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 question mark is both the picture and the punctuation, so the poster spends a single element on two jobs and needs no second illustration. Asking rather than instructing puts the burden on the reader: a parent cannot walk past without silently answering, and an uncertain answer is the discomfort that drives the action. The typographic hierarchy runs question, then mechanism, then threat word, so the scariest word arrives last and only after the remedy has already been stated, which keeps the poster motivating rather than frightening.

The big idea

The poster asks parents to check one fact about their own child, then answers with the remedy before naming the threat: 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

Use this when the audience is not opposed to the action, only unaware they have skipped it. A direct question with a self-audit built in beats an instruction, and one oversized punctuation mark can carry the whole layout when you have no budget for illustration.

The emotion

Written to Guilt. It makes the Say move.

Asking rather than ordering makes a parent silently answer about their own child, and the remedy, vaccination, is stated before SMALLPOX arrives last, so the lapse is named with its repair already in view.