Writing copy? The informal kind

In this article, the author introduces four special and clever methods of writing product copy in detail. It is suitable for readers who are interested in copywriting.

It is not easy to be a copywriter these days. There is the Advertising Law above us. The Market Supervision Administration is watching. If you are not careful, you may be sanctioned.

As a (not very serious) copywriter, although I don't have the courage to engage in false propaganda, I still have the courage to selectively tell the truth while avoiding the main issue, and it's very big.

As for how we do it, here is a brief demonstration.

1. Tell the truth selectively

There was a joke circulating online before, which talked about how real estate advertisements deceive people:

• Large green area, embrace nature
• The truth: There is wasteland on the edge
• Waterfront Residence, the Best Place to Stay
• The truth: Next to a small ditch
• Close neighbors, harmonious and warm
• The truth: The distance between buildings is very close
• Butler service, considerate and thoughtful
• Truth: There is a security guard at the door

In fact, this is all false propaganda, and we don't bother to do this.

We will deeply explore the value of the project, review past classic cases, accurately grasp the user pain points, and finally make consumers willing to pay.

For example, if consumers in remote areas are resistant, how can we solve this problem? There are many ways:

For example, the main feature is the price/performance ratio - "1/3 the price, arrive in 20 minutes" .

Although it is far from work, the price is low. How did you get the 20-minute time? If you drive, you definitely don't count traffic jams and traffic lights. In 20 minutes, Secretary Li Youtian can drive from Beijing's Third Ring Road to Langfang, Hebei.

Later, the Advertising Law no longer allows the use of time to express distance, but I am not afraid of that. I can still promise you a bright future - "Hundreds of billions of urban planning to seize the new core of the future."

This is not nonsense. We will study every word of the city-level "Five-Year Development Plan", a document of hundreds of pages.

To put it bluntly, even in a remote place, you can find the plan for this place in the documents. As for the plan, those who understand it will understand it.

Or I can also praise you for your foresight - "the vision closest to you" . Although I am far away, the place that is truly out of reach for you is the city center. When you choose me, you choose foresight.

Or just stop pretending and admit it openly: I am just remote, so what?

Hence the famous slogan "The distance I keep from the world" came into being.

There is also a more direct "distance creates villa".

Or something more profound, "I can see the world, but the world cannot see me."

There are also some properties near the sea that dare to promote themselves as "first-line sea views" even though you can only see a hint of the sea view. This is a clear way of using a pun.

But we can't. If we can't see the sea, we can't see it, no matter how close we are. So there is the saying "When you are in Shenzhen, your heart is listening to the sea" .

For shops that have difficulty attracting investment, as long as a large bank moves in, we will say "We are neighbors with the Fortune 500" or "Who you stand with determines who you are" , etc., to create a high-end business atmosphere here. After all, the most important thing for a business district is the atmosphere.

But the fact is that if a bank is stationed in a commercial street outlet, it means there is really no other way. Especially since banks are rich, they will choose the best corners and close at night and on weekends when it is busy, which is exactly the most detrimental to the business atmosphere. But that is not important, what is important is to promote the shops.

2. Weave a beautiful dream

It is said that 200 years ago, diamonds were indeed a rare commodity, and because of their scarcity, they are valuable.

It wasn't until 1870 that massive diamond mines were discovered in South Africa. As the output increased, diamonds became worthless.

So several major diamond dealers united to form De Beers, which controlled the output of diamond mines around the world and stabilized the price of diamonds by artificially creating scarcity.

The price has stabilized, but who should we sell so many diamonds to?

The American NWAyer advertising company proposed a strategy: to bind diamonds with the promise of love.

Late one night in 1947, the company's female copywriter Frances Gerety had a flash of inspiration and wrote the "best advertising slogan of the 20th century", "A DIAMOND IS FOREVER" , which was later translated into "Diamonds are forever" in China.

De Beers also spent huge advertising fees to insert diamond proposal scenes into movies, TV series, dramas, school lectures, and even children's cartoons.

Whenever a handsome man kneels down on one knee to propose to a beautiful girl he loves, he will definitely take out a diamond ring.

Soon the idea of ​​using a diamond ring to propose marriage became popular, and from then on love became an eternal diamond, held tightly in the hands of lovers.

This move also kills two birds with one stone by solving the troubles caused by the circulation of second-hand diamonds: How can first-hand love be exchanged for second-hand diamonds?

So we see that a second-hand brand diamond ring with a full set of packaging and certificates priced at 600 yuan on a certain fish site is ignored.

In order to encourage people to buy more expensive diamonds, movie lines would suggest "buy the biggest and shiniest diamonds."

Many women are reluctant to spend money, so the copywriter tells men that "giving diamonds as gifts requires surprises, so you should buy them secretly and then give her a surprise" ...

But soon in 1959, large diamond mines were discovered in Siberia, the Soviet Union. De Beers understood the socialist countries' style of rapid development, so they wooed the Soviet Union, and with the goal of making money together, the two sides happily reached a consensus.

But the diamonds produced in the Soviet Union were small, broken diamonds, which were more suitable for making jewelry, so the copywriter began to say that "diamond jewelry also represents love."

Later, other African countries also discovered broken diamonds, which were controlled by local warlords as a source of military expenditure. The warlords were too lazy to reason with you, so how could they control the production?

Although the warlords had a lot of diamonds, their skills were rough, so the copywriters packaged various concepts about diamond quality standards and cutting technology.

In this way, the "marketing myth" of diamonds lasted for a hundred years until it encountered "Made in China".

Today, China's artificial diamond technology has reached its peak. Not only is the price low, but when placed next to natural diamonds, even experts cannot distinguish them, and even machines cannot identify them.

