Don’t read any more until you’ve watched the video!

Hey, quit peeking down here; watch the video first 😉
*****************
OK, having watched the video you know now that the “ad guy” changes the old man’s sign from:

“Have compassion, I am blind”
to
“Today is a beautiful day, and I can not see it.”

So let’s talk about the ad guy’s copy transformation.  In my mind he did 3 things perfectly:

1. He surprised readers with an unexpected intro
It was indeed a beautiful day, but it was also an unexpected observation to read on a panhandlers sign.  One normally expects a request or offer like, “Will work for food” or “Please help a disabled vet” or some such.  “Today is a beautiful” day is surprising, capturing the reader’s attention.

2) He used a reality hook to create an advantageous emotional response.

Whether they wanted to or not, passers-by took at least half a second to confirm the truth of that statement – to mentally assent that, yes, today was indeed beautiful.  Think about how different that thought is from 99% of the pedestrian concerns most of us walk down the street with; how liberating – even for a half-second – to stop worrying about the next meeting or deadline and look up to see what a beautiful day it really is.

This is a crucial step, too, because, as discussed in the book Made to Stick, shifting people into an empathic or emotional state of mind is crucial to the success of charitable requests.  Psychological research shows that if you prime people to think analytically, they’ll give far less than if you primed them to think emotionally.  The “Today is a beautiful day” opening primed people to think emotionally.

3) He forced reader participation by requiring them to connect the dots.
Nowhere did the new sign actually say, “I’m blind.”   Readers had to draw that conclusion for themselves by reading “and I can’t see it” while connecting that with the context clues offered by the old man and his panhandling.  This bit of reader engagement means that readers “see” the reality of the man’s blindness for themselves, without the typical internal pushback or cynicism generated when a marketing claim is shoved at a person.  This fill-in-the-gaps interactivity is an incredibly powerful writing technique.

Also note that the new sign avoided a hard sell by implying the request.  The ad man let the collection plate; combined with the reader’s realization of the man’s blindness, act as the call to action.

Now, applying this to the web, I’d say there are 2 more, extremely important points to make:

4) Eliminating conversion flaws and increasing usability can only take you so far.
The ad guy didn’t try to make the collection plate bigger or more prominent.  Nor did he set up a card-swiping machine so people could donate via debit card.  Usability wasn’t the issue; persuasion was.  If your website optimization strategy only addresses usability flaws or general best-practice issues, you’re never going to achieve breakthrough performance for your website.  You have to address persuasive gaps as well.

5) It’s worth the money to pay a good copywriter what he’s worth.
The dramatic improvement in conversion caused by the film’s ad guy may have been fictional, but it’s a recurrent reality on the web – at least for those companies who understand the value of persuasive copy.

Unfortunately, too many companies are willing to spend thousands to tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on a website redesign while balking at paying decent money for a top-notch copywriter. Don’t be one of those companies.

And if you’re advertising via mass media, such as radio, think about how foolish it is to pay thousands for air space only to fill it with mediocre, station-supplied copy for your ads.

Do you really want to be that company?

This article was written by my brilliant partner, Jeff Sexton.

Morty Silber, CEO

Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner

My mentor, Roy Williams, recently published an article in his Monday Morning Memo about the 10 Most Common Mistakes in Marketing and I thought it was important to share it with all of you. Some of you may be repeating the same mistakes over and over again without realizing it. If you already receive the MMM, you already know what not to do. 

The 10 Most Common Mistakes in Marketing
 
1. Inappropriate Use of Social Media
 
The whole world is on Facebook, but is that the right place for your product or service to be advertised? To get a clear idea of the kinds of offers that are working well on FaceBook, go to the Success Stories page at Facebook.com. Judging from this list of success stories, it would appear that FaceBook works extremely well for getting people together socially, not so well for hard goods and services. (HINT: I think there may be a reason they call it “social” media.)
 
2. Overconfidence in the Value of Targeting
 
Jeffrey Eisenberg insightfully points out that, “online customers are exactly the same people as offline customers, yet advertisers tend to think of them as an entirely different species.” For the same amount of money it costs you to reach 5 tightly targeted customers online, you can reach 5 customers who have that same profile PLUS 127 of their friends by using broadcast TV or radio. Do you want your brand to be the one people think of immediately and feel the best about when they finally need what you sell?
 
3. The Assumption that Every Message is Relevant
 
Why does every advertiser believe their product or service category to be intrinsically interesting? More than information, entertainment is the currency with which you can happily buy your prospective customer’s time and attention. But most ads have zero entertainment value.
 
4. Fear of Criticism
 
Most ads aren’t written to persuade. They’re written not to offend. But any message that has the power to move people will always move some of them in the wrong direction. When you’ve written a good ad, you must brace the advertiser for the negative backlash they will receive from people who are anxious to be offended. The only alternative to this is to forever settle for ads that are mushy, mundane and mediocre. Please don’t.
 
