Eugene Schwartz - Breakthrough Advertising - Ch. 5

SUMMARY: THE ART OF CREATIVE PLANNING—HOW TO MAKE AN IDEA GROW

Now, let's look at a few special headline problems, and then sum up:

The Three Levels of Creativity

Something should be said here about the various approaches copywriters use to dig up a new headline. As far as I can tell, there are three of them:

The first, the shallowest, and the most widespread and ineffective, is the Word-Substitute Technique. Here the copywriter consults a list of proven and successful headlines. He then pulls out the original product name and substitutes his own; or his own product's performance, etc. He usually comes up with something like this:




If these ads are copied from a similar product, in the same market, at the same time, then their chance of success is good— especially if they embellish the promise in any way. But if the product, or the market, or the timing is different, then the chances of success diminish proportionately They become Echo Ads ads that remind people of some other product. they pay no attention to unique product-market-timing relationship that exists at the moment. Therefore they lose all the strengths that are wrapped up in that relationship. They are the kind of ads that clients write, rather than copywriters.

The second, deeper and more difficult approach is through formulas. Here the copywriter has memorized a list of rules or principles, and tries to pour his headline into them like he'd pour hot lead into a mold. Such rules usually concern the way a headline is expressed. They list methods of strengthening the verbalization of the headline idea, and here they have a perfectly-valid use. Several examples of these principles are given in Chapter 4.

But the idea for an ad or a headline demands its own shape. It cannot be fitted into someone else's solution. The problem defies a formula. And the third, analytical approach that we have outlined above—with no answers; only guide-posts and questions—offers the only way.

This is a hard fact to accept. It means that a solution which has cost you days and weeks of painful effort, and which has done its job perfectly—can be used only once. It means that there are no creative shortcuts—that the effort must be duplicated with each individual ad. But fortunately the techniques of probing can be learned and perfected; intuition can be sharpened; a sensitivity can be developed for picking out the vital fact from a maze of information.

And, of course, abandoning this effort leads to a reality which is even harsher. Manx' copywriters grow old, or tired, or afraid. They stop searching for the unique solution in every problem. From this moment on, they begin to copy instead of create. And most pathetic of all, main' begin to copy themselves. The more successful the copywriter, the greater the temptation to find his new headline in his old files.

But it won't work. Copying can be done by any cub. All this process does is bring talent down to the level of file-cabinet mediocrity. The true copywriter must argue with success—he must push on past it every time he faces a new product. In advertising, as well as in science and in art, the solution to the unique lies only in itself.

On Motivation Research and Its Relation to the Copy Writer

As we have repeated throughout this first part of the book, the copywriter's primary job is to know his market. Many times, he has to know more about that market than the market knows about itself.

Before MR, he did this mostly by personal digging, reading, talking—and guessing. With MR, lie has some pretty professional guessers working with him. And they have the equipment to prove their guesses far more easily and inexpensively than writing a campaign and testing it.

The copywriter can use MR in two ways. It can be a tremendous source of information to him. Information about the most powerful needs and desires of his market—desires that may be hidden, verbally unacceptable, or completely unknown.

It shows him the strength of those desires—their drift and momentum—the taboos that accompany them, and limit their expression. It helps him locate splits in his market—gauge their points of difference—design pinpoint appeals for each of them.

And it feeds back to him early reactions to his own phraseology—to test his own worry-points in the ad—to enable him to shift emphasis—and even to emerge with a completely new idea.

All well and good. But a motivation research finding is not a headline, nor even the central theme of an ad, nor will it ever be. Like any other fact, it is a direction. First it tells you where not to go, to avoid wasting your time. And then it indicates the general area of your solution.

But the transformation of those facts into an idea, and the expression of that idea in the strongest possible form, still requires as much creative talent as any other starting point. The source of an idea, no matter how profound, is still only the beginning. The copywriter has to take it from there.

The second great service that MR can perform for the copywriter is that of testing his own hunches, in answering the questions he uncovers in dealing with his market over a period of time.

For purposes of simplicity, we have dealt with advertising strategy as though it always consisted of writing a single ad— rather than a continuous campaign. By limiting ourselves in this way, we have been able to deal with each of the phases of such a campaign as though it were a separate and distinct problem, requiring a separate and distinct advertisement to solve it. In doing this, we have emphasized that a breakthrough can occur at any stage of a campaign; and that the same breakthrough techniques can be used to produce the germ idea for the entire campaign that follows.

