THIRD EDITION fc VARY Tt HU THe 2 oan GEORGE FELTONFor Karen, who never says, “That's nice, dear.” Copyright © 2013, 2006, 1994 by George Fi ‘The first edition of this book was viously published by Pearson Education, Ines, formerly known as Prentice-Hall, All rights reserved Printed in China For information about permission to reprodu Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, tne. selections from this book; write 10 00 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 For information about special discounts For bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton ‘Special Sales at specialsales@oewnorton.com ot 800-233-4830, Book design and composition by Gilda Hannah Manulaccuring by Four Colour Print Group Production manager: Leann Graham Lifsraty of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Felton, George, 1947 ‘Advertising : concept and copy / Georue Felton —Thied edition, pages etn Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-393-73386.0 (pbk) 1 Advertising. I. Tide. HIFS823,F43 2013 689,1—de23, 2013008882 |W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. S00 Fifth Avenue, New York N.Y. 10110 wanswvenorton.com W, W, Norton & Company Lid, Ca House, 75776 Wells Street, London WIT 307 1234567890Preface 5 part one: STRATEGY 7 1 + Creating an Advertising Strategy 8 2 + Researching Your Client’s Product 13 3 + Understanding Consumer Behavior 22 4. + Analyzing the Marketplace 32 5 = Defining Strategic Approaches 45 6 + Developing the Creative Brief 59 part Two: EXECUTION 67 7+ Telling Stories 68 8 + Thinking in Words and Pictures 81 9) + Words |: Establishing Voice 93 10 + Words Il: Writing Well 114 11 + Interactive Advertising and Social Media 129 12 + Television and Video 149 13 + Radio 161 14 + Other Media and Genres 167 part THREE: THE TOOLBOX 185 15 + How to Be Creative 186 16 + How toWrite a Headline 195 17 + How to Create Slogans, Theme Lines, and Names 219 18 + The Power of Fact 232 19 + Testimonials: The Power of Personality 241 20 + Two-fers: Comparisons, Before and After, and Other Dualities 247 21 + Reversal 254 22 + Visual Metaphor 2641 = Creating an Advertising Strategy ‘Todo wel what should not be done is fo do badly, wt. Youll rush for a selling 3 media. solution or for headlines: themselves making sure they work: And singe great advertising does require a twist (you cant just put clich6d i 1 clichéd places), its tempting to play with language and imagery right away, trying to-ereate some “pop,” usually with pans, double ent. But chew ing beside the point, Until you di he real reasons that people buy this or tat good or service, or iden= tify with this brand instead of that brand, you create ads for ne on ness Is useless if youre say work, the legwork, digging aru ting up to speed on the produc to know enough even to begin pla nd, workin ig with idea al spin if your heads spim single lane if you're seeing. ‘The wal problems of drinking and di where. Why; in the fice of repeated ws nipresent advertising against it, do many young peopke still drink and drive? The answer ist something vou swith sitting around 0 get out thet thinkin Most doni-drinksaniddeive achertising, sensibly —Twcooore Levitt ‘enough, stresses the risk of death on the highway (tig. 1.1), But suppose, in your research, you discover its far more likely people will ase their licenses: the their lives by drinking and driving. Suppose you also tiotion inte adulthood—and they can feel the ‘of peer pressure. Knowing all thi make a different argument (fig. 1.2), Strategy versus execution Ads and ad campaigns really have Wi) parts: what souite saying and how yout saving it, The “what” is your straey—the plan of argument. The “how is the execution the particular fort it takes the images ast melis that you use, (Employing the b me advertisers split these 160 into seotegy and tactics) Looking at the adls opposite, one git say thst ‘cause you may’ die. The strategy a the second drink and drive because you may lie, Obviously fiundamerially different. propositions, diller and each proposition could have been difler. cenilyexpressed, given a different “how” aswell People respond to both the underlying idea and itsexpression. Rotice that heads in figures 1-3 and 14. ,shich look se dllleren trom the firse co, rally: aren', They express the same two ideas, but in new terms, They're different exeettions of the same evo sires ‘When creating ads and al campaigns, be smart at both strategy andl execution. Often itt easy to admireIfthe thought oflosin rm peg oe eh m aang ae3, Asan ath the ist und don't ink ard Cppest I die ferent execution, These 1.4, These two nonrational ad speak to thei audience, not tes ire placed in significant places in a high aout dying but about ving with a drunk diving inedent. i the npaled on a handral JEF sli under 9 bar stunt, pattons were handed an aut ageously high il up acer, ith copy blocks detaling how they ha! died 573,000), which, as they gasped and looked more closely, detailed the medical expenses fora dunk diving accident. The second ad a kind of grim theater understands the socil stigma of a drunk driving conviction As par ofthe British goverment’ road-safety amaign THINK, this drunk-ving offender had to stand under a at Paldington Station in Londen, 1 drunk diving ac © ‘owatch the $73,000 bar tab video, oot fig, W-AA 10 + StrategyThe $73,000 Bar Tab Creating an Advertising Strategy + 11the clever “creative” on an ads surface, for example, the well-crafted, parallel headline on the kids-in-the- backseat ad, their wonderfully worried looks, Mom's invitation, the point of view of the camera—all of i ‘andl think that those make the ad great. Bur what