1. What Everyone Else Isn’t Doing?
Congratulations!
I suppose you have viewed every documents.
Wouldn’t it be fun if I ask you a question just to exercise your creative direct response
marketing brain?
Hehe.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I’m a football fanatic.
Arsenal Football Club is the club of my life.
Why?
They play beautiful, dynamic and attacking game.
If you are not into football or you love other teams, that’s fine.
We are not going to go deep into it in this document.
But little did anyone knows, we can learn a ton from football and apply it to direct response
marketing. (More about that later.)
8 years ago, Arsenal won the Premier League title, unbeaten in 49 matches.
They called them the “invincible”.
Read the entire article here: http://bit.ly/rpuFN2
To quote the important part of the article, here is it:
“It was a fairly similar side both seasons. The front four remained intact, and in its own way,
this was perhaps an early example of a strikerless formation. Dennis Bergkamp dropped into
space whilst Thierry Henry drifted to the left when Arsenal didn’t have possession, making
Arsenal incredibly dangerous on the counter-attack. Additionally, the wingers made outside-
to-inside runs, with Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg almost reinventing the wide
midfield role with their incredible goalscoring records. Patrick Vieira was a more dynamic
player than he is remembered as – with a more defensive partner in Gilberto, he often
looked to join the front players and possessed too many offensive qualities to be regarded
as a purely ‘defensive’ midfielder.
The most interesting thing about Arsenal’s defence is that none were defenders when
Arsene Wenger first set eyes on them. Ashley Cole was a promising forward in the Arsenal
youth system, Lauren was a central midfielder for Mallorca, whilst Kolo Toure was a versatile
player who played most often in an advanced midfield position. But Wenger converted all of
them to defenders, assuring Arsenal’s ball-playing ability was evident throughout the side.

2. And equally, Arsenal’s defensive work started from the front. Henry prevented the right-
back advancing and always pressed high up the pitch, Bergkamp dropped into a space so
deep it took one central midfielder out of the equation going forward, and both Pires and
Ljungberg were genuinely excellent at covering their full-back.”
10 years ago or more, defenders’ job is to purely defend opponents’ attacks.
Strikers’ job is to purely attack the opponent’s goal, stretch and break down their defence.
Now, strikers, midfielders and defenders are expected to both attack and defend.
Spot the difference?
So here’s the question, what can you learn from football that can be instantly apply now in
your landing page? (For example, CRE’s landing page.)
There are 2 lessons to be learnt in this story.
Hints:
1) These 2 lessons can be found in the bolded words above. (Might not be a direct
explanation to direct response strategies)
2) Think and relate it to CRE’s site, what innovation can be done on it.
3) What kind of technology can enforce this innovation? (Technology that can replace
Pop Ups like what you have in CRE, and increase conversion)
Now I can even relate an ancient Chinese warfare example to this case study but that will
only complicate things.
So think and then let me know.
If you don’t have the answer, I will happily explain it to you.
Contact me.
Peace.
P.S. This strategy might signifies the death of opt in box in landing pages.