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Distinctive Makes a Difference

July 10, 2022

A Thousand Songs in My Pocket

I remember thinking I was the coolest guy in the world when I took my iPod to the gym. It’s funny because I’m not an early adopter and I’ve never really been into gadgets. But I got my first iPod about a year after they came out, and I can’t think of anything I ever bought that made me feel so good.

Effective advertising tells people how your product is going to solve their problem. My iPod solved a problem I didn’t even know I had. I needed a device smaller than a Sony Diskman that could hold my entire CD collection. And there it was.

“A thousand songs in your pocket” was the perfect slogan, even though an iPod actually holds a lot more songs than that. A thousand songs on one device sounded pretty miraculous at the time, and the slogan flows really well. (Like all forms of writing, copywriting is essentially poetry.)

Selling Joy

Byron Sharp* notes that the iPod advertising campaign “did not mention the term ‘MP3 player.’” In fact, “their advertising didn’t talk about this new technology at all.”

Instead of selling new technology, Apple was selling joy. As Sharp explains, the iPod advertising campaign

always employed the same silhouette figures against colourful backgrounds and these figures were always joyfully dancing (while listening to their iPods) and the white headphones were always obvious. Technical details were left to sales people and web sites to explain.

Carbonated Cough Syrup

red_bull_1525292174

A lot of people are willing to pay three times as much for an 8-ounce can of Red Bull than they would for a 12-ounce can of soda. But when it comes to ingredients, the only real difference is that Red Bull has a lot more caffeine and a smidgen of Vitamin B.

So how did Red Bull convince so many people to pay so much more for a beverage that tastes like carbonated cough syrup?

The obvious is answer marketing, which is the art of convincing people to buy things. One of the most effective ways to convince people to buy things is by appealing to their internal narrative, which is the story everyone tells themself about who they are.

According to Seth Godin**, “our actions are primarily driven by one question: ‘Do people like me like things like this?’” If you align your product with the customer’s internal narrative, you can make oodles of money.

To align their product with the internal narratives of millions of customers, Red Bull spends billions of dollars in advertising every year, creating the perception that people who drink Red Bull are:

Young
Healthy
Athletic
Male
Carefree
Adventurous

Different Can, Different Product

People drink Red Bull to get amped up on caffeine. But Red Bull had to convince customers that they weren’t just buying a new type of hyper-caffeinated soda. Instead, Red Bull sells people a whole new lifestyle.

By making the can so distinctive, Red Bull creates the perception that it’s a totally different type of product.

Rory Sutherland*** of Ogilvy & Mather Group explains:

How can Red Bull charge £1.50 a can when Coke only charge 50p? Weirdly you make the can smaller. Suddenly people think this is a different category of drink for which different price points apply. If the can had been the same size, I am not sure they could have charged £1.50. Logic won’t tell you that and research won’t tell you, because in research we all pretend we are maximisers and hyper-rational.

by Richard W. Bray

* How Brands Grow, p142

* *This Is Marketing, p104

***Quoted in The Choice Factory by Richard Shotten, p67

Tags:Advetising, Apple Computers, Byron Sharp, Copywriting, How Brands Grow, iPod, marketing, Red Bull, Richard Shotten, Rory Sutherland, Seth Godin, The Choice Factory
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Some Thoughts on Joseph Sugarman’s Adweek Copywriting Handbook

January 29, 2011

sugarman

It’s all about getting her to read the first sentence. And then the next. And the next. Until she finishes the copy and picks up the phone to place her order.

In The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, legendary adman Joseph Sugarman explains the art of creating print advertising which will motivate a person “to exchange his or her hard-earned money for a product or service” (5).

Grab and Keep the Reader

Sugarman describes how “the purpose of all the elements in an ad” is “to get you to read the copy” (31). The pictures, layout and headline must pull readers into the ad. Then the words take over.

The first sentence must “really grab and keep” the reader (32). In order to do this, Sugarman advises copywriters to “Keep it short, sweet and almost incomplete so that the reader has to read the next sentence” (32).

It had to happen.

It’s you against the computer.

It’s easy.

Each of the three brief opening sentences provided by Sugarman is designed to lure the unsuspecting reader down the “slippery slope” of words, ultimately leading him to commit an act of unnecessary consumption.

Once the potential customer has begun her descent, the copy must be compelling enough to “get momentum going and create that buying environment” (114).

A good salesman can decide which strategy to utilize by reading his customer’s face, but a copywriter uses mere words to generate the elements of a showroom inside the reader’s imagination. This process includes anticipating and assuaging all possible objections. Sugarman warns: “Give the readers any excuse not to buy and they won’t buy” (124).

From Me to You

And just like any other salesman, the copywriter’s most important task is to develop a personal relationship with the customer. Although a particular advertisement appears in a magazine that will be read by thousands of readers, it should address potential customers in the same manner one would use speaking to a friend.

It is essential that you write your copy as if you are writing to that single individual. Your copy should be very personal. From me to you. Period (91).

One way copywriters achieve this sense of intimacy is by using the personal pronouns, you, I and me, which “create the feel of a personal form of communication” (88). The word we, however, can make the seller seem large and impersonal. That’s why it’s best to refer to a company and its support staff in an endearing manner: “My team of great engineers is available to help you” (281).

You sell on emotion but you justify a purchase with logic

Human beings are capable of making rational decisions, but decision-making is not a rational process. As poet Theodore Reothke shrewdly noted, “We think by feeling.” And any purchasing decision is fraught with feelings.

As Sugarman explains:

You buy a Mercedes automobile emotionally but you then justify the purchase logically with its technology, safety and resale value (138-9).

How Many Words?

Is there such a thing as too much copy? Not according to Sugarman: “There really is no limit to how long copy should be if you get results” (83). However, space is always finite in newspaper or magazine advertisements. (But space is not restricted with internet ads, which creates many selling opportunities)

But as a general rule brevity is better, and “the goal in writing ad copy is to express the thoughts you want to convey in the most powerful way but with the fewest words” (102 ).

Like a Poet

Like a poet, an effective copywriter needs to understand the emotional connotations of the words she chooses. Also like a poet, she must learn to “edit for rhythm,” in order to create copy that flows mellifluously (104).

You’ll Have to Buy the Book to Get the Rest of the Stories

Like how Sugarman got sales to rise twenty percent by changing a single word in a page of copy (70). Or how he sold a quarter of a million Walkie-Talkies by calling it a Pocket CB.