Good copywriting, understanding of human nature

How to understand the motivation behind behavior in a changing environment and unchanging human nature is the eternal topic of copywriting. The author of the following article brings us copywriting that touches the heart, let's take a look.

You must have seen this kind of copy:

The sentence is plain, but once you read it, your heart will skip a beat. Why? Because it touches something deep in your heart, and this "something" is human nature.

What is human nature? When we dig deeper and deeper, we find that there are only two things: survival and reproduction .

But the reason why humans are humans and not animals is that humans are social. Under this sociality, human nature has evolved into a variety of manifestations.

In order to survive, humans have learned fear, greed, and aversion to loss.

In order to reproduce, humans become beauty-loving, jealous, and vain.

Therefore, those copywriters who have insight into human nature began to make a big fuss about this.

1. Fear

Interestingly, fear is a weakness of human nature, but it is also because of fear that humans have learned to grow in a sleazy way, and have been able to survive through the long river of history to this day. Those species that do not know what fear is have long since turned to dust and disappeared.

As a result, fear-inducing copy is more common than the air in Lays potato chips.

Stop climate change before it changes you

--World Wildlife Fund

I won't wear a helmet, it would make me look stupid.

No need to worry about lipstick getting on your teeth anymore

——Meth|“Don’t Touch It Once” Organization

There are copywriting that creates fear to force people to submit, and there are copywriting that does the opposite to relieve people of fear:

What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas

- Las Vegas

Taking advantage of people's desire for indulgence but fear of paying the price, we help them dispel their worries and let them come to Las Vegas to let themselves go, without having to pay any price after leaving.

Children who learn piano will not become bad

——KHS Music Center

Take advantage of parents' concerns that their children will learn bad things and relieve their fears.

2. Greed

Whenever a new Apple phone is released, the wealthy quietly place orders, while the poor start forwarding messages on Weibo to participate in a lottery. Why do so many people like to forward messages to participate in a lottery? Because the cost is small and the reward is big, which is exactly what human greed means.

Now that the World Cup is in full swing, I still remember the classic work of "Extra Creative" in the last World Cup - " If France wins the championship, Vatti will refund the full amount", which took advantage of this mentality: it doesn't matter who you buy, what if they really win? Who could have thought that they really won in the end.

In this World Cup, Vatti has repeated its old trick - "If Portugal wins the championship, Vatti will refund the full amount." As of now, Portugal has advanced to the round of 16. Let's wait and see what happens next.

There is also this one: eating hot dry noodles will give birth to a son.

Although it doesn't matter whether you have a boy or a girl, for some people who want to have a boy, if eating a bowl of hot dry noodles can make their wish come true, why not do it? The subtext: Even if it's fake, there's no loss, but what if it's real?

Small price + high reward, the eternal human nature.

Losing weight while sleeping

——Nighttime enzyme

Losing weight is painful, but sleeping is comfortable. It would be wonderful if I could lose weight comfortably and lose weight while sleeping.

Cabbage version of magic water

——Shiseido lotion

We all know SKⅡ Facial Treatment Essence, it’s good but very expensive. If there is something as good as Facial Treatment Essence but the price is very cheap, who wouldn’t want to try it?

Lin Guizhi also mentioned a case in "Miaozan":

E-book discount poster copy:

「Limited time order 8.99 yuan」

How to make this copy more attractive?

"It only costs $8.99 to be a knowledgeable person"

The original title only highlighted the "small price", while the new title gives the "high returns", which greatly enhances the attractiveness.

3. Loss Aversion

As the saying goes, you lose what you gain. For example, if you gain money, you lose your worries. If you gain worries, you lose hope.

"Greed" is to want to get, but people hate " losing" more than getting. As Lin Guizhi said, the copywriting she has written most in her life is "while stocks last". Other similar examples are:

It’s two dollars here and five dollars inside.

——The old man selling water in the scenic area

Don't wait until you're my age before you remember to give her roses.

——The old man selling flowers on the street

Your uncle will always be your uncle.

If you don't buy water from me, you will have to spend more money to buy it in the scenic area; if you forget to send flowers now, it will be too late to regret it when you are old.

