- Preface
- There is a way to develop an entirely new market for a new or an old product
- We are all simply creating or exploiting markets for our products
- This book talks about the sentences that make up the primary appeal of a product to a market
- This message will show you how to find you dream market and how to drive it into a national feeding frenzy
- People don't change, only the direction of their desires do
☆ They cannot be made to want anything, nor is it necessary to create want. All that is necessary is to be able to channel those wants into the proper products that offer legitimate satisfaction for them
- It takes only one slip of paper to direct all those millions of people to your stores, or your catalogues, or your wholesalers
- It is about helping to shape the largest and strongest market possible, and then intensifying that market's reaction to its basic need or problem, and to the 'exclusive' solution you have to offer it
- Introduction
- How to write a headline—and an ad that follows it—that will open up an entirely new market for its product
- Copy writing has to do with the hopes and fears and desires of millions upon millions of men and women all over the world
- No formula works twice. You can't copy the people who came before you
- What works is innovation. Continuous, repeated innovation. A steady stream of new ideas—fresh new solutions to new problems
- Part 1 - The basic strategy of persuasion
- How to write a winning headline that no one has ever written before
- Chapter 1 - Mass Desire: the force that makes advertising work—and how to focus it onto your product
- The power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own that makes advertising work, comes from the market itself, and not from the copy
- Copy cannot create desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people, and focus those already- existing desires onto a particular product
- Channel and direct the mass desire, hopes, dreams, and fears
- Mass Desire is the public spread of a private want
- No single advertiser can afford to educate the American public. He must rely on forces far greater than any advertising budget to build this mass desire
1. Permanent forces
- Mass Instinct. The desire of women to be attractive, or men to be virile, or men and women both to keep their health
- A mass technological problem. Bad television reception, or corroding automobile mufflers, or the time it takes for aspirin to bring relief. Until the problem is finally solved, the customers will buy and try—buy and try again. And here the copywriter has the same problem—to offer the same claim of relief as his competitors, but offer it in a new way
2. The Forces of Change
- The beginning, the fulfillment, and the reversal of a trend. Style.
- Here he needs sensitivity, foresight, and intuition. He must be able to see and catch the rising tide when it's almost imperceptible—a sense which of the several appeals that are built into his product he should stress at any particular moment, and when to shift to another—and, always, how to be there first
- The copywriter is faced with a society containing dozens— even hundreds—of these already-existing mass desires. His first job, therefore, is to detect them—inventory them—chart their force and direction. This is a study that will occupy part of every working day for the rest of his life
- The copywriter in his work uses three tools: his own knowledge of people's hopes, dreams, desires and emotions; his client's product; and the advertising message, which connects the two
1. Choose the most powerful desire that can possibly he applied to your product.
- Every mass desire has three vital dimensions. The first is urgency, intensity, degree of demand to be satisfied
- The second dimension is staving power, degree of repetition, the inability to become satiated
- And the third dimension is scope—the number of people who share this desire
- Every product appeals to two, three, or four of these mass desires. But only one can predominate; only one can reach out through your headline to your customer. Only one is the key that unlocks the maximum economic power at the particular time your advertisement is published. Your choice among these alternate desires is the most important step you will take in writing your ad
- You try to tap a single overwhelming desire existing today in the hearts and minds of millions of people who are actively seeking to satisfy it at this very moment.
2. Acknowledge that desire—reinforce it—and/or offer the means to satisfy it—in a single statement in the headline of your ad.
- If he is not aware of your product, but only of the de- sire itself, your headline starts with the desire. And, if he is not yet aware of what he really seeks, but is concerned only with a general problem, your headline starts with that problem and crystallizes it into a specific need
3. And then you take the series of performances that are built into your product—what your product does—and you show your prospect how these product performances inevitably satisfy that desire
- The physical part of your product is of value only because it enables your product to do things for people. The important part of your product is what it does
- The Physical part of your product justifies its price
- By documenting the quality of your performance
- By assuring your prospect that that performance will continue throughout the years
- By sharpening the reader's mental picture of that performance
- And, above all, by giving your product's claim of performance afresh new basis for believability
- So much for the physical product. It is always subordinated to the functional product—the product in action—what the prod- uct does
- It is the performance of your product, satisfying the mass desire of your market, that provides the selling power of your ad
- Your first task, then, in studying your product, is to list the number of different performances it contains—to group these performances against the mass desires that each of them satisfies—and then to feature the one performance that will harness the greatest sales power onto your product at that particular time
- Your ad can feature onlv one of these performances; can effectively tap only one mass desire at a time
- If your first thought holds him. he will read the second. If the second holds him, he will read the third. And if the third thought holds him, he will probably read through your ad
- Convince your reader that performance and that satisfaction can come only from your product
- Chapter 2 - Your Prospect's: State of Awareness—how to capitalize on it when you write your headline
- You have defined the mass desire that makes up your market and you have selected the one performance in vour product that satisfies that desire most deeply
- Your ad always begins with your market, and leads that market inevitably into your product
- The headline concerns itself entirely with your market. It mav never even mention your product or its performance. It is based entirely on the answer to these three questions:
