Step-by-step playbook

The pattern

This still is filed under Step-by-step playbook.

Define

A numbered path through a process that used to feel like a fog.

Mechanism

Sequence as comfort. Numbering implies completeness and lowers the cost of starting. The last step is usually the offer.

Verdict

The buyer is blocked by complexity, not by desire.

Why it works

Four close-up photographs of hands patching a rubber shoe run in reading order around the headline, each with a short caption: clean and roughen, coat with rubber cement twice, place the inner tube patch without moving it, press and clamp until set. The camera stays on the hands and the tools on the bench, sandpaper, scissors and precut patches, so the reader sees the whole kit before starting. MAKE YOUR RUBBER LAST gives the reason, and 'Mend it. COLD PATCH METHOD' names the method in one line.

The big idea

Rubber goods can be made to last by mending them at home with the cold patch method, shown in four photographed steps.

The offer

Asks the reader to mend worn rubber at home with the cold patch method: clean and roughen, cement twice, place the patch, press and hold until set.

The proof

Four photographs of hands carrying out each step on a real rubber shoe.

Lines from the ad

MAKE YOUR RUBBER LAST

Mend it... "COLD PATCH METHOD"

Put the patch on carefully.... do not try to change its position once you have placed it.

Steal this when

When a repair or upkeep task sounds harder than it is and you can photograph each move with the tools in view.