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

One oversized punctuation mark serves as both illustration and grammar, which is how the sheet holds a full composition with no drawing budget. The interrogative form makes the reader run a check on themselves rather than receive an order, and an unresolved answer is the tension the poster is built to create. Sequencing matters: the remedy word appears before the disease word, so the last thing read is the threat and the thing already in mind is the fix.

The big idea

A question every parent must answer, set across a giant red question mark, followed at once by the fix: vaccination prevents smallpox.

The offer

Have your child vaccinated against smallpox, by implication. No clinic, date or cost is named.

The proof

Only the issuing authority at the foot: Chicago Department of Health.

Lines from the ad

IS YOUR CHILD VACCINATED

Vaccination PREVENTS SMALLPOX

CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

Steal this when

Copy this when the barrier is inattention rather than objection, and you want the reader to audit themselves. Also copy the device of building the whole layout from a single piece of oversized punctuation when illustration is out of reach.

The emotion

Written to Guilt. It makes the Say move.

The giant red question mark makes each parent check a possible lapse, IS YOUR CHILD VACCINATED, and the repair follows at once: Vaccination PREVENTS SMALLPOX.