also makes that ad great isthe idea behind it What if you live? “Advertising based on a souncl strategy but executed. poorly is as dull as another snowy day in Janary. Advertising. executed brilliantly but based on weak stratery may be entertaining—but it wont work. Sa sou have 10 do the whole jo not just hull. Strong strategy: And strong exe Rov ANDEssON, executive vice president, Bozell & Jacobs How to create strategy ‘To develop a strong stratezy, you need three things: the proxtuct, the consumer, and the mat= etplice, 1. The product. What are you selling, really? This can be something more andl different than it might at first appear, lr certainly someting about which you ‘need to know more than you do right now. 2. The consumer. Who are you selling to, exactly? Have you located those people whorare your best market? How well do vou know them? The key 10, selling products is understanding peoples relation ‘what they want from them, What 12 + Strategy needs and motives does your product address? What problems des it sob? 3. The marketplace. How do your brand, its products, and its advertising fit into the array around them? No sale occurs in a vacuums; there are probe bly other products and brands like yours, ane your category hay been advertised to consumers before They've seen it all and used itll. How will your beard stand out in the marketpkace? Why should consumers ‘choose it instead of a competing brand? ‘Those are all interesting questions—and all related: ‘you cant locate your target market until you knoe whit you're selling exactly, but you cant know what cexoctly you ought 10 promise until you locate a target ‘market and decipher its needs, Nor can you create an effective strategy until you analyze the marketplace positions your client's competitors occupy and. suc- cesslly differentiate your clients product and brand from thei Sorting through all this isn't easy; ancl each adkver- tising situation will prove different from the one be fore it, 100, s0 your job never reduces to a formula. Your goal is to understand the parts of the advertising ‘scenario so well that you see how they ft together— to know enough to create advertising that works, dhat talks to eal people about real needs, You'd like towns vince a teen-ager, perhaps for the fies time, that “Dont {drink and drive” isn't simply someone else slopa what he or she truly believes—because of the adv ing you created,I thith, advertising starts with con 2 - Researching Your Client's Produc ‘One thing | ty to do Is know everything that Is possibfe to Know. “about a brand when { work on it When you dig deep into a brand, really doa big archaeology on it, you find out why itwas created in the fst place, why they named i what they did, what the dreams ‘ofthe founders were. why it comes in the kinds of packages it does, why the logo looks the way it does-you find truths and values that have probably gotten buried under creative trends throug the years. So IH! do things tke go back and look at old adverts- Ing they did decades ago, before bullshit cept into our business. ‘This helps you discover the truth, and when you can build creative \Work around some kind of truth, I's much more powerful, and substantia, Sere Wass, creative director, Amster Yard Write about he product In the greatest, soundest, most creative ‘advertising the theater evolves around the product. Ak yourself ‘what makes the product ick. How does i fit inio people's Ives? How does the competion fail or disappoint? What's its personal ity in the marketplace? Advertsing that is really about the prod- ucts almost atways seltinduigent crap, Garr Ferewan, founder, Gt Freeman 8 Partners part a fi clfort did they fine th aly in place... "' Anal they want, but in practice, advertist lients, who have a product—a good or service ‘which they'd like help. You are called in intially to do ‘something for a clients proxluct ‘Steep yourself in information Become an expert in your client’ produ ‘e200: Get overinformed. Fonce knew a student who {wanted o sell Aloe & Lanolin soap to her classmates ‘asa course project, bu it never occurred wo her to find ‘out what aloe and lanolin were, exactly, and what they were doing together in a bar of soap, As you might ‘pues, ber success limited. Let this be your mod instead. Before creating ‘their legendary ad campaign for the original Volkswa igen Beetle, the creative team at Dayle Dane Bernbach first headed for the manufacturing plant in Wolfsbur ‘West Germany, to do their homework. Says Willan Bembach: “We spent days talking 10 enginoers, pro duction men, executives, workers on the assembly line. We marched side by’ sce with the molten metal that hardened into the engine, and kept il every selling proposition, the VW. ‘asan “honest” car—simple, functional, ancl incredibly ‘well made. Whenever you see reprints of these clase sic VW ads, study them, not only because the ads are great, but because each ad shows so clearly the home: work requited to think it up. Read enough VW ads and {wo things will happen: (1) youtl learn a fot about the ‘cars, and (2) youl want one. Sufficient testimony to the power of that campaign, (See fig. 2.1.) ‘How to fearn about your client's product 1. If possible, use it: wear it, eat drink it, bathe with it. Try its competi Nothing replaces first-hand experience. 2, Recome its student, Learn what's in it, how it's made, who makes i, how it works, what its history is, all those things, Read the brankls website, Google the bran check out its presence in social ‘media; gather brochures, anual reports, and other collateral 3. I there are local dealers, ask them about ‘your elient’s brane and its competition. How (0 B