Craig Clemens

Gary Halbert's perfume headline that broke a hotel

Copywriter Gary Halbert rebottled a $cheap mall 'China Musk' oil as Tova perfume and ran a full-page LA Times ad headlined 'Wife of famous movie star swears under oath her new perfume does not contain an illegal sexual stimulant.' Thousands mobbed the Century Plaza Hotel and it became the best-selling perfume in the world that year.

“And the headline is this. 'Wife of famous movie star swears under oath her new perfume does not contain an illegal sexual stimulant.' That was the headline in big letters. And then the subhead said, 'And she is so confident in this, she's willing to prove it by giving away 10,000 sample bottles on this day at this time at the Century Plaza Hotel.”

Reframe a negative as proof it's working

Craig describes turning expected downsides into positive signals: a doctor told him post-stem-cell swelling and extreme pain meant the treatment was working. The same reframing makes side effects (a 4-hour erection, an ugly air-purifier coil) read as benefits.

“I literally got, um, stem cell treatments last week. And the doctor, after he shoots me up, tells me, hey, you're going to have swelling tonight and extreme pain. And that's great. That means it's working.”

Steal thisPre-frame the painful part of your product as the signal that it's working, before the customer experiences it.

'If you get a busy signal, please call again'

A female copywriter changed the infomercial call-to-action from 'operators are standing by' to 'if you get a busy signal, please call again,' flipping the mental image from idle operators to phones ringing off the hook — manufacturing the impression of high demand.

“she changed that line to, please call now. If you get a busy signal, please call again. And if you think of the picture in your mind, you know, of operators just standing there waiting for the phone ring, it was like, ah, you know, no one's buying this fucking thing. To call now, you, you probably get a busy signal. Please keep calling.”

Steal thisWord your CTA so it implies overwhelming demand instead of begging for the sale.

'A diamond is forever' invented the engagement ring

In the 1940s only ~10% of brides got a diamond ring. After the Depression left De Beers with oversupply, copywriter Frances Gerety woke at night with 'A diamond is forever,' tying diamonds to engagement (previously a plain gold band or even livestock).

“in the 1940s, only about 10% of brides got a diamond engagement ring. De Beers Diamonds had an interesting run.”

Joseph Duveen invented the American art market

Art dealer Joseph Duveen realized Europeans had art and newly rich Americans (Rockefeller, Mellon, Morgan) had money. He bought broke dukes' collections, theatrically shipped a Gainsborough to reporters on the dock, played hard-to-get with a buyer pool, and sold it for a record $225,000.

“Americans, for really the first time, have tons of money. This is when Rockefeller was coming up and J.P. Morgan and Industrial Revolution. Europeans have tons of art. Americans have tons of money. Europeans have tons of art.”

'When you overpay for the priceless, you're getting it cheap'

Duveen made a new-money buyer feel small, sold him a 'starter' piece, then later dangled a Mellon-reserved painting at an 'outrageous' price — propagating his signature line that overpaying for priceless art is the smartest financial move.

“And Duveen's saying was, when you overpay for the priceless, you're getting it cheap. That was his quote that he propagated, which is kind of like a diamonds are forever.”

Don't ride the whitewater: a celebrity can't save a commodity product

Craig warns that launching a me-too product with a celebrity 'scroll stopper' fails — buyers learn about the category then buy a cheaper version on Amazon. The win is a genuinely unique product (probiotics in 2014), not riding an existing wave.

“But they're offering a product that everyone else has too, that they could just, you know, learn about from the celebrity and then they go on Amazon and buy a cheaper one. You know, you gotta get things that are unique.”

$1 billion of their own money spent on media

Craig Clemens describes the viral tweetstorm that prompted the episode: lessons from Golden Hippo after spending a billion dollars of their own (self-funded) cash on paid media.

“It was the 10 things we learned at Golden Hippo after spending a billion dollars of our own money on media.”

The ebook that looked like a scam: $4K to $70K/month in two months

Clemens recounts dismissing mentor Eben Pagan's Double Your Dating ebook as a scam, then watching sales climb from $4,000 to $17,000 to $70,000 a month, which convinced him to beg for a job.

“And he goes, well, I actually sold $4,000 worth of ebooks last month. I said, okay, you know, not bad. I talked to him a month later, he sold $17,000 worth of ebooks. I talked to him a month after that. He'd sold $70,000 worth of ebooks. So at this point I was like, okay man, I'm coming to work for you. I'll shine your shoes. I'll get your coffee. I'll wash your car, whatever you need. I don't care if it's a scam. I just need to know how you're making $70 grand a month selling these ebooks.”

Copywriting as a college education: 3 years of audio in the car

Clemens explains how he replaced formal schooling by listening only to Jack Trout, Al Ries, Good to Great, and Gary Halbert audio in his car for three years while running Eben Pagan's info-product incubator (Altitude).

“By this time I was proficient in copywriting and marketing. I was— that became my college education. I didn't listen to music in my car for 3 years. I only listened to like audio cassettes by Jack Trout and Al Rize and Good to Great and, you know, Gary Halbert shit.”

