The Ethan Hunt of copywriting

I just rewatched Mission Impossible 2 with it's legendary rock-climbing opening scene this past week and thought about which copywriter fit the rogue agent mold the best.

But before we dive in this week, I want to let our burgeoning email list(a-lot of readers are new) know that I'm continuing a series on pre-internet copywriting legends who built empires.

We’re almost done though.

I don’t want to write about all of them as some of their stories are more of the same, but I might start a short series like this one on contemporary copywriters after this series.

These past emails have had a nearly 60% open rate so you guys seem to be enjoying them.

Last week we covered Claude Hopkins and his scientific approach to advertising.

This week's focus is Joe Sugarman, the man who turned a $100,000 FTC fine into a $500 million BluBlocker empire.

Some people reading might remember those glasses from the 80s/90s.

Or you might have had grandpa or dad who wore them. Joe Sugarman was behind the sale of those.

Born in 1938, Sugarman started JS&A Group in the 1970s, selling electronics through direct mail with ads he wrote by hand.

He was pioneering direct response techniques that seem obvious today but were revolutionary then like:

accepting credit cards over the phone, using humor in ads, and creating emotional connections with products.

One of his biggest sales was when he sold a used plane for $240,000 through a single magazine ad, a plane that was only valued at $190,000.

He'd built himself into one of the most respected direct mail operators in Chicago and lived a truly free lifestyle.

But then came the winter of 1979.

In 1979, Chicago was hit with one of the largest snowstorms ever recorded. Meteorologists predicted two to four inches of snow, but in a span of just 36 hours, from January 13th through January 15th, the city was blanketed in 29 inches, or about two and a half feet.

Everything in Chicago stopped. Flights were grounded. Buses ceased running.

And most importantly for Sugarman's business: mail delivery was halted.

For Joe Sugarman, a copywriter by trade who sold computer electronics via mail-order, the pause put on the U.S. Postal Service was particularly problematic.

The FTC provided a stock letter for businesses to send to customers about shipping delays. But Sugarman, being a copywriter, didn't like how it was written.

So he rewrote it in his own style.

Big mistake.

The Federal Trade Commission is the government agency that regulates advertising and business practices, basically the last people you want to mess with as a direct marketer.

As email marketers, we're still bound by their rules, decades later.

Fighting them is like going to war with unlimited legal budgets and regulatory power.

So naturally, when the FTC found out, they hit Sugarman with a $100,000 fine. For six years, Sugarman tried to fight the FTC.

He even created an illustrated pamphlet: "The Monster That Eats Business."

But after six years and roughly $500,000 in legal fees, Sugarman conceded and opted to pay the fine over four years.

The man who could sell a $240,000 plane was now in a massive financial hole. Hence, the Ethan Hunt of copywriting.

It takes massive cojones to fight a government agency.

For the next six years, he searched far and wide for a new product that could help him dig out.

But he mostly landed upon dud after dud after dud, e.g., a horseshoe-shaped radio worn around the neck, a laser-beam mousetrap and a Batman credit card. (He printed 250,000 Caped Crusader cards and didn't end up selling a single one of them.)

One product after another failed spectacularly.

The laser-beam mousetrap didn't work.

The Batman credit cards sat unsold.

Even a Watergate-themed card game called "Hungarian Conspiracy" flopped.

But failure taught Sugarman something crucial: resilience and the power of testing.

Then in 1986, opportunity struck in the most unexpected way.

A friend of Sugarman's invited him to California to take a look at a portable fax machine, a potential new product Sugarman could advertise and sell.

Casually, on the way from the airport, his friend noticed that Sugarman was squinting. "He said, 'Here, wear this pair of sunglasses,'" Sugarman recalled in an interview.

"I put them on, and I said, 'These are terrific. Where did you get these?' He said, 'They were made for NASA. The guy who made them went bankrupt; he's out of business.' I said, 'What a shame!'"

The technology came from NASA scientists studying harmful light properties in space.

They'd developed lenses that could absorb, filter and scatter dangerous light using dyes and zinc oxide particles, methods discovered by studying birds of prey.

But here's where it gets interesting...

When Sugarman returned to Chicago, he had an urgent problem.

A full-page ad in the United Airlines catalog had fallen through. He had hours to fill the space.

So he called his friend and asked him to send those NASA sunglasses.

Sugarman named them BluBlocker because they blocked UV and blue light, something most people didn't know about at the time.

In the original ad copy for BluBlockers, Sugarman began with, "I am about to tell you a true story. If you believe me, you will be well rewarded. If you don't believe me, I will make it worth your while to change your mind. Let me explain."

He priced them at $59.95.

Within a month, Sugarman knew he had a hit on his hands. "I scored the product from friends of mine in Taiwan and sales skyrocketed to the tune of 100,000 from that single ad in the United catalog."

From that one ad, Sugarman had found his goldmine.

But the real explosion came with his infomercials, featuring everyone from Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon to a Venice Beach street performer named Dr. Geek who freestyle rapped about the sunglasses.

Sales peaked in the early 1990s with, per April, roughly 300,000 BluBlockers being sold monthly.

Do the math: 300,000 units × $59.95 = $17.985 million per month in revenue. That's $215.8 million annually at peak.

But here's what matters more, his profit margins:

Since Sugarman was selling direct to consumer (no retail markup) and sourcing from Taiwan manufacturers, his margins were likely 70-80% after manufacturing, shipping, and advertising costs.

Conservative estimate:

70% margin on $215.8M = $151 million profit per year at peak

The bigger picture:

BluBlockers sold consistently from 1986 through the 2000s
Even if peak sales only lasted 2-3 years, he was probably doing $50-100M annually for a decade+
Total lifetime BluBlocker sales exceeded $500 million

Net worth estimate: Sugarman was likely worth $100-300 million at his peak, making him one of the wealthiest copywriters in history.

Lessons from His Journey

Rewrite the Rules: Don't accept templates (even from the FTC). Sugarman's $500k legal battle started because he refused to send boring government copy
Failure is Intel: Every flop teaches you something. His 250k unsold Batman cards taught him as much as BluBlocker's success
Timing is Everything: Be ready when opportunity strikes. BluBlockers happened because he had ad space to fill immediately
Sell the Experience: NASA technology was boring. "See like a fighter pilot" was exciting
Own Your Distribution: Sugarman controlled his customer relationship through direct mail, not retail middlemen

I hope you’ve learned a thing or two from Sugarman and it’s the idea that you can and should probably break a few rules.

Some of the best copywriters don't follow the rules. They rewrite them.

Following the rules means you get average results.

So don't be afraid to tip some sacred cows and start new religions.

Clientless copywriter is all about going against the grain. And exploiting and tapping into emerging markets.

As always with the book/resource recommendation for this week, "The Adweek Copywriting Handbook" remains essential reading for any serious copywriter today.

It’s probably the most “fun” copywriting book out there. With loads of visuals. Sugarman knew how to entertain.

Sugarman built his mail-order electronics business by writing long-form newspaper ad copy. He spent his own money to buy advertising, so he had to figure out what worked and didn't work. His ads had to pay off or he'd go broke.

There’s tons you could learn from him and put his best ideas into that book. I recently ran Meta/Facebook ads for the first time ever and a bunch of these pre-internet methods are still relevant today.

Sugarman just passed away in 2022, but his legacy lives on through every copywriter who understands that failure isn't the end, it's just a setback.

And sometimes, your biggest setback is just preparation for your greatest comeback. As cliche as it sounds, the Mission is still possible.

Fathi