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

Photographs rather than drawings are the whole argument here. The headline poses a where question and the four documentary crowd shots answer it before a word of body copy is read, which makes the claim feel reported rather than asserted. Naming the places, stuffy cars, stores, theatres, converts an invisible risk into a list the reader can check against their own week. The copy then concedes that nature usually wins, and only introduces risk at the moment one's health is even a trifle below par, which gives the reader an honest-sounding reason to buy that is not pure alarm. The layout uses the brand's own logotype as the page frame, so the name is read as architecture rather than as a signature, and it is unmissable at any distance.

The big idea

Sore throats come from the crowded places a city dweller enters every day, streetcars, stores, theatres, shown in four real crowd photographs, so a germ-killing tablet becomes a daily duty.

The offer

Formamint tablets, sold at all druggists. A generous free sample tube mailed on receipt of a 2 cent stamp for postage: "Write for it today."

The proof

Over 10,000 doctors said to endorse Formamint; testimonials from Dr. Wm. Lee Howard, "the well-known medical author," and Jack London; four credited news photographs.

Lines from the ad

Where sore throats come from-

Over 10,000 doctors have endorsed Formamint both as a means of checking sore throats and of preventing the entrance of infectious disease.

THE GERM-KILLING THROAT TABLET

Steal this when

Reach for this when your prospect knows the problem but not its source, and you can photograph the source. Ask where in the headline, answer it in documentary images, then name the specific everyday locations so the reader self-diagnoses.

The emotion

Written to Anxiety. It makes the Say move.

Four crowd photographs and the named streetcars, stores and theatres make an invisible risk visible, and the copy concedes nature usually wins before offering a free sample tube for a 2 cent stamp.