5. Measuring Ad Effectiveness Too Quickly
 
Its claim to “instantly and accurately measure every ad’s effectiveness” is part of what makes digital marketing so appealing to advertisers. But didn’t you say you want your brand to be the one people think of immediately and feel the best about when they finally need what you sell? This requires ongoing advertising and longer measurement cycles. You cannot hold every ad immediately accountable and expect to build relationship with your customer.
 
6. Unsubstantiated Claims
 
Adjectives are the marks of an ad filled with empty rhetoric.
Verbs are the marks of an ad that demonstrates its claims.
Verbs – action words – “show” your customer what your product can do. Fluffy adjectives simply “tell” them. In the words of Christopher J. Maddock, “Show, don’t tell.”
 
7. Believing that “Old” Media No Longer Works
 
It is true that you need a website and that most customers are going to visit your website before making first contact with you. Therefore, it’s vital that your website be a good one. But if you believe that online marketing is the most efficient way to drive traffic to your website, you need to go back and read Most Common Mistake #2. Do you want to see a massive jump in the effectiveness of your online ads? Begin advertising on radio or television. But Take Note: your elevated metrics will make it appear as though your online efforts are working magically well when, in fact, the credit should be attributed to mass media.
 
8. Assuming “The Decision Maker” Is The Only Person You Need to Reach
 
Decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. You must also win the influencers if you want to create a successful brand. If you don’t value the opinions of influencers you’ll evolve into a direct-response marketer. But does your business category lend itself to direct response?
 
9. Believing that “Millennials” Aren’t Like the Rest of Us
 
Millennials aren’t a tribe, they are a collection of tribes. They do not behave as a single, cohesive birth cohort. Google “Millennials” and the dictionary definition that will pop up will show the word “millennial” most commonly used in this sentence: “The industry brims with theories on what makes millennials tick.” But when you look at a list of what millennials supposedly want, it’s exactly what the rest of us want. Yes, they’re not like we “50-somethings” used to be, but then we’re not like we used to be, either.
 
10. AdSpeak
 
People don’t hate advertising; they hate boring advertising; they hate predictable advertising. They hate the time-wasting, life-sucking sound of too many words wrapped around too small an idea. They hate AdSpeak. But they love entertainment. Learn to purchase your customer’s time and attention and goodwill with delightful, interesting, entertaining ads.

P.S. Roy asked me to write the 10 Most Common Mistakes of Event Planning so stay tuned.

Morty Silber, CEO

Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner

Two Kinds of Quality
 
I recently came across this fascinating post about Apple Marketing principles, as articulated by Apple circa 1977.  Here they are:

Now, as a marketer, the Empathy and Focus parts are second nature — at least in terms of understanding.  Putting them into practice every day is harder stuff, but any copywriter that doesn’t understand the importance of empathizing with the prospective customer and focusing in on their primary buying motivations and concerns isn’t a copywriter at all.
 
It’s the last element most marketers and copywriters screw up or overlook: the importance of Imputed Quality.  Not nuts and bolts, specification-driven build quality or value for the dollar quality.  But quality cues that tap into buyers’ pre-existing mental imprint of luxury and virtuous manufacture.  The telling detail that says everything.
 
Want to see an example of imputed quality used in copy?  Here ya go:

Notice that the actual build quality is detailed by the bullet points of the body copy, while the imputed quality — the telling detail — is given pride of place within the headline of the ad itself.*
 
Of course, this sort of quality cue or imputed quality factor has to be already existing or freshly baked into the product or service itself before it can be advertised, but recognizing the need for it — and doing the patient research and digging to find it — is one of the major keys to writing copy that works.
 
Apple of course, is a master at this, which is one reason they are renowned design icons, because inspired design imputes high quality. But it’s also why Apple never skimps on screen quality, keyboard feel, and the overall polish put on their user interfaces: those are the sort of tangible, experiential things that impute quality.
 
Yes, of course, we expect real quality from an Apple product in the sense of freedom from typical PC-like annoyances, annoyances brilliantly dramatized and mocked by Apple’s “I’m a Mac” campaign.  But even if you knew nothing about Apple or PCs and just LOOKED at the competing products laid side by side, you’d intuitively get that one set of products were special and nicer than the rest.  Regardless of how they’re internal components and specs stacked up.
 
So Here Are My 3 Takeaways from This:
 
1) Quality is important, but quality without imputed quality will go unrewarded in the marketplace.
 
2) Business owners should never expect customers to recognize quality and should “bake” imputed quality into their offerings.
 
3) Copywriters who fail to use imputed quality cues will end up with underperforming ad copy.
 
P.S. — Want to see an already-existing quality cue in action? Check out these guys thudding the door closed on a Mercedes:

P.P.S. — How do I know that Ogilvy diligently searched for product facts that would help him find and recognize important quality cues?  Because he listed research twice when explaining his copywriting methodology!  Steps 3 and 5 both emphasize the importance of research and facts.

This article was written by my brilliant partner, Jeff Sexton.

Morty Silber, CEO

Mad Strategies Inc.
a Wizard of Ads Partner