Latest / The Copywriting Podcast with Fexingo: Sales Letters, Headlines, and Persuasive Writing / How One Anarchist Copywriter Invented Modern Direct Mail
Transcript
- Lucas: So 1904, Chicago. A man walks into the offices of Lord & Thomas, one of the biggest ad agencies of the era. He's a former Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer, self-described anarchist, and he's carrying a manifesto. The agency's top copywriter reads it, hires him on the spot for what was then an unheard-of salary: eighteen thousand dollars a year. Luna: Eighteen thousand — in 1904 — that's roughly six hundred thousand today. Who was this guy? Lucas: John E. Kennedy. If you've never heard of him, you're not alone. But the phrase he coined that day is probably still on your desk. He called it 'reason-why' copy. The entire direct mail industry, every landing page you've ever written, every email that starts with a benefit — they all trace back to that single meeting. Luna: Okay, I need to hear what that manifesto said. What made it so persuasive? Lucas: Kennedy's core argument was devastatingly simple. He said most advertising of the time was just 'claim and puff' — you're the best, you're the biggest, you're the oldest, trust us. And he said that's lazy. Real advertising, he argued, has to give the reader a reason to buy. A specific, logical, defensible reason. Not 'our soap is the best' but 'our soap uses palm oil, which creates a denser lather that lasts three times longer than tallow-based soaps.' Luna: Right — it's the difference between a boast and a fact. And he thought that was revolutionary? Lucas: Revolutionary enough that Albert Lasker, the owner of Lord & Thomas, later called that meeting 'the day modern advertising was born.' Lasker had been running the agency for years, and he'd never heard anyone articulate advertising as 'salesmanship in print.' That was Kennedy's phrase. Before Kennedy, ads were basically posters. After Kennedy, they became sales letters. Luna: So what did Kennedy actually write? Do any of his ads survive? Lucas: A few. One of his most famous was for a product called 'Liquozone' — an antiseptic. The headline was: 'Why Liquozone Cures When Other Antiseptics Fail.' Then the body copy gave six specific reasons, each one tied to a chemical property or a clinical test. No adjectives. No 'amazing breakthrough.' Just reasons. And it worked. Liquozone became a national brand almost overnight. Luna: Six reasons. That's a lot of copy. Today we're told to keep it short. Lucas: And that's the tension, right? Kennedy was writing in an era when people read. A typical sales letter in 1905 might run twelve pages. But here's the thing — the principle isn't about length. It's about specificity. A modern landing page for a SaaS product that says 'save time with our AI platform' — that's claim and puff. A page that says 'our AI ingests your customer support tickets and auto-generates replies in under thirty seconds, reducing your average handle time by 22 percent' — that's reason-why. Same principle, shorter format. Luna: So Kennedy's real insight was that people need permission to believe you. And a specific, verifiable reason gives them that permission. Lucas: Exactly. And here's where it gets interesting. Kennedy didn't just use reason-why for tangible products. He used it for services, for ideas, for political campaigns. He believed any proposition could be sold if you found the right reason. And he insisted that reason had to be in the prospect's self-interest, not the seller's. Luna: Which sounds obvious now, but in 1904 it was a complete paradigm shift. Most ads were just 'buy our stuff because we're great.' Lucas: Right. And Kennedy's framework forced copywriters to actually understand the product. You can't write six reasons why Liquozone works unless you've studied the chemistry. You can't write a compelling reason to switch to a new accounting software unless you've interviewed users. Reason-why copy requires research. That's why it's hard. Luna: And that's probably why so much modern marketing still defaults to claim and puff. It's easier. Lucas: Much easier. But here's a concrete example of reason-why working in the wild today. There's a DTC mattress company — let's call them Brand X — they launched with a headline that said 'The Most Comfortable Mattress You'll Ever Sleep On.' That's claim and puff. Their conversion rate was around 2 percent. Then they retested a headline that said 'Our Mattress Uses a Patented Three-Layer Foam System That Distributes Weight 40 Percent More Evenly Than Standard Memory Foam.' Reason-why. Conversion rate jumped to 4.8 percent. Same product, same price, same images — different headline. Luna: Forty percent more evenly — that's a number people can visualize. It's specific enough to sound true. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the Kennedy principle: specificity creates plausibility. Vague claims invite skepticism. Specific claims invite belief. Luna: But what about when the product truly doesn't have a unique reason? What if it's a commodity — like, say, bottled water? Lucas: Kennedy would say you find one. Or you create one. He worked on a campaign for a brand of canned beans — back when all canned beans were basically identical. He discovered the factory used a special steam process that kept the beans firmer. He wrote: 'Our beans are steamed, not boiled — so they stay firm, not mushy.' That's reason-why for a commodity. And it worked. Luna: So the reason doesn't have to be a huge innovation. It can be a small process difference, as long as it's real and relevant. Lucas: Yes. And here's a trap I see a lot of modern copywriters fall into: they invent a reason that's technically true but not meaningful to the customer. 