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I Worked Side-By-Side With Gene Schwartz For Over Two Decades. In All That Time, Only Two Other Copywriters Made Him Nervous.
You just picked up the most important book in direct response.
And it might also be the most important book about human behavior too. 🙂
Smart move.
But here’s something most people don’t know:
Twenty years after Gene Schwartz wrote the masterpiece now being sent to you (that would be Breakthrough Advertising), when he was in his heyday of copywriting for the top publishers on the planet … two other copywriters were competing against him at that time…writing promotions so powerful they built entire businesses, launched iconic magazines, and generated hundreds of millions in revenue.
Their names were Bill Jayme and Jim Rutz.
I worked with all three of them at Boardroom (the company I helped build for over three decades).
The law firm of “Schwartz Jayme & Rutz” laid down the laws of copywriting and marketing for the ages.
I watched them compete.
I watched them win.
And I can tell you from firsthand experience:
If Schwartz wrote the playbook, Jayme and Rutz were the greatest players to ever run it.
And here’s the world’s greatest living copywriter agreeing with that premise:
I have tremendous respect for your work. I always enjoy reading your packages.
They’re so fiercely original and entertaining, too.
I always think it’s a waste when our work is pitted against one another.
I’d rather go around beating up 48 lb. weakling packages than have to go up against you, Bill Jayme or a few other ‘top guns.’
You Bought the Playbook. Here Are the Game Films.
Breakthrough Advertising teaches you how to fight.
Study it and you’ll understand mass desire, the 5 stages of awareness, and the 5 levels of market sophistication better than most working copywriters ever will.
But there’s a faster way to make it stick: watch the fights.
I’ve put together 418 championship bouts. Real promotions, mailed at full scale, that won in the most competitive arenas in direct response history … written by the 2 players who ran Gene’s playbook better than anyone alive.
The Bill Jayme Collection
210 complete packages from the most sought-after copywriter of his era. Clients waited over a year and paid top dollar to get on his schedule.
- “Do you close the bathroom door even when you’re the only one home?” That envelope teaser became one of the most famous direct mail packages ever written. Jayme wrote it for Psychology Today, and it’s in this collection along with a second Psychology Today package, so you can watch him beat his own control.
- Jayme called the envelope “hot pants on the hooker.” Every one of these 210 pieces starts with one. If you write subject lines or headlines, this is 210 lessons in earning the open.
- Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Esquire, Fortune, Money, Time, Psychology Today and over 130 more, each one a finished piece: envelope, layout, and visual flow by his longtime design partner Heikki Ratalahti.
Just 4 of 210 promotions in The Bill Jayme Collection (tap any image for a closer look)
Read This Or Die: The Lost Files of Jim Rutz
208 of the rarest promotions in direct response history, from the man who invented the magalog and built Boardroom, Rodale, Phillips Publishing, and Agora with it.
- His “Read This or Die” promotion alone pulled over 100,000 subscribers and tens of millions in revenue. It’s here, with the rest of his lost files.
- Jim’s 10 Rules for Writing, found in his personal files after his death. Rule #1: “The #1 sin in ad mail is being boring, and over half of it richly deserves its quick death by wastebasket.” All 10 included, with my commentary.
- 2.5 hours of rare audio (the only known Rutz interview, by Clayton Makepeace, plus a roundtable with John Carlton, David Deutsch and me), an 85-page cheat sheet of his best headlines, and the actual handwritten Bencivenga letter you just read above.
Just 4 of 208 promotions in Read This or Die: The Lost Files of Jim Rutz (tap any image for a closer look)
These 2 collections sell separately for a combined $590. Because you just invested in Breakthrough Advertising, you can add both to your order right now for $149.
If You’re Serious About Breakthrough Advertising…
Schwartz teaches you the 5 stages of awareness.
Jayme and Rutz show you what each stage looks like in 418 real promotions across health, financial, consumer, business, travel, technology, and a dozen other categories.
Schwartz teaches you market sophistication levels.
These swipe files show you exactly how 2 masters handled Level 1 markets through Level 5 markets, in their actual, mailed, revenue-generating copy.
Nobody annotated them for you. Nobody circled the awareness stages or labeled the sophistication levels.
That’s your job.
And that’s the work that will make you even better.
Here’s What You’ll Find Inside
Bill Jayme
- 8 Smithsonian subscription packages from the copywriter who made Smithsonian one of the most successful direct mail subscription programs in magazine history. Study how Jayme approached the same client across multiple campaigns, seeing what he kept and what he changed.
- Every piece was conceived as a complete package, copy and design together. Finished direct mail: the envelopes, the layouts, the visual flow. You’re studying 2 masters working in tandem, and each piece is a masterpiece of art and science.
- 138 different mailers. Smithsonian, The New Yorker, Esquire, New York Magazine, Fortune, Money, Business Week, Harper’s, LIFE, Time, Newsweek, Conde Nast Traveler, Psychology Today, Harvard Health Letter, and over 120 more. This is one copywriter’s complete body of work. There is no other collection like it.
Jim Rutz
- The actual handwritten Bencivenga letter. The physical letter where “The World’s Greatest Living Copywriter” told Rutz he’d “rather go around beating up 48 lb. weakling packages than have to go up against you, Bill Jayme or a few other ‘top guns.'” Plus personal letters from John Carlton, David Deutsch, and others. (All inside collection #8, titled “Dear Jim…”)
- 85 pages of Jim’s best headlines, pulled from all 208 promotions. Just the headlines, organized and ready to use: a swipe file within the swipe file. Remember, “Stealing is a felony; stealing smart is an art.”
- 2.5 hours of rare audio you can’t get anywhere else, with full transcripts included.
- Collection #7 is called “Jim Rutz’s Furniture.” These are the promotions Jim studied. The swipe files he kept in organized piles in his living room instead of owning a couch. The pieces he thought were worth studying over and over. Now you can study them too.
You just bought the principles with Breakthrough Advertising.
Congratulations!
Now study what they look like in action with these 418 real promotions by Bill Jayme and Jim Rutz.