“Men Who Know It All” Ad by Bruce Barton (for Alexander Hamilton Institute)

Key Takeaways

• When you're calling out an audience in your headline, you must make sure it resonates with your audience & doesn't turn them away. In this ad, the headline relates to their audience while also attracting most every man to read it since few people want to consider themselves a "know it all".
• Pay attention to how well the ads describe the mindset of their target audience. They get on their side by basically saying screw the successful "know it alls". Then, they relate to what they're going through & how much it sucks and finally they empower them & encourage them that they can indeed acheive great success. The institute really comes across as being the good guy who understands and wants to help the men looking to advance in their lives.
• Later on, in the 30s, the book titles changed to "What Every Executive Should Know" & "What A Business Man Must Know Today". Both of these are substantially stronger than the original & dated "Forging Ahead In Business". Reference the annotations to see why the latter two are stronger.

Analyst Spotlight

Mike Schaueris the founder of Swiped.co and the main analyst in the swipes section. After intently studying & building conversion-focused websites for 6+ years, he started Swiped to help others master marketing & copywriting through the analysis of great examples!