How much shall we spend for advertising?
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
It refuses the question the reader came with, which is the whole move. Instead of a percentage it substitutes a method, and the doctor-and-diet analogy makes withholding an answer feel like professional integrity rather than evasion. Running the middle of the ad as five bare diagnostic questions forces the reader to answer them silently about his own business and to discover he cannot, which manufactures the need for the agency without a single boast. The italic caption on the photograph does the selling of the category in one image, showing that everything the reader's customer wears and buys is already advertised, so the real question is not whether but how much. The series device and the offer of preceding articles turn one ad into an ongoing relationship.
Steal this when
Use this when prospects ask you for a benchmark number you honestly cannot give. Replace the number with a method, prove the method by listing the diagnostic questions they cannot answer, and offer to run it with them.