The ad: “A Fluke of Nature” – a newspaper ad for Royal Ruby Red grapefruit, sold by mail
The copywriter: Frank Schultz – a Texas grapefruit grower who learned his copy at Joe Sugarman’s seminar
The big idea: an “entirely new kind of grapefruit” that hardly anyone has ever tasted – and only a few people will ever get
The offer: try a box first, send no money now, and join the grower’s “club” if you love them
The lesson: you can’t out-shout the competition on a bland product. You out-STORY them.
How do you successfully sell something simple & bland like a grapefruit?
There are no immediate points of differentiation. No way to stand out against your competition.
And not much you can work with to add a little “sizzle” to your marketing…
Right? Well, today I’d like to challenge you to think again!
Because in this ad breakdown, I’ll show you a mega-successful ad written by one of Joe Sugarman’s students, Frank Schultz…
That is ALL about selling something simple like a grapefruit.
All it takes is a solid “Big Idea” and some copy chops – and you’ve got yourself a license to print money on demand.
(This is Day 4 of my 100-Day Proven Sales Letter Breakdown Challenge. Prefer video? Here’s the full breakdown.)
Who is Frank Schultz?
Frank Schultz wasn’t a professional copywriter.
He was a grapefruit grower from Alamo, Texas – deep in the Rio Grande Valley – and the owner of the Crest Fruit Company.
And for years, he had a problem. Joe Sugarman (the BluBlocker guy) told the story of a man named Frank Schultz who came to his seminar in 1977.
Frank sold grapefruit by mail… but he’d never been able to make space advertising work.
Then he wrote this ad.
From 1966 to 1986, Royal Ruby Reds were shipped all over the US under the “Frank Lewis” label.
Texas Monthly once called him “the friendliest grapefruit tycoon in Texas”, and his mail-order business grew to more than 80,000 customers.
Not bad for a guy selling fruit you can buy at any grocery store.
The ad that doesn’t look like an ad
If you look at the ad, it appears to be an article in the newspaper.
This is important because you want your advertisement to be hidden in the content, so people don’t immediately dismiss it.
Sure, the word “advertisement” is printed there. But most people don’t really register it…
Because as soon as they read the headline – “A Fluke of Nature” – they get sucked into the story.
This is called the advertorial approach. Roughly 80% content and 20% selling.
No aggressive pitch. No “BUY NOW” buttons every three paragraphs.
Just an interesting story that happens to end with an order form.
How Frank Schultz uses the story lead
When your audience may be unaware of your product (Gene Schwartz’s 5 Stages of Awareness)…
A story lead is one of the best ways to grab their attention. And this audience is about as unaware as it gets.
Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking: “Oh my god, I wish I had a better grapefruit in my fridge.”
People don’t really want to read about your product or pay attention to your ad.
They want to read stuff that’s interesting to them. And sometimes, that’s an ad.
Frame your promotion as a news piece, an advertorial, a case study or a personal story – and you “conceal” the fact that it’s a promotion.
The story does the pulling.
I mean, seriously – why would someone buy YOUR grapefruits when there are a million other people selling them?
They won’t… unless your grapefruit has a unique story and unique qualities that set it apart from the competition.
Frank’s ad opens with a little teaser that sets expectations – very similar to the way Sugarman opened his BluBlocker ad:
(Want to read the full swipe – marked up with my personal notes and comments? It’s one of the 100 annotated sales letters inside my Million Dollar Copywriting Swipe Library.)
Which is the whole point. Sugarman called it the slippery slope.
The only job of the headline is to get the first line read…
The only job of the first line is to get the second line read…
All the way down to the order form.
A grapefruit with a mystery
Then the story starts.
A single branch of an ordinary grapefruit tree produces a few very unusual fruit.
Brilliant ruby red inside.
And the man who found them was a doctor – Dr. Webb.
(Notice that? A doctor. Instant credibility. It’s not a farmer bragging about his own fruit… it’s a man of science who discovered something.)
And Frank never gives everything away at once.
Just like any good series or movie, he teases… sets expectations… and opens loops so that you keep reading:
It’s mysterious. It’s natural (no lab, no chemicals – great news for the health-conscious reader).
And it’s an opportunity: something new that most people have never heard of.
That’s how you differentiate something that has no obvious difference.
You find the NEW thing about it.
Royal Ruby Red: a name that sells
Then Frank gives his grapefruit a name.
Royal Ruby Red.
I love this name. Look at what each word does:
Royal – it must be something exclusive.
Ruby – people love rubies. Precious, beautiful color.
Red – instantly different from the pale yellow grapefruit everyone else sells.
And it’s memorable. R-R-R.
The name carries half the unique selling proposition all by itself.
Selling something “boring”? Give it a name that sells before anyone reads a single benefit.