In reality, however, the copywriter usually works on a given product, or in a given market area, for long periods of time. During that time he will write many ads on this same subject. And during that time he will engage in a kind of discourse with his market, in which he feeds that market ideas, and it feeds back to him reactions to those ideas.

During this massive conversation, if he is sensitive, the copywriter will pick up a continuous flow of the most vital information. Some of this information will be actual trends and preferences, which can be immediately translated into new ads. But much more of it will be in negative form—failures, roadblocks, limitations to the response from his ads. And only the statistical measurements of these limitations will be shown—not their causes. The copywriter will want to know why they occur. And in asking why, he will give birth to questions like these:

What causes one woman to make most of her clothes at home, and another woman to use her sewing machine only for minor repairs?

How can we convince more people that it's safe to buy through mail order?

Why will men instantly buy an automatic potato peeler—and women send it right back to the store again?

These are research questions. They deal with psychological dimensions. The copywriter discovers them, and passes them along to his MR people to be phrased, tested and answered. Thus is born a new idea, a new theme, and a new headline, perhaps even a new campaign.

On Expressing the Personality of a Product in Your Headline

One of the most potent discoveries of motivation research is that a product, or a store, or a whole group of products has a distinct and complete personality to the consumer. This personality is a complex quality, embracing many traits. In the case of the Cadillac, for example, it consists of quality, prestige, performance, appearance, comfort, resale value, freedom from repairs and much more.

But—and this is the important point to consider in writing your headline—one of these traits will always be the most effective in summarizing and expressing this personality. In the case of Cadillac, it has always been, and will always be, quality. This summary trait is featured in a series of headlines, or headline illustrations—perhaps blended with one or two of the other traits to give it variety but always strengthening those other traits by interrelating them to this one dominant quality.

Thus the personality is simplified, symbolized and sharpened to grasp the reader. And then—as the reader moves on through the body copy of the ad—this personality is expanded and examined in all its appeals—an ever-enlarging pyramid of persuasion, drawing in all the necessary information—charging that information with desire—terminating inevitably in the one source of satisfaction for that desire—your product.

We will examine this concept more thoroughly in Chapter 8—on Identification.

On the Only Type of Prevention Headline That Will Sell

Many copywriters believe that no prevention headline (because it treats a problem that may occur and that is not actually plaguing your prospect at this moment) can ever be effective. The reason they give for this failure is the inability of the prospect to identify himself with a problem that has not already forced itself upon him.

This is true—but only for those problems which affect him personally. He is perfectly capable of imagining such problems afflicting his loved ones, his friends, his wife and children, even his nation. This is why decay-preventing toothpaste sold so well when the ads focused the decay, not on the parent, but on the children. This is why life insurance can be sold, not by picturing the prospects death, but the horrors inflicted upon his wife and children if insufficient money is left over to take care of them.

To sum up: A man will not visualize future disasters occurring to himself, but he is perfectly capable of visualizing, and buying preventatives from, the image of such future problems affecting others around him.

On the Selection of Splinter Markets to Avoid Competition

Throughout this book, we have assumed that each competitor in a market will try to advertise to that market as a whole. For example, that every reducing aid will try to sell all women that are interested in losing weight.

This assumption is not necessarily true, in at least two respects. First, it assumes that such a market is all of one piece (for example, that all women want to lose weight for the same reason). they do not, of course. There are at least two major sub-categories in the market—those who want to lose weight for appearance reasons, and those who must lose weight because of their health. The same general appeal—LOSE WEIGHT—will be effective with both. But certainly the mechanisms should vary—speed and ease in the first—safety and permanence in the second.

Secondly, a small company with a limited budget may avoid competing with larger rivals for the core of the market, and may concentrate its attack on a smaller segment of that market. This is usually done regionally. But it may be even more effective if it is based on the sociology of the market rather than its geography. For example, a reducing aid may decide to abandon the greater appearance segment of the market, and appeal much more specifically to the health segment. This deliberate focusing of the appeal would alter every aspect of the campaign, from the headline, through identification copy, through mechanism and substantiation—right down to the selection of media and channels of distribution. (Health and geriatric magazines, and distribution through doctors rather than drug stores.)

Eventually, of course, if the appeal is successful and the budget grows, then the advertiser can decide to invade the majority market. If he does this, the success of the initial limited campaign can be used as a point of difference to appeal to the larger market. For example, the fact that women who were forced to lose weight permanently relied on this product more than twice as often as any other, etc.

In Summary

The first five chapters of this book, which you have just finished, describe a process which may take days, or weeks, or months to complete.

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—your client's product.

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