There is another case in the American TV series "Mad Men". The male protagonist was advertising a lipstick brand. He was puzzled by the slogan and went on a date with his lover. The next morning, his lover left a kiss on his face and went out. The male protagonist, whose forehead was blessed, immediately wrote a wonderful copy:

Mark your man.

——Belle Jolie

What is taken advantage of is the possessiveness of the other half and the fear of losing.

4. Love of Beauty

Everyone loves beauty. Boys like to comb their hair like adults since childhood. Every girl has a beautiful princess dream. It is something engraved in their genes.

Taking advantage of this, a website wrote this sentence to guide users to upload avatars:

Are you sure you don't want to attract attention from the opposite sex?

Men's perfumes, height-increasing shoes, women's underwear, cosmetics...many copywriters have also taken this point to the extreme.

Don't leave your meeting to fate.

——AXE Men's Fragrance

95% of women choose their husbands based on height

——Height-increasing shoes

So he may not be able to wash dishes, but at least he can make his bed.

——Lovable underwear

You are more beautiful than you think

——Dove

You are more beautiful than you think

Everyone loves beauty, so they will pay more attention to their imperfections and often fall into inferiority. This copy tells people through a real experiment: You are actually more beautiful than you think, giving people confidence from the heart.

5. Jealousy

Jealousy is human nature. When others are gaining and I am exhausted, even if I have not lost anything, my value has decreased relatively and my living conditions have deteriorated. Therefore, the sense of crisis triggers jealousy, which leads to certain actions.

Without jealousy, people would lose a large part of their internal motivation and would easily be eliminated by natural selection.

Taking advantage of jealousy is taking advantage of this powerful internal driving force in human nature. For example, when attacking academic tutoring, there is a very controversial copy:

If you come, we will train your children. If you don’t come, we will train your children’s competitors.

The reason why it is criticized is because it is too destructive and exposes human nature completely.

Where there is competition there is jealousy, and where there is jealousy the copywriter will be ruthless.

This is what your rival will look like this summer

——Bikini advertisement

If you want to make others jealous, you should be jealous

——Gucci Envy perfume

My bestie is rosy and I am a little transparent

——Skin care products

6. Vanity

Everyone has a positioning of himself. When the evaluation from the objective world is lower than people's expectations of themselves, vanity arises.

For this reason, people will seek various ways to compensate for emotional values, such as showing off through behavior or flaunting material things, thus the phenomenon of “spending money like water in the circle of friends and patching up life” appears.

Please reply to your regrets for ordinary people

--Harry Winston

RSVP your regrets to the ordinary.

People will stare

Don't waste their time

--Harry Winston

People will stare.Make it worth their while.

Harry Winston is so expensive that its copywriters always go to great lengths to create a sense of superiority, a distance between the owner and ordinary people.

I must embrace my enemies

So they can smell my hair

Then I knew I was doing well.

——Le Labo

This is a sentence that a Le Labo perfume counter clerk heard from a customer's casual conversation, and it became the brand's promotional copy. What is sprayed is no longer perfume, but a sense of superiority.

Are you too rich to buy?

——The Beatles

In a joking way, it reveals the vanity of some people: they recognize the quality of the Beetle, but are unwilling to drive it due to face reasons, because this car cannot let others know that they are rich.

There are many similar copywritings that use people’s vanity to guide their behavior:

There are still 6 kilometers to go before you can post to Moments

——Marathon slogan

Please wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle, otherwise, classmates driving BMWs will recognize you.

——Pu'er Traffic Police

People are like raindrops, a few of them settle in Renai Road, but too many drift away.

——Ren'ai Liju

As the saying goes, to swim you need to understand the nature of water, to cure an illness you need to understand the properties of medicine, and copywriting is a job that involves communicating with people, so naturally you need to understand human nature.

When the communication environment is constantly changing, there are always people who say: human nature is unchanging. This is true, but it is just correct nonsense. How to understand the motivation behind behavior in a changing environment and unchanging human nature is the unchanging topic of copywriting.

Author: Kuang Thirteen

Source: WeChat public account "Copywriting Free Shipping (ID: kol100)"