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The copy mistake that crushed the oats industry

Writer's picture: John BrandtJohn Brandt

I read an old sales letter written by the great Claude Hopkins that sent me on quite the journey into American history. 


The ad I read had the headline: “The Weight-Control Law that Works Both Ways” 


As you can tell from the headline, the sales letter had a unique angle: Position oats as the go-to solution whether you wanted to lose or gain weight. 


There are a lot of great things this ad has going for it besides the unique angle it snuggled itself into. I recommend trying to find the sales letter, reading through it, and picking out some of the great things I’m alluding to here.

Anyway, that’s where the sales letter part of this email ends. What’s more interesting is where this sales letter read-through led me, the copy mistake made after this ad was published in the early 20th century that all but crucified the oats industry (until oatmilk became the go-to mixer at Starbucks), and how you can avoid making a similar mistake in your own business. 


After reading the ad about oatmeal, it struck me that oatmeal had suffered an incredible fall from grace. 


When I grew up, oatmeal was a bit of a taboo breakfast choice. By the 90s, cold cereal (as opposed to oatmeal’s nickname, hot cereal) was a staple cuisine choice in America. Clever marketing departments convinced innocent parents that sugar-filled cereal was healthy. The food pyramid at the time called for 6 to 11 servings of bread, pasta, and cereal. 


And these two fundamental lies CRUSHED the entire oats industry. 


But the final nail in the coffin actually came from the oats industry themselves.


When my curiosity got the best of me after reading Claud's ad, I decided to do the bare minimum internet sleuthing—when I discovered this scathing admission from former senior vice president and general manager for Quaker Foods North America:


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“what’s funny is that we thought that everybody knew that oats are healthy — heart healthy, gut healthy — and give you long-lasting energy. It turns out we need to remind consumers every year … We can’t assume they know.”


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And therein lies your lesson, cully: 


When you write about similar offers frequently, you can miss the trees for the forest. Maybe you get bored hammering home similar points. Or you assume that your audience already knows that your oats are gut healthy (or better yet, works “both ways” for weight control as Claud Hopkins so eloquently told us) or that your superfood blends aid in satiety. 


More: 


When you’re immersed in the world of your offers (as any good copywriter ought to be), you start missing the forest for the trees. You’re so bogged down in the details, you miss on the overarching benefits that your audience most likely either forgets or never even realized. 


And that, my friend, is why repetition is mayhap the most powerful tool in copy. Now, this isn’t to say that you should write the same exact emails and ads over and over and over again, like the story I shared with you last week. 


Instead, you need to figure out new ways to say the same things over and over again.


Figure out how to do this, and your business will have more of a fulfillment problem than a sales problem. And in terms of problems to have, the former is a better spot to be than the latter. 


Anywho: 


Need help saying the same damn things over and over again in new ways that excite your audience instead of boring them?


Hit reply, and let's chat. 


John

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