1. What is the mass desire that creates this market?
2. How much do these people know today about the way your product satisfies this desire?
3. How many other products have been presented to them before yours?
- Your headline doesn't need to sell at all
- It does not have to mention your product
- The headline has only one job—to stop your prospect and compel him to read the second sentence of your ad
- The second sentence has only one job—to force him to read the third sentence of your ad
- The more of your story you can force your prospect to read, the more thoroughly you can sell him
- It is the copy writer's job to force the prospect to read his client's full story—not just a skimmed version of it
1. The Most Aware
- The customer knows of your product—knows what it does— knows he wants it
- Your headline—in fact, your entire ad—need state little more except the name of your product and a bargain price
- Revere Zomar Lens, Electric Eve Camera—Formerly $149.50—Now Only $119.95
- The remainder of the advertisement can summarize quicklv the most desirable selling points. Then add the name of a store, or a coupon, and close
- There is nothing creative about his job, and he should receive the lowest possible scale of pav
2. The customer knows of the product but doesn't yet want it
1. Reinforce your prospects desire for your product
- Steinway—The Instrument of the Immortals
- Joy—The Costliest Perfume in the World
- Tastes like you just picked it—Dole
- The skin YOU love to touch—Woodbury
- Life Saver—Please don't lick this page
- Twos—The best place to write things down
2. Sharpen his image of the way your product satisfies that desire
- At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in a Rolls Royee is the electric clock
- The amazing story of a Zippo that worked after being taken from the bellv of a fish
- Twos, the first all-in-one system to simplify your life
3. Extend his image of where and when your product satisfies that desire
- Anywhere you go. Hertz is always nearby
- Thirst knows no season—Coca Cola
4. Introduce proof, details, documentation of how well your product satisfies that desire
- 9 out of 10 screen stars use Lux Toilet Soap for their priceless smooth skins
- Jake La Motta, 160-lb fighter, fails to flatten Mono paper cup
- In Boston, the #1 tea-drinking citv, the #1 tea is Salada
5. Announce a new mechanism in that product to enable it to satisfy that desire even better
- Hoovers new invention washes floors and vacuums up the scrub water
- Worlds only dog food that makes its own gravy— Gaines Graw Train
6. Announce a new mechanism in your product that eliminates former limitations
- You breathe no dusty odors when YOU do it with Lewvt
- A new Zenith hearing aid—inconspicuous beyond belief
7. Completely change the image or the mechanism of that product, in order to remove it from the competition of other products claiming to satisfy the same desire
- Display the name of the product—either in the headline or in an equally large logo—and use the remainder of the headline to point out its superiority
- The body of the ad is then an elaboration of that superiority—including visualization, documentation, mechanization
3. How to introduce new products
1. Name the desire and/or its solution in your headline
2. Prove that that solution can be accomplished
3. Show that the mechanism of that accomplishment is contained in your product
- The execution becomes more and more important than the mechanics
1. You need to analyze and define the particular market most receptive to your product, its location in the relation to your product in terms of awareness and sophistication, and the driving emotional forces that have created both that market and the potential for the sales of your product within it
2. Intuition helps sense a trend at its start, gauge its force and direction, determine the precise moment when it burgeons into a profitable market
3. Verbal creativity helps give a name to the still-undefined. To capture a feeling, a hope, a desire, a fear in words. To create a catchword or a slogan. To focus emotion, and give it a goal
4. How to Introduce Products That Solve Needs
- The prospect has a need, he recognizes the need, but he doesn't yet realize the connection between the fulfillment of that need and your product
- Start by naming the need and/or its solution in your headline. Then dramatize the need so vividly that the prospect realizes just how badly he needs the solution. Then present your product as the inevitable solution
5. How to Open Up a Completely Unaware Market
- The prospect is either not aware of his desire or need—or he won't honestly admit to himself without being lead into it by your ad
- A headline which will work to a market in one stage of awareness will not work to a market in another stage of awareness
- Path to planning a headline
1. Eliminate all mention of price. It does not mean anything to a person who does not know your product, or want your product
2. Keep your product out of the headline. The name of your product means nothing to a person who has never seen it before. Be wary about breaking the mood or disguise of your ad with a prominent logo
3. Do not mention the performance of your product or the desire it satisfies in your headline. A direct statement of what your product does, what desire it satisfies, or what problem it solves, simply will not work.
4. You should mention your market. Concentrate exclusively on the state of mind of your market at this particular moment. You are writing an identification headline to call your market together. You are selling nothing, promising nothing, satisfying nothing. Instead, you are echoing an emotion, an attitude, a satisfaction that picks people out from the crowd and brings them together in a single statement
- The headline never attempts to sell a product or a performance, but simply tries to sell the remainder of the ad itself
- The only function of this headline is to get the prospect to read the next paragraph. And this second paragraph pulls him into the third; and the third into the fourth: and right on down the page, paragraph after paragraph. Meanwhile, these paragraphs are building a steady progression of logical images, from the first identification with the headline, to a growing awareness of the problem or the desire to the realization that a solution is at hand, and to the inevitable
focussing of that desire and that solution onto your particular product
- Chapter 3 - The Sophistication of Your Market: how many products have been there before you?
- Questions you must answer before you can determine what goes into your headline:
1. What is the mass desire that motivates your market?
2. How much does your market know about your product?
3. How many similar products have they been told about before?
1. Be simple. Be direct. Above all, don't be fancy
2. Give the need or claim in your headline—nothing more
3. Dramatize that claim in your copy—make it as powerful as possible
4. Bring in your product; and prove that it works
- If you are second to market, copy the original successful claim, but enlarge it. Drive it to the absolute limit. Outbid your competition
- Chapter 4 - 38 Ways to Strengthen Your Headline Once You Have Your Basic Idea
- Increase the impact of a headline by the way in which it is stated:
1. Strengthen the claim—bv enlarging upon it, by measuring it, by making it more vivid, etc.
2. Make the claim new and fresh again—by twisting it, changing it, presenting it from a different angle, turning it into a narration, challenging the reader with an example, etc.
3. Pull the prospect into the body of the ad—by promising him information about it, by questioning him, by partially revealing mechanism, etc
- Here are some of these guideposts for your own thinking:
1. Measure the size of the claim
- 20,000 FILTER TRAPS IN VICEROY!
