Advertising’s most persuasive word
May 21, 2018
By Jerry Bellune
Gerald Woodgate works with UK ad wizard Drayton Bird. He sent us this timely reminder note the other day:
Why do advertisers make it hard? “Free” is one of our most powerful words.
Why do they avoid it, forget it or try to get cute and come up with something like “$0”? Because they want to be different and think “free” is overdone. The day people don’t respond to “free,” pigs will fly.
As the great adman Leo Burnett said, “If you want to be different for the sake of being different you can always come down in the morning with a sock in your mouth”.
I’ll wager the “zero dollars” crowd spends bucket-loads of bucks on these ads.
Gerald says he bets they thought $0 would make them different. And they never tested whether it would beat “free.”
Big fat companies and big fat ad agencies are neither logical or sensible. Far too often they get carried away with being clever, losing sight of what their ads are supposed to do: Grab the right prospect’s attention … persuade with benefits … and sell.
We’re not anti-ad agency. Most of them do great work for their clients. But a few become big, fat and do stupid stuff because they aren’t spending their own money.
Are you spending your own money – or responsibly investing someone else’s?
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Copyright 2018, The Bellune Co., Inc.
