Behold the power of “Sea-Monkey” advertising

Published: Tue, 03/03/20

“I think I bought something like 3.2 million pages of comic book advertising a year. It worked beautifully.”

— Harold von Braunhut
Inventor of the Sea-Monkeys


Ah the good ol’ days of advertising…

When I was packing to move to elBenbo’s Bluff last year, I fished through my comicbooks. And, as any self-respecting copywriting fanboy would do… I started looking at all the ads that stretch back to the 1950’s through the late 90’s when I stopped collecting. And as I poured through these ads, I was reminded by how the ads in the 50’s through the 70’s were almost entirely direct-response and, frankly, some of the best ads I’ve ever seen. I have since done some intense research on the ads of that time, and it was no surprise at all that some of these advertisers literally became mail-order millionaires with a single ad that ran through various titles every month.

Granted, many of those ads were pure fraud, selling lies, and using deceit.

But some were enormously popular for years & decades.

Take, for example, the infamous — and notorious — Sea-Monkeys ads.

"Sea-Monkeys” were simply a species of brine shrimp.

But they were packaged, sold, and marketed as literally pets that live in their own magical-looking kingdom, that you can observe for hours in a bowl, endlessly fascinated by them — complete with illustrations (drawn by a popular comicbook artist of the day) in the ads showing humanoid-like creatures, living in a castle, underwater.

The result?

People bought them by the millions.

Hollywood created a TV show about them.

And they became so embedded in popular culture (even to this day) they’ve shown up on The Simpsons and even in a South Park episode.

All as a result of the fascinating ads used to sell them.

Now, I cannot say for sure.

But, I’d bet the Sea-Monkeys ads were the single most profitable and effective comicbook ads ever created. Maybe Charles Atlas’ ads did better. But, I’m putting my money on the Sea-Monkeys for sheer cultural impact.

Same with many comicbook ads back then.

Those copywriters knew how to tap into your soul, and create an itch you HAD to scratch to the point of kids begging parents for the $1.00 to send away for the product, and adults blowing their paychecks.

Now, “flash-forward” a decade to the 80’s:

Comicbooks stopped accepting “Sea-Monkeys” kind of ads. Instead, they rejoiced at getting out of the “advertising ghetto” as a rep at Marvel called it, and they sold only to big corporate accounts, churning out the usual boring big corporate ads.

Which brings me to the small reveal:

Last year I started testing full page ad inserts in "Email Players" issues, to see if I couldn’t bring a bit of “Sea-Monkey” advertising to the newsletter, that’d fascinate and delight my Horde. While at the same time selling legitimate products & services my readers can really use, sold via the powerful, bold, and, yes, “Sea-Monkey”-ish style ads of yore — with irresistible offers people will love reading and buying from.

I first tested some 3rd party ads from other subscribers.

Then, I tested running my own.

And, turns out I had so much fun doing my own one page ads, and it was so profitable doing them just for my own offers compared to what I could have charged others, I dropped the whole 3rd party advertising idea.

Anyway, here’s the punchline:

Several of these “Sea-Monkey”-inspired ads are now immortalized in the 88-page Email Players Swipe File: Volume 1 I am giving to people who buy the Stop Being Poor 2 eBook bundle via my affiliate link I’ve been plugging all week. It includes the Sea-Monkey-inspired ad inserts from last year — including 3 comicbook style ads I hired a professional comicbook artist to draw selling my Copy Troll book, using characters from my Enoch Wars monster stories.

Here’s how to get your eyeballs on this swipe file:

1. Buy the Stop Being Poor 2 eBook bundle using my affiliate link below

2. Send me your receipt BEFORE the Friday 3/6 at midnight EST deadline, and I will send you a secret link to a PDF of the swipe file.

That is a hard and fast deadline.

I don’t make exceptions.

Procrastination is a weakness I simply don’t reward.

Whatever the case, here’s my affiliate link:

http://www.EmailPlayers.com/stop

Ben Settle