1 The Other Repetition

If it’s short you can say it a lot.

No surer way to get into somebody’s head than to repeat something a lot.

posted at 03:55 pm on November 06, 2007 by Alan Pritt

2 Interesting read

But I did find myself a little disappointed by the final result (I think that happens a lot with strictly mathematical analyses of creative stuff). Maybe it just didn’t resonate with me because I wasn’t familiar with the campaign.

I did notice the kind of “warm fuzzy” feeling, or at least the friendly familiarity I felt toward most of the other copy shots. I think that it was a good point that even though we like to think we’re more savvy consumers, not so influenced by advertising, it’s not always true. Our very familiarity with advertising gives us a certain respect for a well-crafted campaign. And that inevitably affects our perception of the advertiser, which is exactly what the ad is meant to do.

posted at 04:25 pm on November 06, 2007 by Nathan Walton

3 Good to the last drop

While I agree with your assessment of the “best” of the shots provided, I’m a little confused as to why Good to the last drop was excluded as being non-declarative. While I admit that it’s missing both a subject and a verb, it seems to me that common usage implies a preceding “It is,” just as much as “Betcha” implies “I betcha.” I’m certainly no linguist, but it just seems like an unfair choice to allow Betcha can’t eat just one without Good to the last drop. Of course, the lack of subject and verb would exclude it from the next phase anyway, so the overall result would be the same.

Overall, I actually like the way this article was done. It’s always interesting and often informative to step back, without emotional reactions, and simply be a slave to what is, rather than what we think it should be. The results are often surprising.

posted at 05:08 pm on November 06, 2007 by Marty Alchin

4 Untitled

Thanks for the analysis. I think the copy shots are still quite relevant but will be a bit replaced by “graphical copies”. At least internet users tend to decide within milliseconds if a website is good or not, so I think text does not matter so much, but the overall graphical impression does.

posted at 05:10 pm on November 06, 2007 by Adam Kay

5 Einstein not a good copywriter?

Perhaps not, but he has no shortage of quotes!

It’s interesting that Einstein is attributed with the brief, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”, when in fact he stated, “It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”.

He may not have been a good copywriter, but he benefited from the efforts of a great one. (I could not find attribution for the simpler fellow or lady.)

Of course even the great copywriter was one-upped by the person who eventually coined, “Keep it simple, stupid!”

posted at 07:26 pm on November 06, 2007 by Jim Cook

6 It's emotional, not rational

In my 35 years of experience as a copywriter I have learned that the magic of a great takeaway line is not mathmatical, rational or logical. It is all emotional. A great line taps into the preconceptions and expectations of the target. It flatters the intellignece of the target. It invites the reader into the proposition to react to it, think about it and say to his or herself “that’s right!”. It delivers the satisfaction of closing the propositional circle.

I call it flipping the mental switch that says I agree with this writer and he or she understands me and what I want.

Obviously, a long line can’t possible incorporate these values. People don’t emotionalize in long phrases.

Memorabilty is another important criteria. Your reference to the Pepsodent line omits the fact that it was “sung”. When you see the words you hear the melody and that jogs your memory.

The truly outstanding lines also slip effortlessly into the culture and the context. “It’s the Real Thing” was such a line for Coke, as was the earlier, “The pause that refreshes.

I have personally been associated with two such lines. One was “The Wings of Man”, that tapped into human needs to perceive air transport as something grander than 300 cattle in an aluminum sardine tube. Another was a line for the old Life Magazine – in its first carnation – “Life. Consider the Alternative.” Unfortunately, the publisher did.

Another was ”...rich Corinthian leather.” What the heck that was, no one really knew. But people loved the thought of it and – although it wasn’t truly a take-away line – it passed into the vernacular easily.

That said, such lines normally serve better as “closers” than as opener. A vague headline becomes an insightful conclusion.

posted at 01:57 am on November 07, 2007 by William Waites

8 There isn't a formula.

This is a fascinating analysis. Kudos. But it’s ultimately unhelpful. That’s because what makes most of these “copy shots” great is simple clarity. They communicate something clearly and directly. There is no formula for clear thinking and crisp writing.

And remember that these are just tag lines and slogans. You shouldn’t get the idea that all copy should be short. In fact, if your purpose is to capture attention and “sell” something, long headlines and in-depth copy almost always work better than short copy.

If there’s any secret to great copywriting, it’s in doing research to understand the product, prospect, and project you’re working on. I just wrote about that in my blog and talked about the questionnaire I use to collect information. This is what helps me write copy for my clients and where I get my best ideas.

posted at 02:20 am on November 07, 2007 by Dean Rieck

9 A Few Small Nitpicks, One Big One

Yay! Thank you A List Apart for giving a good primer on copywriting for slogans.

SMALL NITPICKS

Who estimates the English lexicon as being over 1,000,000 words? The latest OED has about 600,000 headwords, which doesn’t include slang. Most slang, however, is polysemous of pre-existing words.

There are many more classifications of rhetorical devices, but the list becomes increasingly obscure as it gets bigger. It also becomes more useful. Consider antanaclasis: “StarKist doesn’t want tunas with good taste — StarKist wants tunas that taste good!” The more obscure these get, the easier it becomes to invent fresh ideas. For a gigantic list see Wikipedia: Figures of Speech

BIG NITPICK

Surely the greatest quantity of good ideas come not from an “ideal solution” but from a variety of methods and approaches. Trying to reduce down to “the most popular [with corporate megaclients]” or the “most effective [according to nobody in particular]” is not only silly but also detrimental to the discourse of copywriting in general. It makes clients dumber.

posted at 03:49 am on November 07, 2007 by Zachary Rose