Felix, my grandpa, is 89. 

He was born in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1933. Stalin was in power.

Felix was born during the Holodomor — the “Terror-Famine” — a Soviet creation that killed millions. 

When Felix was seven, a group of older boys tattooed him. They used a needle and black ink to draw crude things on his skin: an anchor on his hand, a sword on his wrist, a heart on his forearm. The tattoos are still there, of course, just faded, more green than black now. 

“I have a heart on my arm, too—” said a voice. 

I turned to look. A tall man in a black sweater and red vest was there, rolling up his sleeve. The vest said “Costco” on the front. 

Felix didn’t look. He was aloof, studying a massage gun box. The box was covered in words. Long copy. Felix was focused, reading.

I spoke Russian to him: “This man’s talking to you,” I said.

Felix looked up. “Shto?” 

“This man—” I repeated, motioning at the Costco worker, “is talking to you.” Felix put down the box and turned around. The worker smiled and pointed at a crude heart tattooed on his arm. It looked like the one on my grandpa’s arm. 

“We have same heart,” the worker said, moderating his English, “very simple.” He could tell Felix wasn’t a native speaker. 

“Ah!” Felix looked surprised. “You eez right,” his accent poured out. “You eez right.”

Felix read the massage gun box again in the checkout line. He turned it over, opening and closing the flap, looking at the pictures. He read the copy to himself, slowly, deliberately. I watched his lips move. When he didn’t know a word, he pointed at it and asked me to translate. I did my best. 

David Ogilvy famously said:

“In print advertising, long copy sells more than short copy.”

This is because direct-response copy must do so much to be effective: after it gets The Reader’s attention, it must overcome her objections and earn her trust and ask for the sale. It must anticipate what The Reader knows — her “level of awareness” — and then it must work to fill in the blanks, to educate her about what she does not know. This process requires space, words.

So long copy sells, in part, because it’s informative. It answers our questions and assuages our concerns. 

But also:

Long copy is transportive. 

This, I believe, is its salient advantage. The more we read, the more we’re carried away. Good long copy lets us fantasize: 

Felix read the box five or six more times before he opened it. 

And even then he didn’t immediately turn the gun on! He put it aside and read the user guide instead. 

“What are you doing?” I said. 

He looked up. “Shto?” 

“Use it already,” I said. “You’ve been reading forever.”

He looked back down. It was quiet for a moment. “I’m imagining,” he said. 

~

God bless you, Felix 🤟🏼

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