4 LESSONS FROM THE GREATEST MARKETERS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF

Breaking Down The Strategy

I spent 4 years at university studying for a degree in marketing.

• 1000’s of hours in the classroom

• 100’s of different classes

• 10’s of final exams

Yet not once did they teach me about history’s greatest marketers.

And for me, studying who came before you is the best way to learn how to do something.

You can see what they did → Understand why it worked → Then emulate it in your own business.

Today, I’m going to give you an insight into 4 of the greatest marketers you’ve probably never heard of.

These are people you’ve probably never heard of, but the strategies they created… you probably use them every week.

So without further ado, here are 4 marketing greats + their go-to marketing tactics:

1) George Wilkes: Inventor of Eye Candy

In 1845, journalist George Wilkes began the newspaper “National Police Gazette”.

The paper was aimed at law enforcement and covered stories on criminals and the details of their crimes.

But Wilkes realised that no one was going to grab a newspaper that had a front cover of murders and burglaries.

So instead, he plastered the front of the magazine with racy images of women.

The result: The Gazette quickly became popular and had a circulation of 15,000+.

This is known as the first-ever use of “Eye candy” in marketing.

2) Conrad Gessner: First-Ever Viral Marketer

In 1636, the wealthiest people around the world were scrambling to get their hands on tulip bulbs.

People were paying upwards of 10,000 guilders (equivalent to $600,000 today) for just one bulb.

This was the peak of what was known as “Tulipmania”.

But why were they willing to pay so much?

Because of this man:

Pre-1600s the tulip wasn’t that well known around Europe.

That was until Conrad Gessner - a botanist at the time - began writing poems about how beautiful the flower was (with a drawing of the flower next to each one).

The poems began to spread around Europe and before you know the demand for tulips began to grow.

The next minute people were selling their houses to buy tulip bulbs.

All because of this one viral piece of “Marketing”.

3) Leo Burnett: Visual Outcomes

The Jolly Green Giant, The Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger,

These are all characters created by Leo Burnett.

Pre-1960 the advertising world was full of long boring descriptions that explained exactly what each product was and what you’d get from using it.

That was until Burnett came along and blew everyone out of the water with his simple icons to make people easily understand the product’s benefits.

Jolly Green Giant → You’ll be strong & healthy
Tony the Tiger → You’ll be strong & fueled
Marlboro Man → You’ll be cool & sexy

All 3 are some of the most renowned characters to this day and all of them were created as advertisements by Burnett.

Just goes to show how great Burnett was.

4) Bill Bernbach: Less Words

99% of copywriting advice nowadays is to keep things short, snappy, and use visuals.

The man who started that trend was Bill Bernbach.

Before him, people would use full pages of the newspaper to write out their advertisements - the more words the better.

Then Bill came along and well… he created some of the most famous ads of all time with just 3-4 words.

I see his ads go viral all the time on social media. It’s funny to see that 40+ years later they are still just as eye-catching.

Little bit of a different one today, but I actually really enjoyed writing it. Definitely gives you some people to talk about at the water cooler.

Until next Sunday.

— Niall

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This has been a breakdown of 4 marketing greats (that nobody knows about). I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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