Ad Copy 101 Part 3 - Storytelling

Previously, on last week’s episode of Ad Copy 101, the fear-filled heroine tackled the dragon of misunderstanding, emerged victorious, and got a raise. Wait. Stop. Rewind. I’m not writing about Star Trek Discovery. I’m writing about how I learned the tricks of the trade for writing junk mail. So far, we’ve covered learning to listen to your audience and then understanding your product. This week we will dive into the best part: storytelling. My first assignments were selling computers to companies before PC networks were invented. Yes, I’m that old. In those days, customers wanted us to explain what they were getting, how they worked, and why having one was a good idea. Therefore, our marketing materials had to reduce the impossibly complex into a handbook of simple facts. It was straightforward, mundane and miraculous, all at the same time. I’d still be doing it except the company folded and the bosses went back to JPL to invent time travel. Then came a job selling asynchronous communication servers. That was a different challenge. My new bosses believed that if a customer didn’t already know what that phrase meant—asynchronous communication server—they shouldn’t be buying our software. After years of trying to be as vague as possible, a very clever art director and I made the mistake of simplifying the concept. We came up with a cute ad campaign calling our serial connector a cereal box. The ads made sense to customers. Sales soared. We got fired. It was time to rethink my career trajectory. Everything I’d sold so far, other than the size 15-1/2 women’s dresses at the Broadway, had been selling an idea. And come to think of it, even the dresses may have been an idea as well. You know, buy a new dress, walk out in a different body. First insurance, then a computer that could share peripherals without crashing, followed by mysterious networking software only Goldman Sachs could use: these were all difficult pitches about intangible products. Maybe what I needed was something tangible, concrete, a thing I could hold up in my hand and say, “See? You want this, right?” After a much-needed rest, I set out to find my next gig. We used to peruse newspaper ads back then and one day I saw something intriguing. Needed: salesperson to promote product to hobby stores. I liked hobbies and going to hobby stores. The idea of working and having fun at the same time was revelatory. So I called the company, found out what they were selling and where they advertised, scheduled an interview, and went magazine shopping. In I walked on interview day, slapped six magazines down on the table, and said, “These ads are the best I’ve ever seen.” The company owner looked at me as if I’d just landed from Mars. I pointed to the words next to the photo of a huge steam locomotive and read his ad header to him: “Buy this great tape now!" He stared at me as I added, "Genius, pure genius.” It wasn’t my enthusiasm that got me the job; it was the six magazines. I was tasked with getting hobby stores to carry our VHS videos of trains and railroads. Yes, VHS, I’m that old and yes, there are people in the world, lots of them, who like to sit on couches, eat Twinkies, and stare at films featuring all sorts of trains coming and going. The owner of our company decided that as long as he was selling directly by mail, he may as well sell to hobby stores and distributors. This is contrary to every distribution system known to commercial trade, fraught with peril, sure to fail. Yet we succeeded. During my first staff meeting, I timidly inquired what we called our buyers. In my former life, the ultimate targets were faceless blobs we rarely met. Now I would be dealing directly with them, so I asked, “What do you call your end users?” “Customers.” I remained wisely silent for the next several staff meetings until I got the hang of the place. Eventually, hobby stores, distributors, and customers competed for our attention and I was able to swivel away from direct sales back to writing marketing materials. Here I was once again, facing a string of sentences that made no sense to me. The videographers we hired were professional newsmen and women. They were superb at filming and editing interesting shows. But writing? For the most part, not so much. This time I had more of an arsenal at my disposal. I’d had a chance to meet our customers and listen to them talk about what they loved. Better yet, this time I was writing for a willing audience. They knew what they wanted and all I had to do was tell them why they wanted OUR videos instead of our competitors.' It was kind of like at Passover dinners. You know, the four questions? Why is this night different than all other nights? Only in my case, it was why is our show better than all the others? Finally my love of literature had an outlet! I began writing stories on the back of our video and DVD jackets. Our cover copy grew from a few sentences in large print to a short story. I’d set the scene and by the end of the book our readers would be hooked. Spin a tale about what’s it’s like to experience the adventures awaiting them in vivid color and deafening sound. Then give the text to an accomplished art director who pairs it with spectacular photos. The results were keepers. Our customers not only bought our products, they tended to hold onto those ads for years instead of tossing them straight into the trashcan. When I started this trio of blogs about ad copy, I wondered what was the number one thing I would tell a newbie. Yes, you have to know your market, your customer. That’s where listening comes in. You also have to understand your product well enough to tell your customer how it makes his or her life better or safer. Women may want what other women have and men may want toys that make their lives more complicated. But how do you explain it? You tell a story. Storytelling is how people hear things. It’s how we learn, how we absorb. Watch TV ads and news broadcasts. You’ll see what I mean. They all include a hero, an enemy, and a quest. What’s old is new again. The young man who inspired me to write this series of blogs may be designing Instagram videos but the same rules apply. That’s because technology has evolved but people haven’t, not really. Sure, we get our soundbites in shorter bursts from newer sources, but if there’s not a relatable fable buried inside, we’re not motivated to act. The world’s a stage and it speaks to us in stories. Use that knowledge, ladies and gentlemen, should you ever desire to write words that convince people to give you money for things they don’t really need.