The whole corporate vs. professional discussion takes on a new importance when it comes to the style of writing you use in advertising. This is a nuance that I’ve worked on for a long, long time.

Some of the business teachers who have influenced me operate mostly in business-to-consumer markets where “outrageous” is much more often the norm.

Case in point: Some years ago, Gary Halbert, whom you might describe as the Dennis Rodman of direct marketing, created a promotion for a new perfume. He ran a full page ad in the Los Angeles newspaper.

The headline said:

Wife Of Famous Movie Star Swears Under Oath Her New Perfume Does Not Contain An Illegal Sexual Stimulant!

It created such a buzz that the ballroom of the Century Plaza Hotel in LA was packed wall to wall with seven thousand gawking onlookers on a Saturday afternoon.

John Carlton adapted the concept and wrote this headline:

Wife of Auto Parts Store Owner Swears She Did Not Use Sex To Get These Amazing Discounts From Suppliers

OK, that’s the consumer market. People are accustomed to hype and silliness. But this is B2B we’re talking about. Doesn’t work here, right?

Tom Hoobyar sells Pharmaceutical Valves to companies like Baxter, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly. They mix $40 million of chemicals in a tank, and Tom’s valve is at the bottom of the tank.

His ad says:

In this industry, successful sex lives depend on successful project equipment choices.

Yes, it’s true. You know the nightmares of any project: Problems like late delivery, poor quality, non-performance to spec. The cascading chain of delays and screwups in these areas throws your project into disarray.

You wake up in a cold sweat, and your honey complains that you’ve become a cold fish. ASEPCO knows where you’ve been. For 13 years we’ve helped our consumers navigate the minefields of tight timelines, special valve designs and emergency turnarounds on critical projects.

We’ve worked side by side with the who’s who of our industry, and we have the project references to prove it. Now stop your nightmares and improve your sex life with the most outrageous product guarantee and wine contest in this or any industry, at booth 1032 at the trade show entrance.

If you do anything for your sex life at this show, come by our booth and get your hands on our history making guarantee and a shot at one of the 130 bottles of wine we’ll be giving away to celebrate our 13^th anniversary.

Here’s Tom’s Guarantee:

Asepco’s Unique Tank Valve Guarantees

Lifetime Free Replacement Of Any Broken ASEPCO Tank Valve — No Matter Who Broke It!

Top-Quality Product, Or It’s Free! On-Time Delivery, Or It’s Free!

Performance As Promised, Or We Pay You!

We do more than make promises. We live up to them. All ASEPCO employees are company shareholders, so we agonize over the quality of everything we ship. The only way we can prosper is by helping you succeed.

Top-quality Product Or It’s Free!

If your ASEPCO valve contains a manufacturing defect we will FIX OR REPLACE YOUR VALVE — AND WE WILL NOT BILL YOU!

On-time Delivery Or its Free!

If you give us written notice at the time of your order that a valve delivery is time-critical, and we make a written commitment to that date, IF WE ARE EVEN ONE MINUTE LATE YOUR VALVE WILL BE FREE!

Performance As Promised Or We Pay You!

If it is proven that a properly assembled ASEPCO valve is not CIP/SIP in use,

1. We will buy back our valve for a full refund

2. We will buy you the replacement valve of your choice

3. AND we will pay the documented cost of replacing it in your ASME tank!

Lifetime Free Replacement Of Any Asepco Tank Valve, No Matter Who Breaks It!

Sometimes a tank is dropped – sometimes a valve gets hit by a forklift. No matter how a valve is broken, or who’s at fault, we will replace it free! No arguments. No excuses. Just a free replacement valve as fast as we can make it.

You can depend on ASEPCO products. And you can depend on us.

The reason Gary Halbert’s promotion for Tova Borgnine was a smashing success was that there is a very tight link between perfume and sex, and this headline ignites the imagination.

John Carlton’s auto store promotion works because most men can easily entertain the fantasy that somebody’s wife would actually use sex to get discounts.

The reason Tom can talk about sex and get away with it is that he has a guarantee that’s as good as sex. And projects gone haywire do affect peoples’ sex lives.

So is it any surprise that ASEPCO has 90 percent market share in his industry?

It’s a killer success formula.

You can be informal without being disrespectful.

Corporate is always formal. Personal and professional are often informal, but never disrespectful.

Now let’s be honest here: If you don’t have an outrageous product, if you can’t make an outrageous guarantee, then your outrageous advertising is disrespectful, and you sound silly.

Not everybody has an outrageous product, and that’s perfectly OK. You should always be looking for ways to make it more outrageous, but honestly most of the consulting projects I’ve been involved with are not connected to “outrageous” products. Sometimes it’s just some kind of service or product equipment that people are going to need, and they need to get in front of the prospect before everybody else does.

My approach to using white papers as a b2b marketing tool is extremely effective, and it is rarely outrageous, controversial or “over the top.” And nobody really objects to it either. It’s a polite way of introducing yourself and gaining credibility.

And after a person has requested your white paper, you can still send them a sales letter with an outrageous offer or guarantee along with it.

Photo by: Stuart Heath cc by-sa