It’s a mystery, trailblazing women in advertising & copy resource of the week

Hey, hi, howdy, and welcome to Issue #39 of The Subhead, a bi-weekly newsletter about copywriting, marketing & media, and a look at some of the women who make it great.

In today’s edition:

✨ This week in freelancing

✨ Trailblazing Women in Advertising: Ilon Specht, Copywriter & Creative Director*

✨ Copy Resource of the Week: Free Guide to Crafting the Perfect Email: 45+ Fill-in-the-Blank Email Templates

✨ Just for Fun

*The mini-profile section of today’s newsletter previously appeared in an issue last summer, but has been lightly edited / updated. Re-purposing for the win!

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This week in freelancing

In the last newsletter, I mentioned that a monthly client I’ve been happily writing 4-6 articles per month for, every month for six years, seems to have vanished. Two weeks on, I still haven’t heard a peep from them, despite reaching out … yet again.

I was talking with my neighbor about this on Saturday, and we were coming up with all kinds of wild theories for this turn of events, as one does. I just hope everyone over there on the content & editorial and team is ok.

Alas, the mystery remains unsolved.

But hey, onward and upward!  I’m choosing to see this as an opportunity to get back to writing more email sequences, landing pages, and website copy, which used to be almost exclusively what I wrote for clients.

And maybe this is the universe’s way of guiding me back to that. 😊

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Trailblazing Women in Advertising: Ilon Specht, Copywriter & Creative Director

Ilon Specht, who passed away in 2024 at age 81, was a copywriter & creative director at several Manhattan advertising agencies, beginning in the mid-1960s when she was still a teenager.

When I saw the subhead of her obit in The New York Times – “She came up with the feminist campaign, for a hair color product, when challenging the notions of men at her ad agency” – I knew I had to learn more.

That obituary began, “Ilon Specht, who rebelled against her patriarchal male colleagues at an advertising agency by writing a successful television commercial for L’Oréal’s Preference hair color product that carried an enduring message of feminist empowerment …”

That famous L’Oreal ad was created by Specht in 1973 while she was a copywriter at the McCann-Erickson (now McCann) agency in New York.

Here’s the fascinating back story of how the ad was developed:

Specht and some of her male colleagues were discussing what the ad should be. According to Specht, in the men’s concept of the ad, a woman was sitting by a window with the wind blowing through the curtains, and “was a complete object. I don’t even think she spoke. They just didn’t get it.”

This made Specht angry, so she went off and wrote a much-improved version of the ad in about five minutes.

You know the one, it’s one many of us grew up seeing – either the original ad, or other iterations of it, using the line, “Because I’m worth it,” “Because you’re worth it,” or “Because we’re worth it.”

As reported in The New York Times obit, two versions of the ad were shot, the one Specht wrote, and a second one preferred by her male colleagues, in which the woman’s words “were rewritten and delivered by a man as he strolls in a meadow with a woman who looks adoringly at him. She stays silent save for a giggle.” 

[Yikes. 😬]

Specht said her version of the ad was not for men, but “for women and other human beings.”

As recounted in a piece written by Malcolm Gladwell in the March 1999 issue of The New Yorker about Specht’s work on the ad:

She spoke about what it meant to be young in a business dominated by older men, and about what it felt like to write a line of copy that used the word “woman” and have someone cross it out and write “girl.”

“I was a twenty-three-year-old girl—a woman,” she said. “What would my state of mind have been? I could just see that they had this traditional view of women, and my feeling was that I'm not writing an ad about looking good for men, which is what it seems to me that they were doing. I just thought, Fuck you. I sat down and did it, in five minutes. It was very personal. I can recite to you the whole commercial, because I was so angry when I wrote it.”

When the agency tested both ads with audiences, Specht’s version “far outperformed the other version.”

Specht left McCann-Erickson in 1974 for Jordan McGrath Case & Partners, where she worked as a creative director, overseeing campaigns for Life cereal and Underalls pantyhose, among others. While at Jordan McGrath, she became executive vice president and executive creative director, but left in 2000 when the agency was acquired by Havas Advertising.

She later opened an antiques store called Hacienda, in Ojai, California.

Years later when talking about the message of the L’Oreal commercial, Specht said, “It’s about humans, it’s not about advertising. It’s about caring for people. Because we’re all worth it or no one is worth it.” 💖

You can learn more about Ilon Specht at the inline links above, and / or check out:

Ilon Specht, Who Empowered Women With ‘I’m Worth It’ Ad, Dies at 81

She came up with the feminist campaign, for a hair color product, when challenging the notions of men at her ad agency.

Finding Beauty in Empowerment: “Because I’m Worth It”

True Colors, by Malcolm Gladwell

Double Oscar Winner Ben Proudfoot to Premiere Doc On Advertising Pioneer Ilon Specht, Who Created L’Oréal’s “Because I’m Worth It” Campaign

IPG Agencies Reveal Documentary Film About Advertising Icon Ilon Specht

Two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot is the filmmaker behind The Final Copy of Ilon Specht

L'Oréal Paris Celebrates 50 Years of Women's Worth

A landmark anniversary for the iconic signature of L'Oréal Paris

L'Oreal 'Because You're Worth It' – 1973 [26 seconds]

The iconic original L’Oreal ad

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Copy Resource of the Week: Craft the Perfect Email with These 45+ Fill-in-the-Blank Email Templates

I recently stumbled on what appears to be a stellar free course for writing emails, called What to Write, from the fine folks at email service provider, Aweber.

(I’ve been using Aweber for my other email list for well over 10 years, and I can confirm they know their stuff when it comes to all things email.)

What’s included in the free course:

:: More than 45 fill-in-the-blank copy templates.

:: How to write every email you should be sending.

:: Homework to help you take action.

:: Expert copywriting strategies to optimize your emails.

:: Plus, a whole lot more

Get the free course and learn how to write the perfect email here*.

(*You have to opt in to receive this resource, just FYI. The first email you receive after signing up says you’ll need an email marketing provider to truly apply what you’re learning, BUT you could use whatever you currently use to send emails, and still get loads of value out of this course. Plus, Aweber does offer a free account for up to 500 subscribers. I’m not an Aweber affiliate, just sharing the information!)

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Just for Fun

One City’s Secret to Happiness: The Annual Burning of a 50-Foot Effigy [New York Times gift link]

Every year, Santa Fe incinerates a giant puppet of Zozobra — a ritual meant to purge anxiety and promote a reset.

(I lived in Albuquerque, NM for a few years, and I made the drive to up Santa Fe to attend the burning of Zozobra a few times – it is a wild experience. I hope you’ll check out the article to see what it’s all about.)

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That’s it for this week, my friend.

As always, thanks for reading, I appreciate you!

Be well. Stay curious. See you again in two weeks, on April 13.

Warmly,

Kimberly