Bennie Goodman's endorsed mailings

I recently bought an iPod for my dad, and I've been loading it with music he likes...Barbra Streisand...Pavarotti...Canadian Brass. I put some Bob Newhart and Jeff Foxworthy on there, then I decided to look for old radio broadcasts to download. My dad grew up before television was big.

First I found the original 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast on www.mercurytheatre.info. Then I found a site called www.radiolovers.com. It has hundreds of old broadcasts -- Gangbusters, Bennie Goodman, Cloak and Dagger, Abbot and Costello (and much, much more...). There's also several World News Today broadcasts from the front lines of WWII.

My, how advertising has changed! During commercial breaks, most of these shows just had one guy reading the ad script. I bet it worked...gangbusters.

What it amounts to in today's terms is an "endorsed mailing." Having one guy on the cast of the show read ads from the sponsors. Nothing glamorous. Nothing clever. Just a guy reading a script.

What is your experience in writing a successful endorsed mailing?