The Crimes We Commit Against Our Stomachs" (The Independent, July 3 1916)
The pattern
This still is filed under If-then promise.
Define
A conditional contract: if you do this, you get that. The sentence can be tested against the reader's own case.
Mechanism
Specificity does the persuading. The if names the action. The then names the outcome. Hedging kills it.
Verdict
We can name both the action and the result without adjectives
Why it works
The piece buys credibility with format: a doctor's byline, a portrait, a reported-conversation structure and the magazine's own type make it read as journalism, so the reader lowers the guard he would raise against an ad. The three case histories are the engine, each one a before and after with numbers, duration and a named condition, which lets the reader locate himself in at least one of them without the advertiser making a claim about him. The writer keeps himself in the frame as an interested reporter, so the sell arrives as a practical note at the end rather than as a pitch. The closing instruction dresses the coupon as an official blank, converting an order form into paperwork the reader is complying with.
Steal this when
Use this when your proof is a body of case results and your claim would be dismissed coming from you: publish it as a reported article with a credentialed third-party byline, narrate two or three cases with specifics, and put the offer in the last paragraph as a service note.