Turned Inside Out

Chairman, JS&A Group, Inc., BluBlocker Corp. and DelStar Publishing, Inc.

The New York Times called him a “Mail Order Maverick,” Bottom Line called him “One of the country’s greatest copywriters,” and Success Magazine called him, “One of the most successful direct marketing gurus of all time.”

Joseph Sugarman defied the experts throughout his career and came up with legendary successes that broke many of the advertising and marketing rules of his time. Over the years he has experienced more than his share of failures. “I failed at practically everything I tried, but I never gave up. I just knew that one of these days I’d make it if I just hung in there.” And make it he did becoming one of the leading marketers in the United States and a major influence throughout the world.

Born and raised in the Chicago area, Sugarman attended the electrical engineering college of the University of Miami for three-and-a-half years before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1962.

He then lived in Germany where he served with Army Intelligence and later with the CIA. Returning home, he formed a company to market Austrian ski lifts in the United States and then later formed his own advertising agency to service ski resort accounts.

In 1971, he saw micro-electronics as an exciting opportunity and formed a company to market the world’s first pocket calculator through direct marketing.

His Northbrook, Illinois, company, JS&A Group, Inc., soon grew to become America’s largest single source of space-age products. Joe eventually introduced dozens of new innovations and concepts in electronic products during the ‘70s, including the pocket calculator, the digital watch, cordless telephone, computers and a variety of others. Each product introduction was made in large, full-page ads with extensive copy and few graphic elements, a novel approach during the ‘70s.

In 1973, Sugarman’s company was the first in the United States to use the 800 toll-free service to take credit card orders over the telephone. This service was brand new at the time and had never been used for order taking purposes. After one year of pioneering this new concept as the only American company to use it, many other mail order companies soon copied JS&A. Toll-free credit card order taking became a major catalyst for the entire catalog industry.

In 1986, JS&A changed its marketing focus from selling electronic products to his line of BluBlocker sunglasses, which he sold in direct mailings, mail order ads, catalogs and on TV through infomercials, and QVC, the home shopping channel. BluBlocker sunglasses are sold currently at stores throughout the world with over 20 million pairs sold.

In 1979, Joe was selected as the Direct Marketing Man of the Year and in 1991 was given the prestigious Maxwell Sackheim Award for his career contributions to direct marketing, and people pay up to $3,000 to attend his unique marketing seminars.

For those of us who may not have a few extra thousand on hand to attend his seminars, you may want to invest in Sugarman’s latest four books: Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, Marketing Secrets of a Mail Order Maverick, Television Secrets for Marketing Success, and Triggers.

Like many in business, Sugarman has seen his share of failures and opportunities. But as he has been quoted, “Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity.”

Resource Information:

BluBlocker, Corp.