Know Your Shoppers (Collection)

Chapter Twelve. Marketing for real people

Tell me what it is, why I’d want one, and how to get it. That’s all I give a damn about. If you can do that in a humorous, dramatic, or otherwise attention-grabbing way then, fine, knock yourself out. Please don’t talk to me in Latin, use obtuse images, or hit me with stuff that goes way over my head because I just don’t care enough about you or your product to bother trying to understand your clever rubbish.

In that one paragraph, you have all the rules of advertising you will ever need. Be clear, tell people what the benefit to them is, and then make it very easy for them to buy from you. Ad agencies argue that advertising is about building brands too. There is truth in this but, frankly, brand is built ...