So the copywriter stepped up again and proposed a new slogan:

Real is Rare, Real is Diamond.

Such a precious heart, such a true diamond

It means that only real diamonds are rare and can represent love.

But it seemed to have little effect, so in line with the principle of "if you can't beat them, join them", De Beers said it would stop pretending and launched artificial diamonds in 2018.

Copywriter: It was a wrong decision after all, and all the work was written in vain.

3. Focus on information asymmetry

The standards in the food industry are relatively complex, and the knowledge gaps that ordinary consumers do not understand are the dynamic areas of our activities.

Modern people pay attention to healthy diet. People who want to lose weight prefer 0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calories, and people who maintain their health value non-GMO, 0 cholesterol, and 0 preservatives. Okay, let's start from here.

As a result, many beverage copywritings on the market began to focus on the concept of "0 sugar, 0 fat".

But 0 sugar does not mean no sugar. According to my country's "General Rules for Nutrition Labeling of Pre-packaged Foods", as long as the sugar content in every 100 grams of food does not exceed 0.5 grams, it can be labeled "0 sugar" or "sugar-free".

my country's dietary guidelines have recommended that the daily sugar intake of each person should be controlled within 25g.

So if you drink 8 bottles of 600 ml sugar-free beverage as water a day, even if you don't eat, your sugar intake for the day will exceed the limit.

In addition, some people are afraid of cholesterol, so I wrote "0 cholesterol" in the title of my corn oil. In fact, corn does not contain cholesterol.

Some people are very afraid of genetically modified organisms, so I wrote "non-GMO peanut oil" on my peanut oil copy, but in fact, peanuts cannot be genetically modified. Later, the country issued regulations prohibiting peanut oil from being labeled "non-GMO".

Some people are particularly concerned about preservatives, so I write "0 preservatives" on the label of my canned fruit. In fact, current canning technology does not require any preservatives at all.

You say this kind of copywriting is meaningless, I say that this is where consumer demand lies.

In this regard, Claude Hopkins, the "father of scientific advertising", called himself an expert.

At that time, Hopkins was advertising Schlitz beer. He went to beer school to learn how to brew beer, but still felt helpless, so he visited a beer factory.

At that time, major American beer companies were all promoting the concept of "Pure", and Schlitz beer was no exception.

But people have become accustomed to such publicity, and Schlitz's sales have always ranked fifth in the industry, neither rising nor falling.

Hopkins was amazed when he came to the Schlitz factory. He saw the purification glass room, white wood pulp filtration, pure water drawn from 4,000 feet underground, and pure yeast cultivated through 1,200 experiments. These were the processes Schlitz adopted to ensure the purity of beer.

Hopkins asked the factory manager in surprise: Why don’t you publicize these?

The factory manager replied embarrassedly: Because this is the standard process, every brewery does it this way.

Hopkins insisted on including all these techniques in subsequent advertisements. In just a few months, the sales of Schlitz beer jumped from fifth to first, becoming the largest beer brand in the United States.

Hopkins' new copywriter for Schlitz beer

(If you want to see the Chinese translation, click on the picture and long press and select "Translate")

Hopkins believes that although it is a standard process, consumers don't know it. If someone is the first to associate these processes with themselves, then it will have a unique position in the minds of consumers.

4. Taking Advantage of People’s Prejudices

"Like cures like" is a dietary therapy method summed up by the working people over thousands of years. Although it has no scientific basis, some people still believe in it.

For example, do walnuts really nourish the brain?

This involves a concept: what is “brain nourishment”?

Does eating it make people smarter, or does it supplement brain nutrition?

The former is like the "Brain Spirit" oral liquid many years ago, which claims that after drinking it, prenatal education culture can also help people get into college. It is specifically sold to parents of candidates whose brains are not so smart.

The latter means that it can supplement the nutrients needed by the brain.

For example, the main component of the brain is protein, so protein is necessary; the brain needs energy to work, and sugar is also needed; in addition, the brain also needs an appropriate amount of zinc and vitamins, and the brain cell membrane needs phospholipids. The development of the brain may also be related to DHA...

So when we talk about brain supplements, we mostly refer to the latter, that is, providing nutrients to the brain.

Comparing the nutritional composition table of walnuts, it happens that many nutrients are indeed met.

So walnuts can indeed nourish the brain. The working people have taught me another lesson. Now please shout out the slogan loudly - "Use your brain frequently and drink more XXXX."

But the question is, can walnuts alone provide these nutrients?

Obviously not.

To be exact, these nutrients are quite common in our daily diet.

The nutrients the brain needs most are mainly protein and fat, so I would like to introduce " fried eggs ".

Of course, if you want to eat something more luxurious, Jianbing Guozi is also a good choice. The copywriting is ready-made: "If you use your brain often, try Jianbing Guozi."

Seeing this, Tomato and Egg Noodles slammed the table and stood up . Who was he looking down on?

Lanzhou ramen, which combines both meat and eggs , also believes it can compete.

The above talked about walnuts, and now let’s take a look at “walnut milk drink”.

According to the listing prospectus, the material cost of each can of walnut milk is 1 yuan, of which 0.57 yuan is for the can and only 0.25 yuan is for the walnuts.

Of course, for us, it doesn’t matter how many walnuts there are in the can; what matters is how many cans we can sell.

In fact, as a (not serious) copywriter, we are often asked a question: if you know that the product is not good and is not as good as your competitors, will you still try your best to write copy for it? The answer is of course yes.

In fact, advertising copywriters often have to write copy for products that are "not so good", but we believe that even the worst products (the regular ones) always have their special features, just like David Ogilvy said: There are no boring products, only boring copy.

Author: Kuang Thirteen

Source: WeChat public account "Copywriting Free Shipping (ID: kol100i)"