AI Can Write 100 Ads Before Breakfast. That Doesn’t Mean Any of Them Are Good.

Barry’s 80/20 Five-Page Review of The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joseph Sugarman

There was a time when writing advertising copy was difficult for a very practical reason: somebody actually had to write it. You needed a copywriter. You needed time. You needed research. You needed drafts. You needed editing.

Today I can ask AI for 50 headlines while I’m drinking my coffee.

That’s amazing. It’s also dangerous. Because AI has dramatically reduced the cost of producing words without necessarily increasing our ability to recognize good words. You can now produce mediocre advertising at a speed Joseph Sugarman could never have dreamed possible.

Which is one reason I think The Adweek Copywriting Handbook may actually be more useful today than when it was written.

Sugarman was one of the great direct-response advertising minds. He built JS&A into a major mail-order business selling technology and consumer products through advertising, and he became particularly famous for his ability to get somebody to start reading an advertisement and then keep reading.

His world was print advertising, catalogs, and direct response. Our world is websites, email, LinkedIn, social media, Google, YouTube, landing pages, video, automation, and AI.

The technology has changed. Human attention hasn’t changed nearly as much. And neither has the fundamental question: How do you get another human being interested enough to keep listening to you?

That is where Sugarman gets very interesting.

Why I’m Doing These Reviews

There are thousands of business books. Most of them contain a handful of ideas that could genuinely change something in your business, surrounded by another couple hundred pages explaining, illustrating, and reinforcing those ideas.

That’s the reason for Barry’s 80/20 Five-Page Book Review. I’m looking for roughly the 20% of a book that gives you 80% of its practical value.

This isn’t intended to replace reading a good book. It’s meant to answer a different set of questions: What are the ideas worth stopping for?

What does the author really mean? What do I agree with? Where would I modify it? What would I add based on actually running businesses? And most importantly: What can you do with this Monday morning?

I’m also beginning to connect these books as we go. Business ideas don’t live in isolation. Sometimes one author explains a problem and another author gives you a tool for solving it. Sometimes two great authors disagree. Sometimes a 30-year-old idea suddenly becomes more important because of AI.

We saw in my review of The E-Myth Revisited that Michael Gerber doesn’t want the business owner trapped forever as the technician. Sugarman gives us something that fits beautifully alongside that idea. He teaches us what excellent technical work looks like in one of the most important disciplines in business: persuasive communication.

You don’t necessarily need to become the copywriter. But you’d better understand enough about copywriting to know whether the people and systems producing it for you are any good.

80/20 Idea #1: The First Job of Your Copy Is Not to Sell. It’s to Get Me to Keep Reading.

One of Sugarman’s best ideas is ridiculously simple. The purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence. Then the second sentence has a job: get you to read the third. And so on.

Sugarman eventually describes this as creating a slippery slide. Once the reader starts moving, the copy should create enough interest, curiosity, and momentum that continuing feels natural.

That’s an extremely useful way to look at advertising. Because businesses tend to ask too much of the opening.

We want the headline to explain the company. Then we want the first paragraph to explain the product. Then we need the features. Then our experience. Then our unique process. Then our mission statement. Then probably something about how committed we are to excellence.

Meanwhile, the prospect left six paragraphs ago.

The reader has a much simpler question: Why should I keep reading this?

If you haven’t answered that, nothing else matters. You can have the greatest offer on earth buried halfway down the page. Nobody will know.

BARRY AGREES

I think the slippery slide is one of the strongest ideas in the book because it’s so easy to understand and so easy to use. Read your own marketing. Where do you stop wanting to read? That’s probably where your customer stops too.

And I think this principle is even more important today than it was in Sugarman’s print-advertising world. Sugarman competed against other things on the page. We’re competing against everything: email, text messages, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, news, podcasts, Netflix, thirty-seven open browser tabs, and the most efficient rejection mechanism ever invented: the human thumb.

One little flick and your brilliant marketing disappears.

So yes, earn the next sentence. Then earn the next one.

80/20 Idea #2: Curiosity Is One of the Most Powerful Ways to Buy Another Few Seconds of Attention

Sugarman talks about planting what he calls seeds of curiosity. You don’t explain everything immediately. You leave something unresolved. You create a question. You hint that something interesting is coming. The reader wants closure, so they continue.

Great storytellers have understood this forever. Movies do it. Television does it. Novelists do it. Good speakers do it. YouTube creators certainly do it. And good advertising does it.

But there is a line here. Curiosity without payoff becomes clickbait. If you constantly tell me something unbelievable is coming and then give me nothing, I’m not becoming more interested in you. I’m learning not to trust you.

So the real rule isn’t simply: create curiosity.

It’s: create curiosity and then reward it.

Give the reader something worthwhile. That payoff earns permission to open another loop. And now we’re back on Sugarman’s slippery slide.

80/20 Idea #3: Stop Selling the Thing You Sell

This sounds contradictory. It’s not. Sugarman makes a powerful distinction between selling the product and selling the concept. Businesses naturally describe what they sell. Customers think about what they want. Those two things aren’t always the same.

At Stampede Branding, for example, we might sell LinkedIn appointment setting. But nobody wakes up excited because they have always dreamed of owning some LinkedIn appointment setting.

What do they actually want? More conversations with the right prospects. More opportunities. More customers. More revenue. Maybe they want those conversations without personally spending half their week chasing people.

That’s the concept behind the service.

Same thing with SEO. Nobody wants SEO because they have an emotional attachment to keywords. They want people searching for what they sell to actually find them.

A business owner doesn’t necessarily want a virtual assistant because they have dreamed their entire life of employing a virtual assistant. They may want ten or twenty hours of their week back.

That’s different.

BARRY AGREES

This is a huge distinction. And it connects to a lot of what I believe about marketing. You have to understand what somebody actually wants, not merely what service they’re asking about. The service is the mechanism. The result is the reason.

If someone asks me about appointment setting, I want to understand why. What would more appointments change? What’s happening now? Where is the bottleneck? What does success look like?

Once you know that, you’re no longer selling a feature. You’re communicating about an outcome. That’s much stronger.

80/20 Idea #4: People Aren’t Spreadsheets

Businesses love facts. We’ve been in business 27 years. Our software has 18 features. We have a proprietary seven-step process. Our widgets contain 14% more widgetonium.

Wonderful. Why do I care? Sugarman understands that buying has an emotional component. People want things. They fear things. They become curious. They want security, status, freedom, relief, money, time, and certainty. They want to avoid embarrassment, frustration, loss, and pain.

Logic still matters. But facts become more persuasive when the customer understands what those facts mean to them.

Compare, “Our system includes automated follow-up.” With, “You don’t lose the prospect just because nobody remembered to follow up Tuesday morning.”

Same feature. Different communication. One describes the machinery. The other makes the machinery matter.

BARRY AGREES

This is where knowing your market becomes so important. You can’t manufacture the right emotional appeal sitting in a conference room guessing what people care about. Get into communication. Talk to customers. Talk to prospects. Survey them. Listen to the words they use. Find out what they’re actually trying to solve.

Good copy doesn’t begin with clever writing. It begins with understanding.

80/20 Idea #5: Great Copy Should Sound Like One Human Being Talking to Another

This idea has aged extraordinarily well.

Sugarman emphasizes personal communication. You’re not writing to a market. You’re writing to a person. Even if 100,000 people receive the message, each person reads it individually.

I think this becomes especially important with AI. AI can produce incredibly polished writing. That’s useful. It can also produce writing that sounds like absolutely nobody: perfect grammar, perfect structure, beautiful transitions, not a pulse anywhere. You finish reading and couldn’t identify the writer if your life depended on it.

That’s content production. It isn’t necessarily communication.

If something is supposed to come from me, I want my thinking in it. My ideas. My reactions. My disagreements. My stories. My way of looking at the problem. AI can help organize it. A writer can improve it. An editor can tighten it. But underneath all of those layers there should still be somebody home.

And I suspect the more generic AI content fills the Internet, the more valuable genuine human voice becomes.

So How Long Should Copy Be?

Here’s another debate that refuses to die.

“Nobody reads long copy anymore.”

Really? People won’t read a 2,000-word sales page but they’ll watch a three-hour movie? They won’t read 1,500 words about something they may spend $20,000 buying but they’ll listen to a two-hour podcast?

People don’t necessarily have short attention spans. They have short attention spans for things they don’t care about.

Sugarman’s better question is whether you’ve maintained enough interest to justify the length. I agree. Long isn’t automatically good. Short isn’t automatically good. Interesting is good. Useful is good. Persuasive is good. Clear is good.

If you’ve made your case, stop. If you haven’t made your case, don’t stop merely because somebody told you people only read 300 words online.

The slippery slide still applies.

Earn the next minute.

BARRY ADDS

Understand the technician without becoming the technician.

This is where I take Sugarman’s book beyond copywriting. One thing I’ve always worked at is not becoming the technician. That does not mean I don’t understand what the technician should be doing. Quite the opposite.

I want to understand an area well enough to know what good looks like. I want to understand the principles. I want to understand the expected result. I want enough technical knowledge to recognize when we’re getting it right and when we’re getting it wrong.

But that doesn’t mean I personally need to do all the work.

Copywriting is a perfect example. I don’t need to personally write every advertisement, every email, every landing page, every LinkedIn message, every sales letter, or every piece of content. That would simply give me another full-time job.

But I should understand Sugarman well enough to look at something and say, “This isn’t pulling me into the next paragraph.” Or, “We’re describing the service instead of selling the concept.” Or, “This sounds like a company talking instead of a human being.” Or sometimes, “This is just boring.”

That is different from being the technician. That’s understanding the standard.

This Is Where the E-Myth Comes Back

In my earlier 80/20 review of The E-Myth Revisited, we looked at Michael Gerber’s Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician. One of his central warnings is that the business owner can become trapped doing the technical work.

I agree. But there’s an important companion idea. Not being the technician doesn’t mean being ignorant of the technology. Gerber helps explain why the owner shouldn’t spend his life doing the work. Sugarman helps us understand what excellent work looks like in this particular area.

Put them together and you get something much closer to how I actually operate. Learn enough to understand the activity. Know what excellent looks like. Then bring in people who may understand the technical discipline better than you do.

That’s not surrendering control. That’s building an organization.

Bring in Real Experts

I want actual experts around the process. If we’re producing copy, I want somebody who understands writing. They can review what we’re producing. They can provide quality control. They can see things I won’t necessarily see. They can see things AI won’t necessarily see.

Then we correct, refine, train, apprentice, and expand.

The process looks something like this: Understand → Build → Review → Correct → Refine → Train → Apprentice → Expand

That last part is important. The objective isn’t merely to get one excellent piece of copy. The objective is to increase the capability of the organization.

If an expert corrects something, don’t merely fix it. Understand why they corrected it. Can that lesson be taught to another person? Can it become part of an SOP? Can it become a checklist? Can it become part of your AI instructions? Can somebody apprentice under the expert and gradually become more capable?

Now you’re doing something much more valuable than editing an advertisement. You’re transferring knowledge.

The Big AI Mistake

I see two bad approaches developing around AI.

One group says, “AI can do everything. We don’t need experts anymore.”

The other says, “AI isn’t as good as a great expert, so I’m not going to use it.”

I think they’re both wrong.

My preferred model is: Owner direction + expert judgment + trained people + AI systems.

The owner provides ideas, direction, and judgment. The expert helps establish and protect the technical standard. The team operates and improves the process. AI gives everyone leverage.

That’s enormously powerful. But remove the expertise and you can create a problem. You can now produce mediocrity faster than at any point in human history.

That’s not leverage. That’s a high-speed mess.

Don’t Ask a Non-Writer to Build Your Writing System

This deserves its own section.

If you’re going to use AI to build a serious writing or copywriting system, somebody involved needs to understand writing.

Because AI doesn’t eliminate the need for judgment. Who decides what instructions the AI receives? Who chooses the examples? Who recognizes whether the output sounds human? Who knows when a paragraph drags? Who recognizes weak transitions? Who sees that technically correct copy has no emotional pull? Who knows whether the edit actually made the piece better?

Somebody who isn’t a writer can upload Sugarman into an AI and tell it, “Follow these rules.” That doesn’t magically turn the system into Joseph Sugarman. A great writer can help translate the principles into usable standards. Then AI can help apply those standards again and again.

That’s where this gets interesting.

Turn Sugarman Into the Rules of Your System

If I were taking the 80/20 of this book and putting it into a modern marketing operation, I’d turn it into rules.

Rule 1: Earn the next sentence.

Does each part create enough interest to continue?

Rule 2: Build the slippery slide.

Where does the reader slow down? Where does the copy become work? Fix it.

Rule 3: Use curiosity.

Create questions and open loops. Then pay them off.

Rule 4: Sell the concept.

Don’t merely explain the product. Explain what changes for the customer.

Rule 5: Connect emotion and logic.

Don’t abandon facts. Make the facts mean something.

Rule 6: Write person to person.

One human being is reading. Talk to them.

Rule 7: Don’t worship brevity.

Use the amount of copy necessary to do the job. Then remove what isn’t doing a job.

Rule 8: Edit.

Your first draft isn’t the finished product. It’s material.

Rule 9: Understand before you write.

Know the product. Know the market. Know the prospect.

Rule 10: Have competent people judge the result.

This last one becomes especially important when AI is generating the first draft.

Does Sugarman Still Hold Up Today?

Very much so. Some of the examples obviously belong to another era. That’s fine. Don’t confuse the vehicle with the principle. Print advertising changed. Direct mail changed. The Internet arrived. Google arrived. Social media arrived. Smartphones arrived. Video exploded. AI arrived.

And people still get bored. They still become curious. They still want things. They still worry about things. They still make decisions. They still respond to stories. They still want to know: What’s in this for me?

The technology surrounding persuasion changes much faster than human nature. That’s why old direct-response books can remain surprisingly valuable.

The tactics age. The psychology travels.

Monday-Morning Application

Don’t finish this article and decide you’re going to spend Monday becoming Joseph Sugarman. Do something simpler. Pick one important piece of marketing your company is already using: an email, a landing page, a LinkedIn message, an advertisement, a sales letter, a video script, whatever actually matters.

Then run it through this audit.

1. Does the opening make me want to continue?

Don’t ask whether it’s accurate. Ask whether it’s interesting.

2. Where do I fall off the slippery slide?

Read until you feel your attention weaken. Mark the spot. That’s where the work begins.

3. Are we selling the product or the concept?

What does the customer actually want? Is that obvious?

4. Does this sound like one human talking to another?

Or does it sound like a committee? Worse, does it sound like AI pretending to be a committee?

5. Is there curiosity?

Do I have a reason to continue?

6. Are we connecting facts to what the customer actually cares about?

Don’t merely tell me what it does. Tell me why that matters.

7. What should be removed?

If a sentence doesn’t help, kill it. It had a good life.

8. Who is reviewing this?

Do you have somebody who actually understands writing and persuasion looking at important marketing assets?

9. What can AI help improve?

Generate alternatives. Analyze. Compare. Tighten. Look for objections. Find repetition. Test different openings. Use it as leverage.

10. What did we learn that should become part of the system?

This may be the most important question. Don’t keep correcting the same mistake forever. Turn corrections into organizational knowledge.

The Sugarman Test

Here’s an even faster exercise. Pull up your homepage. Don’t read it as the owner. Pretend you’ve never heard of your company.

Read the headline.

Do you want to read the next line?

Read that line.

Do you want to read the next one?

Keep going until the answer becomes no. Stop. You just found the place where your slippery slide has sand on it. Fix that first.

Who Should Read The Adweek Copywriting Handbook?

I’d recommend this particularly strongly for marketers, copywriters, agency owners, entrepreneurs, salespeople, business owners responsible for marketing, content teams, and anyone building AI systems that produce marketing copy.

But there’s another group I’d put near the top: business owners who don’t intend to become copywriters.