- I AM 61 POUNDS LIGHTER . . .
- WHO EVER HEARD OF 17,000 BLOOMS FROM A SINGLE PLANT?
- 1 PLACE TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING
2. Measure the speed of the claim
- FEEL BETTER FAST!
- IN TWO SECONDS, BAYER ASPIRIN BEGINS TO DISSOLVE IN YOUR GLASS!
3. Compare the claim
- SIX TIMES WHITER W ASHES!
- COSTS UP TO $300 LESS THAN MANY MOD- ELS OF THE LOW-PRICED THREE!
4. Metaphorize the claim
- MELTS AWAY UGLY FAT!
5. Sensitize the claim by making the prospect feel, smell, touch, see or hear it
- TASTES LIKE YOU JUST PICKED IT!
- THE SKIN YOU LOVE TO TOUCH!
6. Demonstrate the claim by showing a prime example
- JAKE LAMOTTA, 160 POUND FIGHTER, FAILS TO FLATTEN MONO PAPER CUP!
- AT 60 MILES AN HOUR, THE LOUDEST NOISE IN THIS ROLLS ROYCE IS THE ELECTRIC CLOCK!
7. Dramatize the claim, or its result
- HERE'S AN EXTRA 850, GRACE—I'M MAKING BIG MONEY NOW!
- THEY LAUGHED WHEN I SAT DOWN AT THE PIANO—BUT WHEN I STARTED TO PLAY . . .
8. State the claim as a paradox
- HOW A BALD-HEADED BARBER SAVED MY HAIR!
- BEAT THE RACES BY PICKING LOSERS!
9. Remove limitations from the claim
- SHRINKS HEMORRHOIDS WITHOUT SURGERY!
- YOU BREATHE NO DUSTY ODORS WHEN YOU DO IT WITH LEWYT!
10. Associate the claim with values or people with whom the prospect wishes to be identified
- MICKEY MANTLE SAYS: CAMELS NEVER BOTHER MY THROAT!
- 9 OUT OF 10 DECORATORS USE WUNDA- WEAVE CARPETS FOR LONG LIFE AT LOW COST!
11. Show how much work, in detail, the claim does
- NOW! RELIEF FROM ALL 5 ACID-CAUSED STOMACH TROUBLES—IK SECONDS!
- RELIEVES CONGESTION IN ALL 7 NASAL PASSAGES INSTANTLY!
12. State the claim as a question
- WHO ELSE WANTS A WHITER WASH—WITH NO HARD WORK?
- COULD YOU USE $25 A WEEK EXTRA IN- COME?
13. Offer information about how to accomplish the claim
- HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE!
- HERE'S WHAT TO DO TO GET RID OF PIMPLES FAST!
14. Tie authority into the claim
- BOSS MECHANIC SHOWS HOW TO A VOID ENGINE REPAIR BILLS!
- HERE'S WHAT DOCTORS DO WHEN THEY FEEL ROTTEN!
15. Before-and-after the claim
- BEFORE COLDENE A CHILD GOT OVER A COLD AFTER 5 DAYS OF ACHING, SNEEZING, WHEEZING, DRIPPING, SUFFERING, COUGH- ING, CRYING, GAGGING, SPITTING
- WITH COLDENE A CHILD GETS OVER A COLD IN FIVE DAYS!
16. Stress the newness of the claim
- ANNOUNCING! GUIDED MISSILE SPARK PLUGS!
- NOW! CHROME PLATE WITHOUT HEAT, ELECTRICITY , MACHINERY!
17. Stress the exclusivity of the claim
- OURS ALONE! PERSIAN LAMB ORIGINALS— $389.40!
- ONLY GLEEM HAS GL-70 TO KEEP TEETH CLEAN ALL DAY LONG WITH ONE BRUSHING!
18. Turn the claim into a challenge for the reader
- WHICH TWIN HAS THE TONI? AND WHICH HAS THE $15 PERMANENT?
- DOES SHE OR DOESN'T SHE? HAIR COL- ORING SO NATURAL ONLY HER HAIRDRESSER KNOWS FOR SURE!
19. State the claim as a case-history quotation
- LOOK, MOM—NO CAVITIES!
- WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT—I HAVE A COLD!
20. Condense the claim—interchange your product and the product it replaces
- NOW! A RING AND PISTON JOB IN A TUBE!
- POUR YOURSELF A NEW ENGINE!
21. Symbolize the claim—replace the direct statement or measurement of the claim with a parallel reality
- STARTING NEXT TUESDAY, THE ATLANTIC OCEAN BECOMES ONLY ONE-FIFTH AS LONG!
22. Connect the mechanism to the claim in the headline
- FLOATS FAT RIGHT OUT OF YOUR BODY!
- FEEDS WASTE GAS FUMES BACK INTO YOUR ENGINE!
23. Startle the reader by contradicting the way he thinks the mechanism should work
- HIT HELL OUT OF THE BALL WITH YOUR RIGHT HAND,' SAYS TOMMY ARMOUR!
24. Connect the need and the claim in the headline
- THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION TO AN ADVERTISING PROBLEM: FIND THE MAN!
25. Offer information in the ad itself
- WHY MEN CRACK . . .
- WHAT EVERYBODY OUGHT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS STOCK AND BOND BUSINESS!
26. Turn the claim or the need into a case historv
- AUNT MEG, WHO NEVER MARRIED . . .
- AGAIN SHE ORDERS—A CHICKEN SALAD, PLEASE
27. Give a name to the problem or need
- WHEN YOU'RE WEARY WITH DAY-TIME FATIGUE, TAKE ALKA-SELTZER
28. Warn the reader about possible pitfalls if he doesn't use the product
- DON'T INVEST ONE CENT OF YOUR HARD- EARNED MONEY UNTIL YOU CHECK THIS GUIDE!
