House ad as portfolio

The pattern

This still is filed under House ad as portfolio.

Define

The firm advertises itself by showing the work, not by describing the work.

Mechanism

Proof by exhibit. The portfolio is the claim. Captions stay short. The pieces carry the argument.

Verdict

We sell craft and the buyer can judge from examples.

Why it works

The ad sells the agency by never talking about the agency until the last paragraph. It spends nine tenths of its length on a client's business problem stated in the reader's own language, so the prospect is inside the case before he notices he is being pitched. The proof is deliberately non-commercial: four state Fire Marshals changing their rulings is evidence no competitor could fake and no reader can dismiss as a puffed sales figure. The two-photograph before-and-after with the black X does the whole product argument without a word of copy, freeing the text to argue strategy rather than features.

The big idea

Where no law banned the exposed knife switch, advertising changed the officials and the regulations first, and so opened the market for the Square D Safety Switch.

The offer

J. Walter Thompson Company's help with the problems of selling and advertising, as given to the maker of the Square D Safety Switch. No terms stated.

The proof

After the February 1920 campaign, Fire Marshals in Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia and Kansas ruled against the exposed switch, the electrical industry joined in, and sales to manufacturers and dealers rose markedly.

Lines from the ad

A campaign that roused public officials to a long-standing menace

Yet men gambled that the "lightning" would not strike where their interests were concerned.

Could this great task be profitably accomplished by advertising?

Steal this when

Use this when your product is blocked by a rule, a standard, a code or an industry habit rather than by a competitor, and the real job is to change the environment before you can sell into it. Also use it as a case-study house ad when you want third-party institutional outcomes, not client testimonials, to carry the credibility.

The emotion

Written to Admiration. It makes the Say move.

The Square D case lays out the route, change the officials and the rules before selling the switch, and names the outcome: Fire Marshals in four states ruled against the exposed knife switch.