real-world ways to start applying infotainment — including ideas I’ve learned not only from one of the single best infotainers I’ve ever seen (who uses it for YouTube mostly)… but also from a world renown Method Acting teacher who also happens to be an Email Players subscriber. All right enough of this. If you want in, best hop to it. Once that nasty lil’ deadline hits it’ll be too late to get in on time for this issue. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA