Monday Memo

A Byte of Knowledge

Copywriters treat deadlines like finish lines.

They sprint right up to them...

Racing against the clock...

Frantically hitting "send" at 4:59PM before corporate EOD.

Big mistake.

Here's what copywriters who are never late do instead.

They finish a full day BEFORE the real deadline .

Why?

Because stuff always goes wrong.

The client wants last-minute changes...

Your computer crashes...

The email platform glitches out...

Or you re-read your copy and realize it sounds like garbage.

When you build in that extra day, you're not only buying time...

You're buying peace of mind.

You can review your work with fresh eyes...

Make tweaks without panic...

And actually sleep the night before the real due date.

🚀 Whether you're selling a $50 supplements or a $10,000 coaching program – having these 5 'Copy Blocks' on your landing page could be the difference between crickets and an avalanche of cash flow.

Discover All 5 'Copy Blocks' Now

Something to Ponder

We Asked – AI Answered

Our Question: 

"Fun fact: The 10,000-step goal was invented in 1965 to market a Japanese pedometer. The company chose the number because the Japanese character for 10,000 looks like a person walking. There’s no science behind it. Give me three more marketing examples like this.

AI's Answer:

1. “You need 8 glasses of water a day” – Invented by bottled water marketers, not medical experts

• The Origin: The idea that we all need to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day (the “8x8 rule”) is not backed by scientific consensus.
• Enter Evian, Nestlé, Dasani, etc.: These brands spent decades training consumers to feel dehydrated, especially in the 1990s and 2000s.
• Bestseller Tie-in: Books like Your Body's Many Cries for Water (1992) spread the idea that thirst = disease and that most people are constantly dehydrated.
• The Truth: Most people get plenty of water from food and don’t need to force water unless thirsty. Studies show no medical consensus that 8 glasses improves health for the general population.

What actually happened: The original source is likely a 1945 Food and Nutrition Board recommendation, which stated:

“A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 liters daily... Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.”

But marketers—especially in the bottled water industry—conveniently left out the second sentence.

🧠 Takeaway: The “8-glass rule” wasn’t medical advice. It was a hydration-industrial complex campaign that made billions.

2. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” – Coined by cereal companies, not doctors

• The Origin: This phrase was popularized in the 1940s–50s by companies like Kellogg’s and General Mills, specifically to sell cereal.
• Backstory: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a devout Seventh-day Adventist, believed bland food (like cereal) suppressed sexual urges. But his brother W.K. Kellogg was the marketer—and he’s the one who turned it into a commercial empire.
• The Slogan Itself: The actual phrase, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” can be traced to a 1917 marketing campaign by the American Breakfast Cereal Company.
• Modern “Science” Marketing: In 2013, a Kellogg-funded study published in Nutrition Journal claimed breakfast eaters had better diets… but neglected to disclose the cereal sponsor until public backlash.
• Reality Check: Multiple randomized controlled trials (e.g., by Oxford and Monash University) show no significant difference in metabolism or weight loss between breakfast-eaters and skippers.

🧠 Takeaway: A medical-sounding slogan created by the cereal industry got embedded in culture—and still influences school schedules, parent guilt, and health habits.

3. “The left brain is logical, the right brain is creative” – A pop-psychology myth turned marketing gold

• The Origin: The idea came from the 1960s Nobel-winning research of Roger Sperry on split-brain patients, which found some specialization between hemispheres.
• This myth exploded in the 1980s–2000s, used to sell everything from:
  • Educational products (“Boost your right brain!”)
  • Workplace seminars
  • Brain-training games and children’s toys
• Neurologists hate it: Studies using fMRI scans (University of Utah, 2013) found no evidence of people having a “dominant” hemisphere. The brain works as an integrated whole.
• Yet it lives on in branding—from business coaching to design school ads to even Apple’s “Think Different” era.

But marketers took it too far. Self-help books and creativity seminars simplified the findings into an easily packaged myth:

“Left-brained people are logical and analytical. Right-brained people are creative and artistic.”

🧠 Takeaway: A half-true neuroscience finding was warped into a billion-dollar dichotomy—because it gave people an identity they could buy into.

Thanks for reading the Monday Memo.

Until next time!

The AI Marketers

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