29. Emphasize the claim by its phraseology—by breaking it into two sentences, or repeating it, or a part of it
- A MAN YOU CAN LEAN ON! THAT'S KLOPER- MAN!
- NOBODY BUT NOBODY UNDERSELLS GIMBEL'S!
30. Show how easy the claim is to accomplish by imposing a universally-overcome limitation
- IF YOU CAN COUNT TO ELEVEN, YOU CAN- INCREASE YOUR SPEED AND SKILL AT NUMBERS!
31. State the difference in the headline
- THE DIFFERENCE IN PREMIUM GASO- LINES IS RIGHT IN THE ADDITIVES!
32. Surprise your reader into realizing that former limitations have now been overcome
- SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CRUSH A HARTMAN DC-8? NOTHING
33. Address the people who can't buv vour product
- IF YOU'VE ALREADY TAKEN YOUR VACATION, DON'T READ THIS. IT'LL BREAK YOUR HEART.
34. Address your prospect directly
- TO THE MAN WHO WILL SETTLE FOR NOTHING LESS THAN THE PRESIDENCY OF HIS FIRM.
35. Dramatize how hard it was to produce the claim
- WHEN JENS FINISHED DESIGNING THIS CANDLEHOLDER WE HAD TO INVENT A WHOLE NEW KIND OF CANDLE
36. Accuse the claim of being too good
- IS IT IMMORAL TO MAKE MONEY THIS EASILY?
37. Challenge the prospects present limiting beliefs
- YOU ARE TWICE AS SMART AS YOU THINK
38. Turn the claim into a question and answer
- YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD AND YOU COULDN'T CARE LESS AS LONG AS YOUR CAR RUNS SMOOTHLY. WHO SHOULD YOU SEE IF IT DOESN'T?... SOMEONE WHO CARES—UNITED DELCO
- Summary: The Art of Creative Planning—how to make an idea grow
- The copy writer's primary job is to know his market. Many times, he has to know more about that market than the market knows about itself.
- Ask questions that deal with psychological dimensions
- One trait will always be the most effective in summarizing and expressing the personality of the product
- Many copy writers believe that no prevention deadline can ever be effective
- A man will not visualize future disasters occur- ring to himself, but he is perfectly capable of visualizing, and buying preventatives from, the image of such future problems affecting others around him
1. This process begins with a thorough analysis of the market for your client's product—with an attempt to measure the breadth and depth of that market—to identify the gigantic emotional forces that create that market—to define and focus those forces in terms of a single image or desire or need—and to channel those forces toward one inevitable solution—vour client's product
2. In order to do this, the second step of this process involves a meticulous study of the product itself—what it is and what it does—the physical product that you will deliver, and the functional product that you will sell—all its various satisfactions and performances—again focussed to a single image, a single identification, a single claim that will tap the greatest possible emotional force within your market
3. The combination of these first and second steps gives you the theme of your ad—the desire your market demands and its satisfaction . . . the need your market feels and its solution . . . the identification your market gropes for and its expression. And once you discover this theme, you begin the process of expressing it. You explore the state of maturity of vour market. You find out how much people know about vour product and what it does—how much they've been told about similar products—and how much they care about both
- Out of this analysis comes the point of entrv for vour head- line—the point of contact—the point of greatest interest and acceptance on the part of your prospect. It may be located any- where—in your product itself, in its price, in its performance, in the satisfaction your product promises, in the need vour mar- ket demands from your product, or only in the market itself. But, wherever it is, this is the point where vou start
- Again, this process may take weeks or even months. And at the end of that time, you may have written five or ten words.
- These five or ten words will make up about 90% of the value of your ad. If you are right, they may start a new industry. If you are wrong, nothing you write after them will save your ad. Copy writing—on the idea level—is an all or nothing profession. You build your idea, piece by piece . . . you crowd it into five or ten words . . . and then it stands or dies by itself. And everything that follows it, stands or dies with it. This is why we have devoted so much time to this planning process
- What you are looking for in this product and this market is the one element that makes them unique. The idea you want— the headline you want—the breakthrough you want—are all wrapped up inside that product and that market. Nowhere else.
