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

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.

The big idea

There is no rule-of-thumb percentage: the right advertising budget comes only from the facts of one business, just as a diet needs a patient whose condition is known.

The offer

Go into the budget question with J. Walter Thompson at any of its offices: New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit or Cincinnati. Preceding articles in the series sent on request.

The proof

A quoted letter from "a progressive advertiser," a client's line "At last my advertising is on a businesslike basis," and the claim the method was shown "in many kinds of cases."

Lines from the ad

"How much shall we spend for advertising?"

Introducing the great American purchasing agent.

"At last my advertising is on a businesslike basis."

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.

The emotion

Written to Confusion. It makes the Say move.

Instead of the percentage the reader asks for, it gives a method: five plain diagnostic questions any advertiser can apply to their own business, framed by the doctor who will not prescribe a diet unseen.