236 DIFFERENT WAYS TO WRITE THE SAME AD

Perron, an entrepreneur, shares the advertisements he believes were key to his success.

In 1995, the author opened a paint store, The Paint Depot, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a small territory that, at the time, had a population of a mere 60,000 people. Nevertheless, he quickly built the business into a highly profitable one—10 times more profitable per employee than the average American retailer. A former copywriter, Perron asserts that the store’s success was the result of relentless advertising campaigns (he reports that he spends more on advertising than all of his competitors combined). The advertisements themselves are aesthetically uncomplicated. Nearly all of them follow the same style: Unadorned by any pictures, they combine bold headlines and logos with dense blocks of text. Within this format, the ads are surprisingly inventive and humorous—the author characterizes them as the result of “sustained creative thinking.” During an election season, he ran mock political adds pitting his two brands of paint, Benjamin Moore and Martin Senour, against each other. At another time, he ran personal ads under their names. (“Single gallon looking for married couple. If you’re into a little roll on the walls call me. Martin Senour.”) As the title of the book promises, the text includes more than 200 examples of Perron’s ads, which are entertaining but finally become exhausting to read. However, one shouldn’t read the book for its entertainment value alone—in these pages, the author provides a veritable master class on the power of advertising. From his running commentary on the ads emerges an accessible tutorial on the craft of copywriting—he articulates helpful guidance on how to grab a prospective customer’s attention and what to do with it once one has it. This is a deeply informative and practical guide that should be of great value to any business owner.

A helpful introduction to commercial advertising.