Atari trade ad for Crash 'N' Score, Steeplechase and Jet Fighter, Play Meter December 1975
The pattern
This still is filed under Headline · visual lockup.
Define
Headline and picture are one sentence. Remove either half and the claim disappears.
Mechanism
Lockup. The line names what the image will not. The image shows what the line cannot. They are not redundant.
Verdict
We have a picture that completes a short line: wit, contrast, or a second meaning.
Why it works
The headline sells the buyer's outcome by way of the player's outcome, and the hyphen between them is the whole trick: wreck, chase and crash are the player's experience, pays you is the operator's. The first body line, And still be a winner. A profit winner, that is, resolves the tease immediately so the reader is rewarded for having bitten. From there the copy stops being clever and turns into a spec sheet, because a route operator buys on cashbox hardware, monitor size and service life. The 25 cents for every two players means a 75 cent vend potential line is the only arithmetic on the page and it is placed inside the game with the most players, which is the number the buyer will remember.
Steal this when
Use this when you sell to a trade buyer whose customer is not the buyer. Write the headline about the end user's experience, then pivot in the first body line to the buyer's profit and spend the rest of the page on specifications.