Unsupported opinions often kill
what could have been effective advertising

“Nobody reads all that copy,” is one of the dumbest, most persistent myths in advertising. Unfortunately, that comment often spews from someone with no clue about what makes advertising effective…someone who has never studied advertising…someone who has no idea of the many ways to measure advertising effectiveness. Yet, too often, that someone is the guy who can kill or emasculate an ad… an ad that would have worked if it weren’t a victim of his unfounded opinion.

Even when you point out that “everybody” is not the target and that many who are interested will indeed read “all that copy,” this person can’t seem to grasp the idea that grabbing the “right reader” is what you must do. You are not just trying to goose everybody to get noticed. You are trying to sell stuff.

The argument of long versus short copy has been going on for years. No doubt it will continue for many more. There’s no right or wrong answer. But if you put the right message in the hands of the right audience, at the right time, and make it interesting, they will read your copy.

But why argue? If you want to know what works best in a particular situation, test. Don’t just keep running the same stuff based on someone’s opinion. Regardless of your type of business, study the techniques of direct marketers. They know what works because they test, fine tune and test again.

Direct marketers’ appeals are based on certain fundamentals, on the use of existing concepts of effective communications, not on the opinions of someone without the qualifications to know what is most likely to work.

Many moons ago, when I entered the ad business, I sold advertising space for a daily newspaper, did layouts and wrote copy. I produced my share of terrible, cornball ads…ads I was sure would work. Alas, they were based on my opinion, not the knowledge of experienced admen.

The manager of our display ad department was a patient mentor. He hacked my hubris to pieces without leaving any ax marks. Patiently he showed me how little I knew as he taught me what I should know. He never used the word stupid. But I soon learned how stupid some of my opinions were before I did too much damage.

There is so much good information available to advertisers that there is no excuse for some of the terrible stuff that’s printed. Yes, audience’s change. Reading habits change. Hell, the ad business like every other business changes. But the basic concepts of what motivates readers are based on the same old basic psychological principles. Don’t try to mess with them. You’ll just be spinning your wheels.

My favorite column in Direct Magazine is The Makeover Maven, by Tom L. Collins. Usually, his makeovers are not as pretty as the original ad he critiques. But they make so much more sense; it’s hard to believe those who produced the original could have violated so many principles of effective advertising.

As you can imagine, his makeovers generate a lot of unhappy response from the guilty parties. Often they try to rationalize their irrational approach and why they ignored applying the basics of good advertising.

But never mind the irate responses. If they want to find out who is right, do a split test. I’ll put my money on Tom’s makeovers.

To tap the vast resources of Direct Magazine, and Tom’s wisdom, visit: http://www.directmag.com/.

JR