You know the ad.

The one with the powerful red headline.

The “pile of money” wealth shot. The “From the Desk Of:” header. The red, white and blue formatting with exclamation points and yellow highlighting. The bold promises of riches and amazing benefits. The cheapo graphic design and typography.

Whenever I see this kind of message, a huge red flag goes off. I automatically disregard the integrity of the message and cast a very skeptical eye on it. Pretty much the only way I’ll keep reading – if at all – is for entertainment value.

Back when I was a kid, catalog marketers and direct mail professionals did the writing. The quality control was better and the products were actual, tangible goods. But since the advent of online marketing, the sheer number of sketchy e-book hustlers and squeeze page pimps – ALL USING THE SAME FORMAT – has exploded. It’s out of control.

I am aware the sales letter is a classic, time-tested marketing format. A product of scientific split-tests and billions of dollars swindled made and lost. And I know that a small but statistically-significant percentage of people DO fall for it.

But how much longer can this approach keep working? How long will it take before average Joe surfer becomes jaded? Look at the Nigerian 419 letter , or Viagra Spam du jour… they don’t have much fizzle anymore.

But maybe it doesn’t matter how many people get a clue, because “a sucker is born every minute.”

The copywriters who crank this stuff out defend it by saying “All the scams might have long copy sales letters, but not all long copy sales letters are scams.”

Either way, the whole style seems about as modern as a 1968 comic book ad. It’s the uncensored, low-budget, late night infomercial of the web.

Can we not move on to a sophisticated method of direct-response copywriting? A more modern, Web 2.0 paradigm of written persuasion?