- And no outside ride—no outside formula will give them to you. You are facing a product-market-timing relationship that never happened before—it is unique. And the solution you need is just as unique
- Part 2 - The Seven Basic Techniques of Breakthrough Advertising - How to write body copy as strong as your headline
- Chapter 6 - Inside your prospect's mind—what makes people read, want, believe
- Be a better you by writing things down
- Your headline isn't to sell, or identify your product, or even mention the need or desire that your product satisfies—but simply to flag down your prospect, and get him to read your first paragraph
- The body copy alters your prospect's vision of reality. It creates a new world for your prospect—a world in which your product emerges as the fulfillment of the dominant desire that caused this man to respond to your headline
- The length of your ad copy depends on three factors:
1. How much copy you need to build his desire for that product—and everything that product can do for him—to its greatest possible strength
2. How much additional copy you need to make him feel both comfortable and complimented by that product, to enable him to visualize that product as a part of the life structure that he has built, and is building, for himself
3. How much additional copy you need to make him believe what you have said—to compensate for his already- existing prejudices and beliefs
- Three dimensions of thought and feeling:
1. Desires
- These are the wants, needs, cravings, thirsts, hungers, lusts, etc. that drive your prospect through life
- They are physical—such as the desire to be thin, or strong, or healthy, or free from acne, corns, bad breath or what have you
- They are material—such as the desire to possess money, or a big car, or a beautiful dress
- They are sensual—such as the thirst for a cold glass of beer, or the need for a tired body to stretch out on a soft bed
- They have, of course, tremendous driving power. And they already exist. You cannot create them, diminish them, or battle them. But you can expand them, sharpen them, channel them, and give them a goal. And this is your primary task as a copywriter
- Your first task—and in some ads your only task—is to make your prospect want. To sharpen his desire. To picture every moment of its fulfillment. To let him see it, feel it, touch it, sit in it, listen to his friends rave about it. To make him visualize the wonderful new world your product offers him so strongly that he practically lives in it—and then to offer him that product
2. Identifications
- These are the roles your prospect wants to play in life, and the personality traits he wants your product to help him build, or project
- These longings for identification—longings for a sharply- defined personality—longings for social status—are, of course, not materia] or physical or sensual at all. They complement and intensify the physical desires—add another dimension to them— by making each purchase serve a double duty
- Not only does a woman buy low-calorie food to become thin, but in so doing she also builds again a radiant, attractive, youthful personality. And not only does a man buy a car for the power, speed and transportation it will give him, but equally as much for the projection of prestige, success and ready-cash-to-burn that this purchase communicates to his neighbors
- Call them what you will—goals, hopes, dreams, ambitions, envies, admirations, phantasies or objectives—these subtle, symbolic, never-openly-spoken projections of our own self-images are immensely powerful sales forces
- Your task is to put them directly behind your product. To make him feel the prestigious and select group he joins when he becomes a user of that product. To picture for him the people who live in your product's world today
3. Beliefs
- This is the world of emotionalized reason that he inhabits—the way he accepts or rejects facts and builds up his universe, the types of thinking he uses to arrive at decisions, the ideas and values which give him comfort and which he believes are permanent and true
- Believing is a process—a process of fitting new facts into certain established patterns of thought and conviction
- You start with these beliefs as a base. You build up from them by using his kind of logic, not vour own, to prove that vour prod- uct satisfies his desires—to prove that your product works—to prove that his kind of people rely on your product—to prove that no other product satisfies his needs as well
- In actually writing your ad, of course, you will weave them into each other—to create a simple, fluid path of thought from the beginning to the end of your ad
- Chapter 7: The first technique of breakthrough copy: Intensification
- The force that creates sales, that powers our present economy, is desire
- Advertising is salesmanship in print
- Advertising is the literature of desire
- Your job is to fill out these vague desires with concrete images—to show your prospect every possible way that they can be fulfilled—to multiply their strength by the number of satisfactions that you can suggest to achieve them
- A copy writer's first qualifications are imagination and enthusiasm. You are literally the script writer for your prospect's dreams. You are the chronicler of his future. Your job is to show him in minute detail all the tomorrows that your product makes possible for him
- Take unformulated desire, and translate it into one vivid scene of fulfillment after another
- The sharper you can draw your pictures—and the greater the number of them that you can legitimately present—the more your prospect will demand your product, and the less important will seem your price
- Two key techniques to fit into any form of media:
1. Compression—the boiling down of projections and images into a few key words
2. The campaign—the repetition of these key words over and over again—along with a progression of embellishments and differentiations—through an entire series of advertisements
- No matter what you do, your prospect will take with him only one basic idea, one dominant image from your ad
- With every additional new and different wav that you can present that idea, it becomes sharper and more real in your prospect's mind, and it builds up more and more emotional weigh
- Thus the problem becomes one of perspective, of fresh viewpoints, of new and different detail. Of walking around your product in your imagination, and presenting it to your prospect in every way in which it enters his life
- You are working against two opposing forces:
1. The amount of material which has already been presented to your prospect about similar products in other ads
- If your prospect has read the same phraseology before, he will be bored by it, no matter where he encounters it again
2. The phraseology of your own ad
- You must vary your viewpoint in your second description, or not present it again. Otherwise you will lose your reader in the middle of your ad.
- You cannot repeat, but you can reinforce
- Every time the same basic promise is given a fresh setting for your prospect, it reinforces the descriptions that went before it, and makes your prospect that much more determined to participate
- The presenting of a series of fresh, new and different fulfillments for your prospects dominant desire—our first mechanism of persuasion—is called Intensification
- The techniques of Intensification:
1. Present the product or the satisfaction it gives directly—bluntly—by a thorough, completely detailed description of its appearance or the results it gives
- More roses than you've ever saw on any rose bush. Produced this many roses from one plant. Can you imagine all of these roses. Can you imagine the thrill of picking dozens of roses. The color, the smell. Fill every room in your house. You can have this if you accept this extraordinary flower offer now
2. Put the product in action for your reader. Show, not only how the product looks, and what benefits it gives the reader, but exactly how it does this
- No fuel, no danger. It flies 600 scale miles an hour under your complete control. Plastic model you hand to your child. One of the most thrilling sights of your entire life. Small circles inside, big outside. Perfect landing. Jet races. You can have them for $1—less than one-fifth the price you'd pay for a plastic model of this size and performance
3. Put your reader right smack in the middle of this product-in-action story, and give him a verbal demonstration of what will happen to him the first day he owns that product.
- Picture this to yourself! Same tired car, you've made one change that your sixteen year old son could do it. But now, when you turn on the ignition, a modern miracle of engineering science comes to life under your hood. You'll see and feel the difference. You'll leave people in the dust. See the startled look of amazement on the drivers face in your rear view mirror
4. Turn the demonstration into a test. Let your reader visualize himself proving the performance of your product—gaining its benefits immediately—in the most specific and dramatic way possible
5. Show your product works, not just for an hour or a day, but over a span of weeks and months. Here you extend your reader's vision further and further into time—showing him a continuous flow of benefits
6. Bring in other actors besides the reader to provide a fresh perspective through which the reader can view the product. Seen through their eyes—experienced through their actions and reactions—the product performances become new, vivid and completely different again
- These new participants may be celebrities, who relate their experiences through the testimonial
- Or they may be average men and women, whom the reader easily identifies with, whose experiences are related through narration or the case history
7. Experts in the field—professionals—the sophisticated, the discriminating, the blase can be called on to register their reactions
- There is nothing so astounding as the astonishment of experts.