That sounds strange. It isn’t. If copy is important to your business, you need enough knowledge to judge it. You need vocabulary. You need principles. You need standards. Otherwise you’re completely dependent on somebody else telling you whether the work is good.

And now that AI makes it possible for virtually anybody on your team to generate copy instantly, that understanding becomes more important.

Not less.

Barry’s 80/20 Verdict

If I had to reduce The Adweek Copywriting Handbook to one central idea, it would be: great copy creates forward motion.

Get me started. Keep me interested. Understand what I want. Sell me the concept. Communicate like a person. Make the facts matter. Create curiosity. Earn the next sentence.

That’s Sugarman. But my addition is organizational. Don’t stop at learning these principles yourself.

Build them into the company.

Teach them to your people. Use real writers and experts to maintain the technical standard. Use their corrections to train less-experienced people. Put the principles into your checklists. Put them into your systems. Put them into your AI. Improve those systems every time you learn something.

Sugarman teaches you how good copy works. Gerber reminds you that the owner shouldn’t have to personally produce all of it. AI gives us an unprecedented ability to multiply the output.

Put those three ideas together and you have something much more interesting than a copywriting lesson. You have a way to build organizational capability.

That’s the 80/20 I would take from this book.

Barry’s Rating: 9/10

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook deserves its reputation. Some examples are dated. The important ideas aren’t. And in an era where AI has made producing words almost free, the ability to distinguish between words and effective communication may become more valuable than ever.

I wouldn’t tell every CEO to become a copywriter. I would tell every CEO whose company depends on marketing to understand what good copywriting looks like.

Then hire, train, and develop people who can do it. Give them excellent tools. Give them AI. Give them standards. And build a company capable of producing excellent communication without requiring the owner to personally write every word.

That’s a much better use of the book.

Want Better Marketing Without Having to Do All of It Yourself?

A lot of what we’re building at Stampede Branding comes back to exactly this idea. Business owners don’t need another pile of marketing tasks. They need marketing that actually produces communication, conversations, appointments, and customers.

We help companies with LinkedIn appointment setting, lead generation, websites and funnels, SEO, Google and Meta advertising, email marketing and automation, CRM systems, content, and the systems and people required to keep all of that moving.

Increasingly, we’re also helping businesses think about the intersection of: People + systems + AI.

Not AI instead of people. Not people instead of technology. Use each where it creates the greatest leverage.

If you’d like to look at what’s happening with your marketing, where you’re still doing things you shouldn’t be doing, and where better people, systems, or AI could increase your capacity, let’s talk.

Schedule with me: https://calendly.com/barrycoziahr/meetingwithbarry

Or email me with your questions. I read them.

Need People to Help Run the System?

This is the other side of the equation. A great process without somebody capable of operating it isn’t much of a process.

Through TeamBuilders, we help business owners add trained virtual team members who can take recurring work off the owner’s plate, support marketing and administration, and gradually take ownership of functions inside the company.

That connects directly to what we’re talking about here. The objective isn’t simply, “Find somebody cheaper to do a task.” It’s to increase the productive capacity of the organization. Train people. Give them good systems. Give them appropriate AI tools. Give them expert guidance and quality control. Then allow their ability and responsibility to grow.

If that’s something you’re working on in your business, bring it up when we talk: SCHEDULE WITH BARRY

Want My Next Book Before Everybody Else?

I’m getting ready to release my book 7-Figure Networking.

If you’d like to know the moment it’s available, sign up for my early-access book list. People on that list will hear about 7-Figure Networking first and have an opportunity to get it before it’s made available to the general public.

And 7-Figure Networking is just the beginning. I have more books coming.

When you join the early-access list, you’re not signing up for notification about only one book. You’ll also be on my list for future releases, and I’ll give people on that list opportunities to hear about those books and get them early as they become available.

So if you enjoy these 80/20 reviews and you’re interested in what I’m writing myself, get on the list.

Barry Coziahr

Barry’s 80/20 Five-Page Book Review

I read the whole book. You get the 20% that matters most, what I agree with, what I don’t, and what you can actually use Monday morning.