“More agile than a turtle! Stronger than a mouse! Nobler than a head of lettuce! His shield is his Heart! It’s… El CHAPULIN COLORADO!”
El Chapulín Colorado – The Red Grasshopper – was a Spanish-speaking television star loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Whenever a ghost, a bandit, or any other threat appeared, the Red Grasshopper would shout “¡Síganme los buenos!” and leap into action.
(In English, “¡Síganme los buenos!” translates to “Follow me, the good ones,” or “Good guys, follow me.”)
And then he would run into a wall. Or tumble down the stairs. The results of following the lead of the Red Grasshopper were never straightforward. He had a good heart, but he was very poor, clumsy, and inept. His leadership would often increase the trouble, cause a mess, or create some other disaster that, through sheer luck, would always solve the problem.
El Chapulín Colorado was Don Quixote dressed as a comedic superhero.
“Notice how these simple, concrete nouns are easy to visualize in your mind. ‘Turtle, mouse, head of lettuce, heart, red grasshopper.'”
“And the verbs associated with El Chapulín Colorado are simple as well. ‘Leap, follow, run, tumble.'”
In the mid-1970’s and 1980’s, El Chapulín Colorado averaged 350 million viewers* per episode in Latin America alone. The show has made $1.7 billion in syndication fees since it ceased production in 1992.
Luis Castenada, one of the Wizard of Ads Partners, recently sent an email to the partner group.
Gentlemen,
I was listening to this podcast “Outliers: Anna Wintour – Vogue” [The Knowledge Project Ep. #233] when I heard this comment:
“Digital transformation isn’t about abandoning what made you successful. It’s about translating it to a new medium.”
I took this to mean:
“How can we translate what Roy has taught us into better digital marketing?”
What do you think?
Luis
Today I will teach you a simple but profound answer to that question. In fact, I already have:
“Notice how these simple, concrete nouns are easy to visualize in your mind. ‘Turtle, mouse, head of lettuce, heart, red grasshopper.'”
“And the verbs are simple as well. ‘Leap, follow, run, tumble.'”
Do you want to create better online ads? Avoid abstract words. Use simple, concrete nouns that are easy to see in your mind. Use simple verbs that are easily visualized as well.
Avoid abstract words. Use concrete words.
Avoid abstract words. Use concrete words.
Avoid abstract words. Use concrete words.
And repetition is effective.
Professional writers have long been familiar with that advice, but it was only recently scientifically proven. The publication is “Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.” The paper is titled, “Concrete Words Are Easier to Recall Than Abstract Words: Evidence for a Semantic Contribution to Short-Term Serial Recall.” The tests were performed, and the paper was written, by Ian Walker and Charles Hulme of the University of York.
Their paper is long and filled with scientific jargon, but this summary sentence is relatively easy to understand:
“It is also apparent that the short words were much better recalled than the long words, and that the concrete words were much better recalled than the abstract words, with the possible exception of the first and last serial positions.”
When Walker and Hulme refer to “the first and last serial positions,” they are referring to the long-established laws of Primacy and Recency. These terms describe how humans tend to remember the first item (Primacy) and the last item (Recency) in any sequence better than the items in the middle. This is known as the serial position effect.
Now let’s make it really simple.
These are the steps for making better online ads:
- Open big by using short words that project a clear image in the mind.
- Use colors, shapes, and the names of familiar things when you write.
- Use simple verbs that describe actions which are easy to visualize.
- Close big by returning to your opening image that has now been changed by what you are selling.
Here is an example:
My ads did not bring in money. I was using
big words so that I would sound smart. Then I read
what Roy wrote and now my ads are bringing in money.
© 2025, Roy H. Williams, Wizard of Ads
Run that ad without changing the hyperlink or a single word of the ad and watch the clicks roll in to my website.
“Síganme los buenos.”
Roy H. Williams
*350 million viewers – the viewership of each episode of El Chapulin Colorado, was more people than the total population of today’s United States (347,275,807 in 2025).