Offering a free “Special Report” to attract leads is a classic copywriting and direct response marketing strategy.
And one of the most effective “templates” is the “7 Deadly Mistakes” report.
Indeed, I happen to be working on such a report for a client at the moment.
So I was intrigued by a post on Lawrence Bernstein’s “Info Marketing Blog” that reveals the original “7 Mistakes” report and the surprising source that inspired it…
Jewish Adman Swipes A Catholic Saint? “Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes”
“Thomas Aquinas spelled out the Seven Deadly Sins or vitia capitalia (capital sins) in the 13th century.
800 years later Max Sackheim is sitting in his office on 5th Avenue trying to come up with a great headline for a full page display ad for his ad agency.
What does he do? Smartly swipes Aquinas.”
Well worth reading the whole post.
The ad is a great copywriting template and the content of the ad itself is still as relevant today as when it was written.
One small point.
I’m not sure that Thomas Aquinas was the original source of the “Seven Deadly Sins”.
According to Wikipedia, these were first expressed in the form we now recognise by Pope Gregory in 590 AD.
Hey, I’m being “picky”!
And Lawrence doesn’t actually say that Thomas Aquinas was the original source. However, he did write and teach extensively on theology and philosophy so he would have discussed them, I’m sure.