Dramatic Sales Writing

Political advertising is a special case.

2006 is an election year, so it's predictable
that by Fall we're going to see a lot of
paid political advertising, and a fair amount
of it will be negative.

It's also predictable that we'll see a lot of
moaning and groaning and mud-slinging and how
voters don't like negative advertising etc
yada yada yada . . .

Yet it still goes on.

Again, I personally prefer a somewhat rational
approach. As long as it's factual, I like the
kind of ads that say things like, "My opponent
voted for Bill #444 that would have
outlawed Mom, cherry pie and the Fourth of July.
You can't get more unAmerican than that."

Of course, you run the risk of educating voters
who're on the other side. If you run an ad
attacking Senator JoeBob for voting for a
pro-abortion bill, you run the risk of him
getting more votes from pro-abortionistss
than of you getting votes from anti-abortionists.

However, the 3 most famous political TV ads are:

1. The little girl counting down to a nuclear
explosion. Run one time by LBJ against Barry
Goldwater in 1964.

2. The bear in the woods ad run by Ronald Reagan
in 1984.

3. The Willie Horton ad run by George Bush Sr
against Michael Dukakis in 1988.

These ads did attack their opponents in a
very emotional rather than factual tone. Only
the Willie Horton ad had any facts in it (Willie
Horton did commit those crimes).

Unlike commercial ad campaigns, we are final
to at least some of the final results: We know
the final vote tally.

In all 3 of the above cases, the candidates
running the ads won the elections -- two of them
in major landslides.

But what we can't really measure is how much
the ads contributed to this result. It's quite
likely that all 3 candidates would have won
anyway. Maybe with even more vote totals.
Maybe with less. Who knows?

Nor can we trust whatever people say about the
effective of negative ads.

The first two above were brilliantly executed
to appeal to people's buried fears. It's quite
likely that many voters had the classic
buying response.

They decided to vote for LBJ and Ronald Reagan
based on the emotional appeals.

They then found "rational" reasons to justify
their emotional decision.


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There's also another kind of advertising
which knocks on competitors, but in a way
that may work.

It's negative in a logical sense, but not
an emotional one.

That's using a sort of humor to refer to
competitors.

For example, 7-Up's long ago "UnCola"
campaign. Or Taco Bell's "Think beyond
the bun."

These are playing on the undeniable popularity --
actually, dominance -- of their competition.

And I think this type of angle would not
be good for any product unless it's in a
similar position of trying to compete
against a dominating product. So that
it's really pointless to pretend that the
competition doesn't exist and would be
self-defeating to make an emotional appeal
about how bad they are.

Instead you're appealing to people's desire
to do something different. So these campaigns
are not negative in any offensive way.

They can't afford to be. Americans are not
going to stop drinking colas or eating
hamburgers.

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But let's try to think a little bit deeper.

"Negative advertising" is a very broad, undefined
term.

Personally, I like comparative advertising that
lists features of two or more products and
demonstrates that one product is the
best that way.

That is negative in the sense that you're
mentioning and putting down the other
product, but if your list is fair and
accurate and shows your product is the
best, that can be very effective.

However, there's advertising that knocks
competitors with no logic, and that turns
me off.

For example, the sub chain Quizno's used to
run radio commercials comparing their
toasted subs to ordinary subs. They said
it was like putting a group of accountants
up against a bunch of Vikings -- then you
heard the Vikings cutting up the accountants.

Another one had some small animals, maybe
kittens, eaten by a tiger or some other
large animal.

They made the point that they thought their
subs were so much better -- but gave no
logical reason for that. Just a presentation
to arouse our emotions using mock violence.

My reaction is that I associate the Quizno's
sub chain with needless pain and suffering
and killing . . . and choose not to buy
from them.

Of course, that's just my reaction. I may
not be the typical listener. And since I
don't eat sub sandwiches, I'm not in their
target market so they don't have to care
how much they offended me.

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Does negative advertising work?

Some people posted the assertion to a copywriting
board that negative advertising did not
work, and gave SCIENTIFIC ADVERTISING by Claude
Hopkins as their reference.

Someone else, a former TV writer, replied that
negative ad campaigns have worked, and mentioned
some.

I have to sit back and ask -- how does anybody know?

I think that many times people believe an ad
campaign is successful because they can tell
from their own response and from other people
that the ads have raised brand awareness.

That does not mean that the ad campaign increased
sales -- or increased sales enough to more than
pay back the cost of the advertising.

And these things are proprietary information.
Unless you work for the advertiser or for the
agency itself, you cannot know.

I've read marketing articles and books where the
author said that they knew from their industry
contacts that many well-known and well-regarded,
award-winning campaigns were a bust at the
cash register!


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