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 demonstrates naming rather than describing it - the coined word is set larger than anything else on the spread and the reader meets it as a brand before the copy explains why it is a brand. It then stages the reader's own objection as dialogue, asking Conaphore? What does it mean? and answering that it doesn't mean anything, that's the point, which converts what looks like a weakness into the entire principle. The principle is stated as ownership, a name that can apply only to this product and be owned by you forever, which reframes the choice from taste to property. Listing four other coined names with their positioning lines turns one anecdote into evidence of a repeatable method, and the soft close asks only for a conversation.

The big idea

A new kind of product needs a coined name that means nothing at first, so the maker can fill it with meaning and own it forever: Conaphore.

The offer

J. Walter Thompson Company's naming work: "If you have a name problem we should be glad to discuss it with you."

The proof

The Conaphore headlight glass shown in a night photograph, plus four other names built on the same principle: Yuban coffee, Veedol lubricant, Brenlin window shade material and Kovar beverage.

Lines from the ad

"What shall we name it?" said the manufacturer

It doesn't mean anything-that's the point.

If you have a name problem we should be glad to discuss it with you.

Steal this when

Use this when you sell expertise whose value is invisible in the finished work. Show one finished artefact first, stage the sceptical question the reader is already forming, answer it with the underlying principle, then list other work built on the same principle.

The emotion

Written to Curiosity. It makes the Say move.

The coined word Conaphore is set larger than anything else; the copy asks what it means and answers: nothing, so the maker can fill it with meaning and own it.