Steal thisReplace your commute music with audiobooks and lectures in one skill until you've mastered it.

Golden Hippo is a 9-figure DTC business you've never heard of

Golden Hippo is self-funded, has ~900 team members, and Clemens confirms it does 9 figures in revenue while remaining largely unknown.

“I can say the 9 figures is accurate.”

Lead with education to win paid traffic

Clemens's core marketing playbook: lead every ad and funnel with genuine education (e.g., 'why is CBD not marijuana?'). Networks favor ads people actually click and learn from, cutting through the noise of thousands of daily ads.

“And I think one of the reasons that our advertising is successful is we give value. That's definitely why the networks love us. Is because people click on our ads and they learn something interesting. And something interesting to a CBD customer could be, why is this not marijuana?”

Steal thisFind a topic in your niche customers are confused about and lead your ad with that education, not the product.

Nothing is more expensive than a just-okay ad campaign

Clemens's most-overlooked marketing lesson: a campaign showing 'a little bit of promise' is the most expensive thing you can have because it keeps you pouring money and time into something that never breaks out.

“I said nothing is more expensive than a just okay converting ad campaign. And not many people got that one.”

Steal thisPrefer campaigns that clearly tank or clearly win; kill the lukewarm ones fast.

Conversions tripled when they swapped a heart ad for a foot

In their heart-health brand, Golden Hippo's conversions tripled after switching the ad image from a beating heart to a foot, because people with heart issues often have circulation problems that show up in their feet.

“Well, the one that's popping into my mind is when we were doing heart health, which we still do, but we had a particular campaign that we were starting off for it and the ads had the picture of a beating heart, you know, and some copy around that. Conversions tripled when we switched the ad from a heart to a foot.”

Survey customers so new products never fail

Golden Hippo's hit rate on new products is 8-9 out of 10 because they survey existing customers ('which of these 10 products would you like next?'). Failures only happen when an internal champion's pet idea overrides what customers asked for.

“So once in a while we don't, so I would say, let's say 8 or 9 out of 10 on new products. And maybe it's 7 out of 10 because also too, there's human emotion involved on our side. And sometimes you end up getting that product in the line that someone in formulation really loved, that they just championed all the way through. And then it was their dream and not the customer's.”

Steal thisSurvey your existing customers on which product to build next before you build it.

Golden Hippo is buying $1-20M consumer and personal-finance brands

Clemens openly pitches that Golden Hippo is acquiring consumer product brands plus personal-finance startups (debt repair, credit repair) to scale with their in-house formulation and marketing muscle.

“we're looking to make acquisitions right now. We're looking to acquire great consumer product brands. We're looking to acquire startups in finance, personal finance, like debt repair, credit repair, things like that. We're expanding into some new categories this year.”

A modern HarperCollins for thought leaders who can't market

Clemens pitches an umbrella company that does for personal brands what Golden Hippo does for products: take 3-10 thought leaders who have great content but can't run paid media or funnels, and build their digital businesses on shared resources for a cut of revenue.

“I think there's an opportunity for a company that just helps people in the thought leader space that don't want to learn marketing really go big on their own personal brand. So my wife is a perfect example of someone who needs this.”

Steal thisPartner with high-caliber experts who can't market, run their paid media and funnels for them, and take a revenue share instead of a fee.

The ayahuasca-trip app: a gamified message aggregator

Clemens shares an app idea he built in his head during an 8-hour ayahuasca trip: a slot-machine-style wheel that merges email, DMs, Slack, to-do list, and calendar into one gamified, machine-gun interface that fires messages at you to blast through to inbox zero.

“So it's a message aggregator. You know, you get the messages on your email, on your DM and Instagram, on your Facebook, on your Slack, all that stuff, and they're just all over the place. Then you got to go to 20 different things to answer all your messages every day.”

Steal thisBuild a single inbox that merges every messaging channel with your to-do list and calendar, then gamify clearing it.

Learn copywriting by reading Hopkins' 'My Life in Advertising'

Clemens's go-to advice for aspiring copywriters: read Claude Hopkins' autobiography 'My Life in Advertising' (not his copywriting book) first, because it tells the stories behind brands like Pepsodent, Goodyear, and Hoover, and if you don't enjoy those stories, copywriting isn't for you.

“Yeah, I always tell people to read a book called My Life in Advertising, which was written by Claude Hopkins. He's one of the greatest copywriters in the 1920s. Yeah, the psychology back then is the same as today. And I tell them to read My Life in Advertising, which is his biography, not his copywriting book, because it talks about how he built all these great brands that are around today, like Hoover vacuum and Goodyear tire and Pepsodent toothpaste.”

Steal thisRead 'My Life in Advertising' and 'Scientific Advertising' (both free online) to learn copywriting.

Pepsodent took US daily brushing from 5% to 85% in 10 years

Clemens cites that only 5% of Americans brushed their teeth daily before Pepsodent; copywriter Claude Hopkins' marketing made it a daily habit, pushing the figure to 85% within ten years.

“Yeah, people, only 5% of people were brushing their teeth daily in the United States before Pepsodent came out. Within 10 years it was 85%.”