Perfect, juicy, and luscious
Frank Schultz builds fascination about the product throughout the ad. He also uses evocative words to build immense desire for the unique grapefruit.
He doesn’t TELL you it tastes good. He describes the sensation:
By the end of it, I was salivating and CRAVING grapefruits – even though I hate grapefruits!
This shows the impact of the “show, don’t tell” principle.
Use it in as many cases as you can!
And notice the little “naturally sweet” bit. No added sugar. No preservatives.
No preservatives.
Frank quietly answers an objection the health-conscious reader hasn’t even voiced yet.
Scarcity – with a reason
Here’s another smart move.
Frank tells you that hardly anyone – “one man in a thousand” – has ever tasted this grapefruit.
And then he explains why:
He doesn’t have to.
If only a tiny slice of the harvest makes the cut… there obviously isn’t much to go around.
The scarcity is built into the product. Then he handles the next worry before you can think it.
“But what if they spoil?” They stay fresh for many weeks.
And he shows you how picky he is. He checks the fruit himself for tree-ripened maturity… for natural sugar… to make sure it’s plump and meaty.
He won’t even ship you a grapefruit with a “sheep’s nose” (a lumpy, misshapen end that makes the fruit less desirable – the kind of oddly specific detail that makes the whole thing feel real).
The message is simple:
If you buy from me, you only get the best.
The club (and the free sample)
Then comes my favorite part.
Frank doesn’t just sell you grapefruit. He invites you into a club:
And look at the next line:
Before offering it to everyone, he invites people to try the free samples.
This transfers decision-making to the audience by inviting them to try the amazing fruit for free, with no risk.
Who wouldn’t do that?
He even tells you what to do when the box arrives: cut them in half and have your family sample this unusual fruit.
And right when it starts to sound too good to be true, he hands the control back to you:
Send no money now
The close is a masterclass in making “yes” easy.
The first box arrives a few days before Christmas. (A timely offer. People already worry about gifts, family dinners and “getting it in time” in December.)
The supply is strictly limited, so it’s important to order now.
And then: “Send no money now.”
By saying yes to the first shipment, you get the “privilege” of joining his Winter Fruit Club – and you pay nothing in advance.
He covers safe delivery.
He explains exactly how ordering works (something most people forget – but spending money creates real anxiety, and a confused reader puts the paper aside and never comes back).
Risk reversal, again.
Scarcity, again.
Then a toll-free number.
This is called a soft offer.
See, free samples are still very effective today.
Claude Hopkins wrote about them in Scientific Advertising back in 1923… and they’ve never stopped working.
Would “A Fluke of Nature” still work today?
Mostly, yes. The grapefruit part is harder now. Every supermarket sells ruby red grapefruit.
But the method? Timeless.
Find the new thing about your boring product. Give it a name.
Tell its story like news. Make the scarcity real.
Then let people try it before they pay.
Swap “newspaper” for a blog post, an email or a social feed, and you can run the same play on almost anything.
5 lessons to steal from Frank Schultz
1 – Hide the ad in a story. People skip ads. They read stories. Make the first 80% interesting enough that they don’t notice it’s selling.
2 – Find the “new” in your boring product. A new variety, a new discovery, a new way of doing it. Novelty beats shouting.
3 – Name it. “Royal Ruby Red” sells before you read a single benefit. A good name carries your USP for you.
4 – Give the scarcity a reason. “Only 4-5% of the crop qualifies” beats any countdown timer.
5 – Let them try it first. A free sample, a club, a “you decide”. Lower the risk until saying yes is the easiest thing to do.
That’s Day 4.
See all the proven sales letter breakdowns →
More ads that make an “ordinary” product irresistible: Joe Sugarman’s BluBlocker ad · Gary Bencivenga’s Kurobuta ham letter · Bencivenga’s olive oil letter
More like this: Bill Jayme’s “Psychology Today” letter · Claude Hopkins’ Pepsodent ad
And if you want the “secret recipe” behind ads like this one – the persuasion pattern I kept seeing over and over during these 100 days – grab it here:
Free cheat sheet
Steal the “Secret Recipe” Behind the Most Profitable Sales Letters of All Time
The 7-part structure I kept finding in proven sales letters – plus a 26-point checklist that catches the holes in your copy before it goes live.
Send Me the Secret Recipe →-Csaba
P.S. – A lot of people have been asking about the sales letter swipes I’ve used for this 100-day challenge…
They’d love to get access not just to the swipes themselves…
…But to my detailed notes, annotations and comments on them as well.
So I put them all together in my Million Dollar Copywriting Swipe Library – 100 of the best sales letters of all time, annotated and marked up. Plus a 2,000+ page swipe vault of emails, sales pages and Facebook ads.
It’s less than a buck per annotated sales letter… and some of these bad boys are 50+ pages long!
(PRO TIP: you can even feed them into your AI tools to make them that much smarter.)
