The Adweek Copywriting Handbook
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters
What's it about
Want to write copy that grabs attention and gets people to act? Discover the proven techniques to turn your words into powerful tools for persuasion and sales, mastering the secrets that separate amateur writers from professional closers. You'll learn Joseph Sugarman's legendary step-by-step process for crafting irresistible headlines, building "slippery slide" momentum that keeps readers hooked, and using psychological triggers to overcome objections. Uncover the axioms of advertising that transform any piece of writing into a compelling, effective sales machine.
Meet the author
Joseph Sugarman was a legendary direct marketing pioneer and master copywriter whose mail-order catalogs for innovative products like BluBlocker sunglasses generated hundreds of millions in sales. His revolutionary approach stemmed from hands-on experience, having started his career in a small basement and building a global empire one compelling ad at a time. Sugarman's genius was in understanding consumer psychology, a skill he honed through years of testing and perfecting ads, transforming his hard-won knowledge into actionable principles for aspiring writers.
The Script
Think of the last ad that made you roll your eyes. It probably shouted a discount, flashed a celebrity smile, or listed a dozen features you didn't care about. We're bombarded by these messages, and our brains have built a sophisticated defense system to ignore them. But what if the most powerful way to bypass this defense is to whisper a secret? What if the key to unlocking a customer's wallet is to sell them the final scene of a movie where they are the hero? This is the core of a radical idea: the most effective advertising is an emotional slide, a greased runway of curiosity that makes the final decision to buy feel like a satisfying conclusion to a story you didn't know you were in.
The architect of this emotional slide spent decades mastering it in the trenches of direct mail and late-night TV infomercials. Joseph Sugarman became a legend by selling millions of dollars worth of products—from pocket calculators to entire airplanes—using only his words. He discovered that every product, no matter how mundane, had a story, and every customer had a series of psychological triggers waiting to be pulled in a precise sequence. He realized that the principles that made people read every word of his ads were universal. After years of refining his method into a repeatable system, he wrote "The Adweek Copywriting Handbook" to codify these secrets, transforming the art of persuasion from a mysterious gift into a learnable science.
Module 1: The Slippery Slide and the First Sentence
The most powerful concept in the book is the "slippery slide." Sugarman argues that the sole purpose of an advertisement is to get you to read the first sentence. Every element of an ad must guide the reader to the first sentence. The headline, the image, the layout—they all have one goal. Get them to start reading.
Once they read the first sentence, its only purpose is to get them to read the second. And the second sentence's purpose is to get them to read the third. This creates a chain reaction. It’s a slippery slide. Once someone starts, the momentum becomes so strong they can't stop until they reach the end.
This brings us to a critical insight. The first sentence of your copy must be incredibly short and easy to read. Sugarman used first sentences like "It's easy." or "Losing weight is not easy." These are simple. They are undeniable. They require almost no mental effort to process. A reader sees a short sentence and thinks, "Okay, I can handle that." It's a low-friction entry point. If the first sentence is long and complex, you've already lost. The reader will disengage before the slide even begins.
So what happens next? You've hooked them with a short first sentence. Now you need to keep them on the slide. This is where curiosity comes in. Strategically plant "seeds of curiosity" to keep the reader moving forward. These are short, transitional phrases at the end of a paragraph that create an open loop. Think of phrases like:
- "But there’s more."
- "Let me explain."
- "Now here comes the good part."
These phrases act like cliffhangers. They promise a payoff if the reader just keeps going. In one famous ad, Sugarman sold a thermostat he initially hated. He started the ad by calling it ugly and criticizing its name. This contrarian opening created immense curiosity. Why would someone spend money on an ad to bash a product? Readers kept reading to find out. That’s the slippery slide in action.