How to arrive at what to spend for advertising this year
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 diagram does the persuading before a word of copy is read: by drawing advertising as one box in the same row as manufacturing cost and profit, it reframes the budget question from whether to spend to what share to allocate. The body then runs a sequence of audit questions, each asking what work a given cost element performs, which forces the reader to score his own spending rather than judge a claim. The worked reallocation example gives a concrete number to argue with, and the closing instruction, that advertising be considered in relation to every other cost rather than given what is left, is the line the whole page was built to land. It is a budgeting method sold as a piece of thinking, not a plea for the appropriation.
Steal this when
Use this when the buyer treats your line item as discretionary and cuts it last. Draw the whole cost structure, put your line inside it, and convert the ask into an allocation question tied to the work each element performs.