'This is America' melting pot poster
The pattern
This still is filed under Manifesto positioning.
Define
A public declaration of how the world should work, with the brand standing inside that world.
Mechanism
Worldview first. Customers who share the frame arrive pre-sold. The product is an example of the stance.
Verdict
We have a real stance and a category that rewards a tribe, not a feature list.
Why it works
The headline points at a crowd of new arrivals, men in worn coats and a woman in a headscarf holding suitcases, baskets and papers, and says "This is America.", so the country is defined by the very people a wary reader might call outsiders. The copy then gives them the credit, "They have made America great-they have made America the hope of the world", and hands the reader the stake with "This is Your America". The closing ".Keep it Free" makes defending freedom and accepting these newcomers one and the same act.
The big idea
America is its immigrants: new arrivals clutching bags and papers are named as the people who made the country great, so keeping it free is keeping faith with them.
The offer
Asks the reader to keep America free.
Lines from the ad
This is America..They have made America great-they have made America the hope of the world...Keep it Free!Steal this when
Use it when a group your audience treats as outsiders is in fact what makes the shared thing work, and you can show them and give them the credit in one line.
The emotion
Written to Belonging. It makes the Say move.
It points at newcomers in worn coats clutching suitcases and papers, says 'This is America' and credits them with making it great, so they belong as they arrive, unchanged.
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