Before we begin this week, let’s drop back and consider the four characteristics of media writing (you remember those, don’t you): accuracy, completeness, efficiency and precision. Aren’t we talking about a different set of characteristics when we talk about writing advertising copy?

Not really.

Yes, advertising attempts to be persuasive, but that in no way relieves the writer of the burden of accuracy. Appeals should be based on accurate information. In fact, the most persuasive appeals are those backed up by solid, ACCURATE information.

Information presented in advertising -- whether it is about your product or about a competitor’s product -- must be accurate. If it isn’t, your advertisement will lose credibility, and you and the advertiser may land in legal trouble.

But, you might argue, political ads often present inaccurate or distorted information, particuarly when they are about an opponent.

You’re correct. And even more disturbingly, sometimes these distorted, inaccurate ads seem to be effective. People seem to be persuaded by them.

Does this negate the need for accurate information in advertising? Not really. First, there is the credibility question. You want someone to believe your second advertisement, not just your first. If someone lies to you once, are you going to believe them the second time? The problem with political ads is that often, we consumers don’t get a second chance. But in the world of commercial advertising, a client who thinks long-term about a business or organization will not want to be tagged as lacking credibility.

More importantly, I think, is your own sense of right and wrong. Do you want to lie to people? Isn’t there something wrong with that? Most of us would say that there is. We do not want to have the reputation for telling untruths.

So, a well developed sense of integrity is probably the most important trait we can carry into this business.

We may have strayed off point a bit, but it was probably worth it. Let’s get back to the subject at hand.

Writing advertising copy

Remember the following concepts when you are writing advertising copy:

• key facts, advertising problem, advertising objective
Your advertising needs to be directed toward solving a specific advertising problem. That problem is the one identified by research on the product, market or audience.

• deciding on target audience, medium
Your advertising should be directed at specific demographic groups. It should use the most effective and efficient medium to get to that audience.

• product characteristics, benefits and appeals
Advertising should make a specific appeal and offer some identifiable benefit to the audience to whom it is directed.

Advertising terms

If your are going to write advertising copy, there are certain terms you should know and use:

Recall -- being able to remember a product

Reach -- the number of unduplicated households or people an advertising campaign gets to

Positioning -- fashioning advertising so that the product appeals to a certain segment of the market

Frequency -- the average number of times a person in reached by an ad during a campaign

Continuity -- the consistency of ads in a campaign; continuity is said to be either constant or pulsating. Some products can be advertised all year long or in any season; others are seasonal, such as cold medicine or gardening equipment. In a different situation, political ads are usually pulsating, more of them coming at the end of a political campaign than at the beginning.

Benefits and appeals

As a writer, you should try to make a direct connection between a specific product characteristic, the benefit it offers to the consumer, and the appeal you make in your advertising.

Your supplement on page I-27 shows how this works.

Slogans

One of the staples of advertising writing is the slogan. Most advertising has a slogan of some kind -- a few words that (if it works) leave a general impression about a product or company. What slogans can you recall? What is it that makes you remember them? For one thing, we remember slogans because they are easy to repeat and because companies spend a lot of money repeating them.

But some slogans work better than others. The best slogans:

• use short, clear, easily understood words;

• have an unambiguous message -- or a message that would be difficult to turn against a company or product;

Here’s an example: With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.

While this is a memorable slogan, it might be interpreted in a number of ways -- some of which do not reflect well on the company. For instance, does it mean that Smuckers is such a bad name that any product that carries that name “has to be good”? And what does “has to be good” mean?

• are appropriate to the product.

Summary of principles

The principles of advertising copy writing can be summarized fairly succintly:

• get the attention of the reader or listener

• arouse curiosity (legitmately)

• emphasize the benefit

• write understandably and clearly

• consider the verbs (strong, active verbs rather than passive verbs)

News quiz questions

Many of the answers to many of the news quiz questions for lecture on Monday can be found at Dateline Alabama, the news site of the College of Communication and Information Sciences.

---

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any imporvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.