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

It uses a dramatic, specific story ('shot from guns') to turn a mundane commodity (cereal) into a scientific marvel. By explaining the unique manufacturing process, it establishes a reason-why for the product's superior digestibility and texture.

The big idea

Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice are grains shot from guns: steam explodes every starch granule, making them the most digestible food ever made from grain.

The offer

Puffed Wheat at 10c and Puffed Rice at 15c, except in the extreme West, served with berries at breakfast or in milk at night. Order from your grocer now.

The proof

The process in exact figures: grains sealed in guns, revolved sixty minutes at 550 degrees, puffed to eight times former size; a named inventor, Prof. A. P. Anderson; four people in five choosing them.

Lines from the ad

Prof. Anderson's Scientific Foods

Foods Shot from Guns

Instantly every starch granule is blasted into a myriad particles.

Steal this when

You have a new product with an unusual or proprietary manufacturing process that provides a direct benefit to the consumer.

The emotion

Written to Curiosity. It makes the Say move.

'Foods Shot from Guns' opens a precise gap, and the copy closes it with the process in figures: grains sealed in guns, revolved sixty minutes at 550 degrees, puffed to eight times their size.