design & marketing blog

Here are a couple great examples of brilliant marketing for mundane products. Take a look at the examples below to see how authenticity and emotion emphasize the fundamental benefits of a product and create a unique and lasting impression. Note that in these examples the actual product is featured little or none.

Seat belts

Chewing gum

It’s easy to spot amateur copy.

Amateurs don’t know how to express anything other than excitement. So it’ll be high energy, full of hype, exaggeration and exclamation marks.

“Our new mouth-watering deserts are guaranteed to light your valentine’s fire! You’re in for a fun night! Hurry up and book now!”

Great copy should be conversational.

You should be speaking to your prospects the same way a friend might, if they were discussing the topic over a quiet drink after work.

There’s place for excitement. But there are so many other emotions you can – and should – express. (E.g., fear, shame, intrigue, suspense, tenderness, anger, sadness, surprise, benevolence, optimism, etc.)

We tend to do this naturally in conversation. And great copywriters know this.

But what if you’re not a great copywriter? Does this mean you can’t write great copy?

Probably. But it doesn’t mean you can’t write good copy.

There’s a simple and easy way to write compelling copy. And if you follow it, your work will be better than 90% of all the other rubbish that pollutes the Internet.

You don’t need any training. And you don’t need any specialist techniques.

Here’s what you do.

Go out and pitch your offering to as many people as you can. These must be people that are in a position to buy it.

Make sure you record every pitch you make. (There are plenty of iPhone apps for this.)

What you now have is compelling, conversational and natural copy.

You might need to clean it up a little. And you might want to add or remove a few points.

But what you have is proven to work, because it already won you the sale. Put it on your website, and it’ll almost certainly outperform what is on there right now.

Carpe diem.

Lewis Bassett
Director, Bassett Providentia Ltd

Copyright © 2012, Bassett Providentia Ltd

Lewis Bassett is an online marketing consultant and speaker, and helps companies to increase their revenue. Bassett Providentia Ltd is his consulting practice. For more information and to subscribe to his email list visit www.bassettprovidentia.com.

Out of the thousands of ads we’re exposed to each day, what is it that makes only a few stand out?  It’s emotional connection. Those ads that don’t have it, no matter how technically precise, are noise and filtered out by our brain.

Here’s great example from The Richards Group of how it’s done right.

As a follow-up to the great Google Chrome ad I posted a few days ago, here’s another great TV ad from Volkswagen. As mentioned about the Google Chrome Ad . . . there are two keys to  branding that both these ads excel in: authenticity and emotion. If you don’t connect with your customers in these areas they really won’t get the true value you’re offering with your product.

The emotion of this ad is obvious, but notice too how authentic the laughter is. If the laughing in this commercial came across even with a suspicion of being staged the ad would lose a lot of its effectiveness.  Another important key to this ads success is the very personal nature of the content . . . for a moment we feel like we’re sharing a intimate moment with someone we know.

This ad exemplifies the sales  axiom . . . people buy from those they know and trust. In a matter of 30 seconds Volkswagen takes us from being a stranger to making us feel like we know and trust them. Every bit of your branding and marketing communication needs to be created with this same axiom in mind.