- Here the elements of surprise, competition and discovery all combine to sharpen the image even more.
8. The competition can be carried into contrast. The disadvantages of the old product or service can he laid side by side with the advantages of the new— throwing these advantages into sharp relief
9. There's no need to neglect the Heaven-Or-Hell approach. Here the negative aspect to every promise—the problem that you are liberating your prospect from forever—is painted in all its full black color. You irritate the wound, and then you apply the salve that heals it
- You derive two currents of motivation—repulsion away from the former problem or inadequate product, and the attraction generated by your own product's contrasting solutions
10. Stressing the ease of application, and contrasting it with the tremendous benefits that that application gives you
11. Nor do you have to be satisfied merely with the statement of rate fact. There are infinite opportunities for the use of imagination to present those facts in more dramatic form, outside of the rigidly realistic approach
12. If an additional perspective is not different or dramatic enough to renew your prospect's interest in your claims, then leave it out
- To a large degree, this is a matter of sensitivity and originality on your part. The sensitivity comes from intuition and experience; the originality often comes from nothing more than hard work
- The catalog is a brief condensed listing of all the product's performances, benefits, and/or applications, one after the other, without description, dramatization or elaboration
- There are two types of catalogs. Those that expand desire horizontally, among ever-enlargening groups of applications or prospects. And those that expand desire vertically bv deepening or magnifying that desire.
13. Provide a positive reassertion of your guarantee
- At the end of your ad as well as at its beginning—Intensification—building desire by presenting continually new images of its satisfaction through your product
- Chapter 8: The second technique of breakthrough copy: identification
- Recognition and magnification of desires is the first and most obvious task of copy writing
- Turn your product into an instrument for achieving roles the prospect desires
- Help the product acknowledge that these roles have already been achieved
- Every product you work on should offer your prospect two separate and distinct reasons for buying it. First, it should offer him the fulfillment of a physical want or need. This is the satisfaction your product gives him. And second, it should offer him a particular method of fulfilling that need, that defines him to the outside world as a particular kind of human being
- The consumer now buys, not only objects, but roles
1. Character roles
- Usually expressed by adjectives, or adjectives-turned-nouns. For instance—'progressive' . . . 'chic' . . . 'charming' . . . 'brilliant' . . . 'well-read.'
- What are the roles your product is giving to your prospect?
- Thoughtful, organized, calm
- It is the role-giving function that sells, and not the performance
- Performance claims must be justified in terms of concrete results to our friends, roles do not
2. Achievement roles
- These are the status roles . . . class roles . . . position roles that are created by every society on earth, and offered to the men and women who can earn them
- In a civilization as complex as ours, there are literally hundreds of them—usually expressed bv nouns, with the nouns serving as title
- For example, for men, there are—'Executive' . . . 'Home Owner' . . . '$20,000-a-year-Man' . . . 'Five Handicap' . . . 'Man- On-His-Way-Up' . . . 'Block Chairman' . . . and dozens more, em- bracing every activity of our lives
- For women, the primary achievement role to be won is 'Wife,' and from then on—'Fashion Setter' . . . 'Career Woman' . . . 'Good Mother' . . . 'Civic Leader' . . . 'Power-Behind-the-Throne' . . . 'Patron of the Arts' . . . and on, and on
- The never forgettor, good employee, good friend, super mom, super human
- Every social role that we achieve in life is immediately translated into those possessions which we believe express that position most clearly
- Products become status definers, they announce our achievements, define our role in life, document our success
- When you have a product that does the same job as its competitors, and is so priced that price is no longer a factor, then the prospect's choice will almost overwhelmingly depend on the difference in role that your product offers him
- As Americans, living in our culture and our century, there are certain character roles and certain achievement roles that we value more than others. The most general and compelling of these are: the wish to be virile or feminine—the wish to be exciting, unique, fun-filled and adventurous—the wish to be friendly and well-liked—the wish to be important, influential and correct— the wish to be modern and up-to-date—and. above all, the wish to be successful, to make something of our lives
- People just won't believe that a product is what it isn't. You cannot contradict accepted images or beliefs in advertising
1. What do people already believe about the personality of your product? Do they believe, today, that it has the character traits that you say it has? And—if they do—can they identify themselves, their lives, their present position in society, or their next step up in society with these traits?
2. What other primary image do I have to use as a believability-bridge to connect what my prospect already believes with what I want him to believe when he finishes my ad?
- Chapter 9: The third technique of breakthrough copy: gradualeation
- The need to believe— and the need for secure beliefs—is just as powerful an emotional force as the strongest desire for physical satisfaction, or the most urgent search for expression.