'Our software is built on a microservices architecture.' That's a reason, but it's not a reason-why for the buyer. The buyer doesn't care about architecture. They care that the software doesn't crash on Black Friday. So the copy needs to translate: 'Our microservices architecture means if one feature goes down, the rest of the site stays up — so you never lose a sale during peak traffic.' That's reason-why. Luna: So you're translating features into benefits — but with a specific mechanism attached. Not just 'you'll sleep better' but 'our foam distributes weight.' Lucas: Bingo. And Kennedy was ruthless about this. He once rejected a client's entire ad campaign because the client couldn't give him a single concrete reason why their product was better. He said, 'If you don't know why someone should buy, I can't write an ad that will sell.' The client eventually found a reason — a manufacturing defect rate that was half the industry average — and Kennedy built a campaign around that. Luna: I love that. He forced the client to do the homework. That's almost unheard of today — most agencies just take the brief and run. Lucas: And that's exactly why so much advertising is forgettable. If you haven't done the work to find a real reason, you're going to default to puffery. And listeners, if this kind of thinking is useful to you — if you've ever stared at a blank page wondering what to write — we keep this show ad-free because of listeners who find value and want to keep it that way. You can support the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. And it genuinely helps us keep digging up stories like this. Luna: Yeah, and it's a small way to say 'this matters to me.' We don't run ads, so listener support is literally what keeps the podcast going. Lucas: Alright, back to Kennedy. So he wrote for a few years, made a fortune, and then... he basically disappeared. By 1910, he was out of advertising. He wrote a novel that flopped, dabbled in politics, and died in relative obscurity in the 1930s. But his ideas were absorbed into the industry's DNA. Luna: Why did he leave? Was it burnout? Lucas: Partially. He was a difficult personality — the anarchist label wasn't a joke. He despised the corporate compromises that came with running an agency. But also, I think he felt he'd made his point. He'd written a small book called 'Reason Why Advertising' — it's still in print — and he believed the principle was so self-evident that it would eventually become common sense. He was right and wrong. It became common knowledge, but it's not common practice. Luna: So if Kennedy were alive today, what would he critique? Lucas: Oh, he'd have a field day with mission statements. 'We empower businesses to reach their full potential' — that's pure puff. He'd ask: 'How? What specific thing do you do differently?' He'd also hate most homepage hero sections — the ones with a vague value prop and a 'Learn More' button. He'd say: 'Give me one concrete reason, right there in the headline, or I'm clicking away.' Luna: And what about the rise of storytelling in marketing? Does reason-why conflict with narrative? Lucas: Not at all. In fact, reason-why gives the story its engine. The story is the 'how you discovered the reason' or 'how the reason changed someone's life.' The reason is the plot point. Without it, storytelling marketing is just entertainment. Luna: So the lesson from Kennedy is: before you write a word, find the reason. Not a feature, not a benefit, but a specific, provable mechanism that makes the benefit believable. Lucas: That's it. And test it. Kennedy tested everything — headlines, offers, prices. He was data-driven before there was data. The only difference today is we have tools to test faster. But the principle hasn't changed in 120 years. Luna: Which raises a question: is there any category where reason-why doesn't work? Lucas: I think it's harder when the purchase is purely emotional — like a luxury watch or a piece of art. The buyer isn't looking for a rational reason. They want to feel something. But even then, Kennedy would argue you need a reason to justify the emotion. 'This watch uses a Swiss movement that has been hand-assembled by a single artisan over six months' — that's a reason that supports the feeling of exclusivity. The emotion is the destination, but the reason is the vehicle. Luna: So the 'reason' doesn't have to be rational. It can be a reason that justifies an emotional purchase. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the nuance people miss. Reason-why isn't about being boring or technical. It's about being specific. Specificity is always more persuasive than vagueness, whether you're selling a mattress or a masterpiece. Luna: Alright, I'm going to go back through my own landing pages and check — do I have a reason, or am I just puffing? Lucas: That's the homework. And if you find one page that's all puff, Kennedy's ghost will be very disappointed. But you can fix it. Start with one concrete reason, put it in the headline, and watch what happens.