Selling is a fundamental activity. Yet, so many people face bad results, because they do not know how to advertise their product properly. However...and there is a however, some of the methods he prescribes are quite crass and questionable. I'm all for simplicity in the message but a certain degree of elegance wouldn't hurt, I think. New York's biggest ad agencies use dozens of these little-known secrets every day to influence people to buy. And now--thanks to Cashvertising--you can, too. And it won't matter one bit whether you're a corporate giant or a mom-and-pop pizza shop. These techniques are based on human psychology. They work no matter where you're located, no matter what kind of product or service you sell, and no matter where you advertise. In fact, most don't cost a penny to use.

Changing people’s beliefs is difficult. So, take the easier route and work on reshuffling the importance of their existing views. In other words, try to strengthen the ideas that support them buying your product, and weakening those that don’t.

However, most advertising experts forget this objective: making people spend money, and focus on being clever or win creative awards instead.

Plenty of sound advice is given, though, and Whitman is likely right when he states that if you just follow these principles in your ads, you'll do better than if you hadn't... or, worse, if you had tried to be "clever" or funny in your ads. It seems much of the ad industry hasn't understood this, though -- I still see so many ads trying SO hard to be clever and funny, often inappropriately so. Many of these agencies should give themselves a "cleverectomy" and focus on clarity above all. A wise definition: "Advertising is business communication with the goal to increase sales by interesting people enough in a product or service that they ultimately trade their money for it." (p.184) If that results in a "boring" headline, so what? It'll likely convert better than the "clever" one. It's really not about being clever and/or funny, ad agencies. I enjoyed Cashvertising but also think that some things have changed in the time since 2008 when Whitman wrote it. The mention of ads in a magazine, for example, feels a bit outdated. However, the principles around human nature and online content are timeless and give great tips we can use even today. Who would I recommend the Cashvertising summary to? Next, make sure that the wording you’re using catches the eyes of the type of people that you’re marketing to.Barely one in a hundred businesspeople knows these facts about creating powerful advertising. Do You?