- The basic rule of belief: If you violate your prospect's established beliefs in the slightest degree—either in content or direction—then nothing you promise him, no matter how appealing, can save your ad
- If you can channel the tremendous force of his belief—either in content or direction—behind only one claim, no matter how small, then that one fully-believed claim will sell more goods than all the half-questioned promises your competitors can write for all the rest of their days
- This process of starting with the facts that your prospect is already willing to accept, and leading him logically and comfortably through a gradual succession of more and more remote facts—each of which he has been prepared in turn to accept—is called Gradualization
- Every proof in your ad has two separate sources of strength—
1. The content of that statement itself; and
2. The preparation you have made for that statement—either by recognizing that preparation as already existing in your prospect's mind, or by deliberately laying the groundwork for that statement in the preceding portion of the ad itself
- We can strengthen the power of each of these statements in two separate ways—
1. By increasing the intensity of its content—by making greater promises, bv portraying more dramatic images, by offering more compelling proof; and/or
2. By changing the place or position or sequence in which that statement occurs in the ad—by strengthening the groundwork for belief in that statement by the material which precedes it—and therefore increasing the intensity of belief given to it— the immediate acceptance of its content, without question, when the prospect encounters it in your ad.
- It is acceptance we are looking for
- Effective advertising is built—not of words—but of reactions
- We are creating a stream of acceptances, with a definite sequence and content and direction, and, if we are successful, with a definite goal—the absolute conviction in your prospects mind is that he must have your product
- The headline must not only be capable of awakening interest and desire, but of being accepted at the very first glance as being true.
- Interest and believability—these are the two requirements that determine your headline
- The effectiveness of your headline is as much determined by the willingness of your audience to believe what it says, as it is by the promises it makes
- Without supporting evidence already existing in the mind of your prospect to prepare him for that headline claim, he just won't believe it
- Get them in the habit of acceptance
- Build trust layer by layer
- The introduction of the product claim itself is far more effective if it is delayed till the prospect has been prepared to accept it
- Full acceptance—this willingness to believe without question-can gradually built up, layer by laver agreement by agreement, by use of the proper structure
- Gradualization is the art of stating a claim in such a way that it will receive the greatest possible acceptance and/or believability from your prospect
- Belief ultimately depends upon the structure. Just as desire depends upon the promise, so belief in that promise depends upon the amount of preparation that promise has been given before your reader is asked to accept it
1. The Inclusion Question
- Designed to permit immediate identification with your story. To show the prospect that you're talking about him—not about someone else who would answer No to the question
2. Detailed Identification
- Instead of asking questions to set up your Yes-train, you detail symptoms or problems that are your prospect's reasons for desiring your product
- Before you write—research. Learn to know your customer. This is always the essential first step, in any kind of copy
3. Contradiction of Present (False) Beliefs
- Here you are not looking for agreement as much as you are for a loosening of previous belief
4. The Language of Logic
- Interlace each new promise with language-signals that show that it logically follows from everything that has been proved before. And that it therefore can be believed without hesitation
5. Syllogistic Thinking
- One statement inevitably leads into another. Even- word is logical. There is a constant process of equation: spark to power, power to performance. Size equals power—and his plug delivers the largest size
- Such structure—and the copv based on such a structure— develops the feeling of inevitability. The reader feels that the product must work. He has not onlv been told it works; he has been shown proof that it works.
6. Other Belief Forms
- Contingency Structures—such as 'If. . . then . . .', or 'Wis your...then....'
- Repetition of Proof: Echoing—such as 'These experts found. . . . These experts found. . . . These experts found. ...'
- Promise—Belief—Promise Variation. Where every sentence of promise is followed (ideally) with another of proof, or verification, or documentation. So that the reader never has the breathing space to question.
- Paragraph Parallelism. Where the same word structure used in an accepted statement is then picked up exactly, and used to borrow acceptance for a fresh claim.
- All have the same objective. To gain continued acceptance. To prevent rejection. To build conviction. Belief is the goal
- Chapter 10: The Fourth Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Redefinition
- Three general categories of drawback: too hard to use, not important enough, costs too much
1. Simplification
- Whenever there is a product which is hard to use, or difficult to apply—the copywriters first task is to simplify that application in his prospect's mind
- A new breakthrough is not merely accepted be- cause its manufacturer says so. Its claims for ease and simplicity must be proved, in the ad, or the reader will simply shrug his shoulders and say 'it's just another copywriter gone wild.'
- Innovation without acceptance is valueless. The more people know that something is difficult, and the more revolutionary (and therefore different) your product is—the more resistance you will meet from them in accepting it
2. Escalation
- Your job here is to escalate your product. To give it more importance in your prospect's eves
- You broaden the horizon of the benefits of the product. You redefine the role that the product plays in the prospect's life. You widen the area of reward that your product yields to the prospect—showing him that it enters into dozens of vital situations every day, paving off for him where he might least expect it
- Increase the importance of the product—showing that something the prospect wants very much hinges directly upon the performance of your product
- Your Entire Life is Spent Trying to Get Others to Do What You Want—Without Friction
- You must agree with this statement. And therefore you must redefine the importance to yourself of a technique which allows you to accomplish the all-pervading task more easily, more effectively and more rapidly
3. Price Reduction
- Switching the comparison, and relating it to some other, more expensive standard
- Chapter 11: The Fifth Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Mechanization
- They have three demands:
1. More information, more image, more desire. 'Tell me more'
2. Proof. 'Oh yeah? Who says so?'
3. Mechanism. 'How does it work?'
- The prospect doesn't understand their mechanism
- Everybody else has the same mechanism, and the same promise, and the same price. And the market is getting tired, and you need a new way to compete
- They build up the promise and increase desire for multiple paragraphs
- Mechanism copy is not scientific discourse. You must never allow it to become dull, or merely factual. You must load it with promise, load it with emotion
- A NEW WAY: a new mechanism; a new chance to satisfy your desire—even if everything else you've tried has failed you
- If people assume that they know how your product works. or if your claim is so new that they don't care, then all the mechanism you need can be summed up in a word or a phrase
- If people are not quite sure how it works, describe the mechanism—in selling language—until they have enough reason-why to believe vou
- Price cuts must be justified. There must be a reason for them. A mechanism behind them. Without such a mechanism— without such a reason-why you should give this bargain—you are going to get only a fraction of its real sales power
- Chapter 12: The Sixth Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Concentration
- no successful copy ever sells a product. It sells a way of satisfying a particular desire. And its power to sell ultimately comes from the intensity of that desire
- Your primary problem is to protect your customers' loyalty against the claims of your competitor, or when your story is so powerful, so different, or so fresh that the competition has nothing to match it
- In many other cases—especially where your advertising budget is much less than his—especially where the bulk of your prospects are already customers of his—your first problem may be to crack his image, to shatter their loyalty before you can rechannel their desire around to you
- If you can only attack another product—without showing at the same time, by comparison, how your product provides what the other lacks—then say nothing at all! Never attack a weakness unless you can provide the solution to that weakness at the same time
- If you are attacking another product only for your own good—in other words, to win the sale by disparaging your competitor—what you will probably evoke in his mind is skepticism and dislike, and very little else
- If you can show your customer that this attack is for his own good because your product will eliminate this weakness, then you have a sales story he will accept. Then you will make him question even the most ingrained loyalty
- Concentration is the process of pointing out weak- nesses in the competition . . . emphasizing their disservice to your prospect . . . and then proving to him that your product gives him what he wants without them
- You may be dealing, instead, with a time sequence—a recurring, unpleasant experience with which the prospect is familiar, and which you wish to sharpen before you provide him with the antidote
- What happens to you now. with the product or products you are using presently.
- What will happen when vou switch to the new product.
- It is not the content, nor is it the length of copy used in a mechanism that makes it effective. It is simply and solelv the problem it solves for you in the development of your copy— by the emotional reaction it produces on your reader when he encounters it
- Chapter 13: The Seventh Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Camouflage
- Borrow believability from all the places in our society where it is stored up
- As long as he has faith in that publication (as any space buyer can tell you) it remains an excellent medium for advertising—because some of his trust carries over from the editorial pages to the advertising pages
- If he no longer believes in the publication, he won't believe in the advertising it carries
- Each publication has its own look. You have your copy. Your job is to merge both of them into a combination that will:
1. Allow the reader to enter into your ad with the least possible mental shifting of gears from 'editorial' to 'advertisement.'
2. Carry along the greatest possible amount of believability through every sentence of the ad
- Study the channels of communication that people believe in. Adopt their tone, their feel, their style, their sincerity. Make your ads blend in, so there is no jarring transition. Camouflage them.
- The first is Understatement. Simplicity. A lack of color words. Fewer adjectives than the reader would expect. No superlatives. Short sentences, that fall rather than rise in tone at their end
- Chapter 14: The Final Touches
- The main problem with documentation is that it is inherently dull. Your job, therefore, is to add excitement to it. You have to stage it. You have to develop a drama, in your reader's mind, into which your documentation enters as the hero. In which statistics suddenly become charged with emotion—because you've made them the solution to whatever stands between your reader and the satisfactions that he craves
- The first rule of all copy, of course, is that it produces an emotional impact. Even in believability copy, even in documentation, every word must carry an image, picture, and feeling.
- No sentence can be effective if it contains only the facts alone. It must also contain emotion, evaluation, impact—if those facts are to be given meaning and importance to the reader
- The same is true for every sentence you write of copy. That sentence should contain not only promise . . . not only image not only logic—but as much of all three as possible
- Different sections: headline, promise, disadvantage, authority, believability, science, documentation, definition, proof
- Primarily—what kind of ad you have written. Is it straight promise? Too much documentation? Too little definition of the new world of possibilities your product has created?
- Does it still sound too much like everyone else's copy or product? Could you put another brand name on it, and not make any difference?
- Have you left anything out? Will this bare promise carry the sale? Or could you increase its impact by paving its way with some mechanism or believability copy? How about a proof section? A use photo? A fuller description of the way it works?
- Momentum. How to draw your reader into your copy . . . keep him reading . . . making sure he doesn't quit on you in the middle
- Copy's first job, of course, is to be read. If its not read, it can't sell. And if you take some time to make your points—to intensify your desire, to build and rebuild your believability, to reinforce one claim with another—then you'd better make darn sure that you've put plenty of momentum-builders into your copy
- Produces momentum, not only raises questions in the reader's mind that he virtually must read on to answer—but is also, at exactly the same time, loaded with sell. Again, interweaving—making each element in the ad accomplish two objectives. No waste words.
- Certain classes of readers will notice these emotion definers. When they do, your copy becomes either questionable or corny to them, and you have lost them. Therefore, you have to know al- ways whom you are writing for. What their level of sophistication is—in tone as well as product-awareness
- There are two types of emotion-definers. The power words (liberate . . . hold spellbound . . . out-think . . . tower over . . . outshine completely), which build a subconscious current of potency that permeates each individual claim as it occurs in the copy. And the frankness, man-to-man, lets-let-our-hair-down tone-builders (this letter says . . . tied up inside you . . . like a sponge . . . stopped cold) that say silently that there's no nonsense here, no high-faluting phrases—just common-sense which can be absorbed by anyone
- the machine-gun rhythm. Short, choppy sentences. Verb . . . verb . . . verb. Claim . . . claim . . . claim. Propelling the reader through the copy. Piling promise upon promise, image upon image in an attempt to overwhelm him
- Epilogue: A Copy Writer's Library
- Intensive Advertising by John E. Kennedy #book #marketing
- My Life in Advertising by Claude Hopkins
- The 100 Greatest Advertisements by Julian Watkins
- Letter Book by Robert Collier
- Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilw
- Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves
- Butting In by Milton Biow
- Always shoot for the moon—it's one of the few real thrills left today
#BPTWTD ✌️