Question headline

The pattern

This still is filed under Question headline.

Define

The first line is a question the reader was already asking, or one they cannot leave unanswered.

Mechanism

Open loop plus recognition. A good question is the reader's objection, spoken first by us.

Verdict

We know the real objection and can answer it in the next breath.

Why it works

The structure is an interrogation. Six questions run in sequence, narrowing from the general to the uncomfortably specific, and the reader is meant to fail them. Failing is the diagnosis, and guesswork advertiser is the label he now has to wear, which creates the problem the folder is about to solve. The insult is then displaced in time rather than aimed at the man: guesswork belongs back in the early nineties, in the Dark Ages of Advertising, so the reader is merely out of date rather than foolish, which is far easier to accept. The ask is sized to match, a card rather than a decision, with the risk explicitly stripped out. The photographed owl converts the engraved trademark into a live animal staring the reader down while he is being questioned.

The big idea

An advertiser who cannot say why each paper is on the list, or which part of the copy is weak, is a guesswork advertiser from the "Dark Ages of Advertising."

The offer

Mail the card attached to the folder and J. Walter Thompson Co. will send a representative to see you, without obligation or cost.

The proof

Only the president's facsimile signature over the agency's name and New York address.

Lines from the ad

Are You a guesswork advertiser?

If you cannot answer all these questions satisfactorily to yourself, then you are a guesswork advertiser.

Guesswork publicity belongs away back in the early nineties, in the Dark Ages of Advertising.

Steal this when

Use this when the prospect already buys your category and thinks he has it handled, so a benefit pitch bounces. Open with a short run of diagnostic questions he cannot answer, name the condition that failing them produces, and ask only for a free, low-commitment visit.

The emotion

Written to Shame. It makes the Avoid mistake.

Six questions the reader is meant to fail end in a label, 'then you are a guesswork advertiser', and 'the Dark Ages of Advertising' casts the reader as behind, despite the free visit offered.

Puts the problem on the reader