2005 - 11-09-05

I have never before had such a high percentage of my readers make such idiotic guesses about how well they thought an ad performed. The people who made truly insane guesses were those who worked in financial services... and sadly... those people who identified themselves as copywriters and/or direct response marketers.

The more analytical the response, the further it was from the truth of how the ad performed and why.

However, all is not lost. A handful of my most astute readers (just a tiny handful) got it exactly right.

Listen up: The ad is very confusing and deceiving to people with a first-rate marketing mind. You pretty much have to have a world-class marketing mind to understand the genius of that ad.

First, I will tell you how well the ad worked. It attracted an enormous number of qualified investors who, by my estimate, were willing to pony up in the neighborhood of $400,000,000 to participate in this project.

That ad is so Machiavellian, I believe not even 1 out of 1,000 readers will be able to understand its almost unbelievable power. This would truly be a candidate for the most powerful space ad ever written.

And sadly, I suspect none of you... even after you read that ad ten times... will ever have a clue of WHY it's so powerful.

Not only that, there is a "back story" concerning the ad. It involves very curious twists and turns... and... some of the most bizarre, slickest, intelligent and corrupt people in the annals of American business.