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Maxwell Sackheim (1890-1982) Maxwell Byron Sackheim was born in 1890 in Kovna, Russia, but he came to the United States at an early age with his family. As a little boy, Sackheim did not like school at all and only sports could attract his attention. However, he began to appreciate good reading and writing, after he received a set of Shakespeare books from his mother on his 16th. birthday. Sackheim started his career in advertising as an errand boy at the Long-Critchfield agency in Chicago. While working at Long-Critchfield, an agency specializing in the agricultural industry, Sackheim learned how to write advertising copy. He wrote his first advertising copy in 1906 for Kendall Company's Spavin Cure product for saving horses. Soon he also did some copywriting of mail order advertising for farm products such as horse collars, manure spreaders, incubators and stump pullers. Sackheim worked for an assistant advertising manager at Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1913, then moved to J. Walter Thompson in 1914, and then Ruthrauff and Ryan in 1915, where he met his future partner of Sackheim and Scherman advertising agency, Harry Scherman. Sackheim joined Brown Fence and Wire Company in Cleveland, Ohio as advertising manager, after he and Scherman sold their agency to Victor Schwab and Robert Beatty. Sackheim stayed at Brown Fence and Wire until 1944 and became president. He founded his own agency, Maxwell Sackheim and Co. in 1945, a year after he moved back to New York. Maxwell Sackheim was a creative thinker who invented many successful advertising concerts in direct response advertising history. Two of his best-known marketing concepts are the "Book of the Month Club" and the "Negative Option Plan." The "Book of the Month Club" was derived from Little Leather Library, developed by Sackheim and his partner Harry Scherman in 1914. They offered a set of 30 imitation leather-bound books at a price of $2.98 by mail. In the headline of an ad, it said: "SEND NO MONEY!" They sold 40 million books by mail in 3 years. In 1926, they formed Book of the Month Club to sell books on a subscription basis. However, the business was not doing very well in its infancy. Many books were returned or cancelled. They decided to change the plan and created the "Negative Option Plan." Subscribers were notified in advance about the next book, giving them a detailed description of it and allowing them two weeks to reply. If subscribers did not tell them "No" within two weeks, they would presume that subscribers were saying "Yes" and sent out the books. This idea has built many mail order companies into multi-million enterprises. The most famous ad Sackheim ever wrote was the "Do You Make These Mistakes In English?" for Sherman Cody's English course. It ran for 40 years, always making a profit. The headline contains the word "You" and it offers a value (a free lesson in English). He wrote 2 books: "My first 65 Years in Advertising" and "Billion Dollar Marketing." Maxwell Sackheim retired to Clearwater, Florida in 1960 and died in 1982 at the grand age of 92.
© Peter Woodhead 2003 Tel: +44.8450534901 (24 hours)
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