Data as proof

The pattern

This still is filed under Data as proof.

Define

A chart, map, or count that is the argument, not an illustration next to the argument.

Mechanism

Sighted evidence. The reader is asked to believe their eyes: a bar, a share, a spread on a map.

Verdict

The claim is comparative or quantitative and the figure can be read without a caption doing the sell.

Why it works

The headline is a naked before-and-after ratio with a consequence attached, and because both numbers are odd and specific, 73 and 7, they read as a record rather than a boast. Opening on two quotation marks from other industries makes the war economy the subject and delays the client, so the reader is nodding at a movement before he meets a case. The middle section deliberately voices the reader's own objection, the pressure to add sizes and colours, which pre-empts dismissal and sets up the client as the answer to a question the reader just asked himself. The caption carries all the product specifics so the argument stays at the level of policy.

The big idea

Wartime standardization can outlast the war if advertising builds consumer demand for the few products left, as Thermoid proved by cutting 73 products to 7 and trebling sales.

The proof

Thermoid cut its line from 73 products to 7 in three years and trebled its total business; wartime quotes on plows (303 types down to 65) and stoves; a photo of the seven products.

Lines from the ad

Line reduced from 73 products to 7 - volume trebled

Is this necessary?

In the last three years the Thermoid Rubber Company has reduced its line from 73 products to 7 and has trebled its total business.

Steal this when

Use this when your client's result can be stated as one dramatic subtraction with a growth number attached, especially when you are defending a simplification against the internal pressure to complicate. The opening device, quoting two unrelated industries before naming your case, is worth stealing any time you need to establish that a trend exists before claiming credit inside it.