Zazou Marketing

Good writing is getting its due once again. Every year Advertising Age publishes an issue called the “Book of Tens,” in which they create lists of everything from “Ad Songs of the Year” to “Dubious Attempts at Public Relations.”

This year they are planning to add a new category: “the 10 most intriguing, funniest, scariest, most compelling or most surprising magazine cover lines of the year.”

Ad Age’s 2008 “Book of Tens” included a list of “Covers We Loved,” which included this coverline-less Willie Nelson cover. Now a new category will celebrate the power of coverlines.

While coverlines are not written by copywriters, they do require the same skill. In order to write a cover line that sells a magazine, it needs to grab your attention and get you interested enough to pick up the magazine and buy it — usually in just a handful of words.

Yeah for Ad Age for recognizing the power of a few well-written words!

Tell me the truth: Are you more likely to buy a camping chair because it is made of polyester/nylon mesh or because the fabric dries quickly and won’t puddle water when left out in the rain? If you chose the latter, that’s because you are like everybody else in the world — you like to know how a product will benefit you.

Luckily for REI, I got this example from their website, where they did it right: Their description focused on the benefits of the chair (that the material dries quickly), instead of just listing the features of the chair (that the material is polyester/nylon mesh).

REI successfully touts this chair's benefits, not features, on its website

But just because REI succeeds in giving benefits over features, doesn’t mean that all the big companies do so in their marketing materials. In fact, the New York Times just ran a blog posting about how Ford forgot this very important aspect of marketing and copywriting.

The posting is about the company’s new van that gets 22 to 25 miles per gallon, and it’s being marketed as a small-business delivery van. Here’s a portion of the blog:

“When I looked over the marketing sheet for the trucks before they got here, I couldn’t help but notice that Ford’s marketing people don’t really know how to talk to their customers — they don’t speak “entrepreneur.” It was a classic case of selling the features instead of the benefits….

For instance, they say, “The power train was upgraded to include a proven Duratec 2.0 liter dual overhead cam (DOHC) I-4 engine …” What does that mean? But then I drove the truck and noticed the pick up. Me understand. Me go fast. Me want. How many people even know what a power train is? Or a dual overhead cam? Oh, excuse me, a DOHC.”

The posting goes on to cover point by point how the brochure fails to sell this van to its customer.

Luckily for Ford, the writer actually saw the van in person and didn’t have to rely on the marketing materials to discover that it’s a perfect fit for his needs (and then went on to write about that in the New York Times).

But how many of their potential customers are going to have that same opportunity? And how many of their potential customers will have the chance to tell so many people about the vehicle’s benefits?

According to the NY Times, Ford's brochure for this new van fails to tell its potential customer how he or she will benefit from buying this vehicle.

So take this as just another reminder that if you offer a product or service, you need to find out how it benefits your customer — and then tell your customer all about that in your marketing materials.

Some habits are hard to break, and it’s likely that these three will be among them for you. However, in order to make sure that your brochure, website, advertisements and other marketing materials are error-free, keep these rules in mind:

• Do NOT use the ampersand (&) to replace the word “and.” The ampersand should only be used when it’s in a formal name of a company. That means that yes, you do need to take it out of your headline (one of the worst offenders), and you need to take it out of your copy! I know that the rather fun character is cooler and easier to type than three more boring characters are, but that doesn’t change the rule.
• Speaking of formal names, do not use a comma before Inc. or Ltd. And before you publish a company’s name, make sure you are writing it correctly. There are plenty of well-known organizations that we think we know the name of, but we have it slightly wrong. For instance, did you know that it is the Smithsonian Institution, not the Smithsonian Institute?
• When you want to say “also” use “too,” not “to.” I know that you are saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I learned that in grammar school.” But if you pay attention, you’ll be shocked to see how frequently people mess this rule up.

Imagine how powerful a message could be created by some of the worlds’ most creative minds. Specifically, imagine what kind of a message the United Nations, the International Advertising Association and some of the world’s greatest advertising, marketing and media agencies could create…

Well, they have done just that with the launch of Hopenhagen, or hopenhagen.org, “a global marketing and communications initiative that will inspire and generate mass activation around the world,” according to the press release. Yep, we’ve got big names, big ideas and big, lofty goals all converging with this marketing campaign.

What exactly is Hopenhagen? Here’s the opening copy from the website:

“Welcome to Hopenhagen.
On December 7, 2009, leaders from 192 countries will gather at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark to determine the fate of our planet. Let’s turn Copenhagen into Hopenhagen.”

The focus of the climate change conference is to solve our environmental crisis, explains the copy.

And accompanying the marketing campaign copy is a place to add your own thoughts on what gives you hope. The ideas that people have input then run as a scroll on the bottom of the web page.

The focus, then, is clearly hope. And here’s what the press release says about what inspired the idea:

“Hopenhagen stemmed from the idea that the UN Climate Change Conference is an opportunity to protect people and the planet, while powering global green growth. The campaign will emphasize a shift from “coping” or ignoring to “hoping” and ultimately acting to create a new reality.”

What I find most interesting about this marketing campaign is that in today’s world of flash and design-driven advertising and marketing campaigns, it’s primarily copy driven. Even more, it’s effective: the campaign is simple; the copy is creative; and it gets you engaged and thinking.

So, what gives you hope?