A good advertisement copy basically solves the following two problems perfectly:

First: “let the consumer see.”The second is “effective communication”.

If an AD copy is made and consumers don’t read it, then the rest is bullshit.It’s like you put your heart and soul into a table of north-south harmony, mixing and matching of the rich dishes, but people do not move chopsticks, so even if the god of food is also helpless.Therefore, we need to use a variety of bizarre, bright, stunning, amazing ideas to attract consumers’ eyes, so that Consumers can’t help but look at it.Or we use multi-channel, high-frequency advertising blitz to reach consumers and force them to watch.

After all, we are advertising copywriters, not successors of Wang Jiawei and Chen Kaige.We can’t take party a’s money and dream of becoming Mo yan who is the Nobel Prize winner.So copywriters must use words or pictures to better convey the advertising appeal, so that consumers like our products, buy our products, and even like crazy little fans chasing stars, to queue up all night to fight for our brand products.In terms of specific methods, with the development of advertising and marketing, there are different answers, such as art school, science school, positioning school, conflict school, super symbol school and so on.

People often say “GangJuMuZhang”, the above two problems are “Gang”.Only we deeply understand the issue of the “Gang” ,we can do “Mu Zhang”.

Trojan Horse

How to solve these two problems at the same time?’ogilvy & mather’s creative point of view’ offers a good solution.A good AD copy is like a Trojan horse.Those creative ideas are a Trojan horse, and it is an external disguise to evade consumers’ vigilance of advertising, so that consumers can see it.The real business intention, such as promoting the brand and increasing sales, is soldiers hidden in the Trojan horse, which is’ effective communication ‘.

Copywriters use a similar trick to break into the minds of consumers and get them to accept our advertising messages.So according to this logic, a good idea must be either a good carpenter, adze chisel saw that can produce a beautiful wooden horse, or a good fighter that can amass other areas and gain ground.

Good copywriting is not like advertising

Therefore, if it is a perfect copy, consumers may not see the advertisement at all, but accept the appeal conveyed by the copy.

For example, most Chinese people know the yellow crane tower in Wuhan, the Tengwang pavilion in Nanchang, and the Yueyang tower in Hunan. How do we know them?Most of them are ancient poems or texts that almost spit blood by heart, such as “the story of yueyang tower”, “preface to the pavilion of king teng”, “yellow crane tower”.It is because these ancient bigwigs is famous from generation to generation.These famous scenic spots will be the crowded explosion,when it comes a long holiday now.

If you think about it from the perspective of marketing, these articles of literary bigwigs in those days are actually one advertisement copy after another. Moreover, those bigwigs have been dead for hundreds of years, and the dynasties have changed several times. They are still effectively promoting these famous buildings, bringing a large amount of income to the local tourism economy.And that’s what advertising is all about in dreams — consumers don’t think you’re copywriting, but they accept the message.It is also a perfect advertising Trojan.The disguise is perfect enough to fool the reader’s vigilance;The soldiers in hiding are also strong enough to fight and communicate the product message forcefully.

Due to the changes in the communication environment, more and more advertisers begin to pay attention to the similar soft product placement advertisements, such as the product placement advertisements of various movies and TV series, which is to implant products disguised as props in the normal plot trend.For example, nowadays, many kinds of mouth show in variety shows do not separate the audience from the entertainment process, but even make it into a joke point.It’s like the successful placement of Xiaodu of Baidu in ‘life longing 3,’ or ma dong’s hilarious mouthing in ‘weird talk.’But now the common information flow advertisement copy, also has many USES this strategy.These copywriters are like a chameleon, constantly changing into red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple as the platform content environment changes.

For example,advertising on zhihu is often disguised as a seemingly profound question.Advertising on WeChat is disguised as a decent article.Put an AD on microblog is often be written to funny jokes.

Why do brainwashing ideas exist?

Depending on the reality, there are some variations on the creative side, such as the controversial brainwashing ads.If we compare an advertising campaign to a siege battle, an advertisement with beautiful and creative ideas is a battle of wits. Advertising talents use unlimited brain power to build a perfect Trojan horse and secretly send product information into consumers’ minds.This is called “Shang Bing Fa Mou”.

However, in reality, creating a perfect idea takes time, effort and brain cells. What’s worse, sometimes even though a lot of ideas are put into the market, a splash may not come out.After all, creativity also pays attention to the right place at the right time.If you happen to encounter a celebrity breaking up, cheating, or getting married during the release of your idea, then it doesn’t matter how amazing your idea is, it’s a waste of time.

But we need to know that behind every AD, there is money, and behind the money is a company that is eager to bring real sales growth.If you lose money all the time, the company goes out of business, the employees go hungry, the boss owes money…As a result, some aggressive marketers begin to bypass so many twists and turns, weaken the role of creativity, and embark on another manly “siege” route. Any idea, imagination, story telling or Trojan horse scheme is bullshit.Pull laotse’s Italian cannons over here and blow the gate open!

Therefore, these fierce people generally carry a simple and direct advertising word copy, pointing to the product interest point, plus a single way of expression, with a large amount of money, with a high frequency of broadcast, coupled with a high density of brainwashing, to large-scale bombing the city of consumers’ minds.In this fierce attack mode, product information can also enter the minds of consumers, but the process may not be so pleasant and pleasant, and may cause aversion of the audience.But in the eyes of these savants, such revulsion is a necessary price to pay for a rapid advance.

Obviously, in order to directly convey the interest point, this kind of creativity ad has sacrificed the “hidden role of creativity” to make up for this defect by means of “coercion”.

Creative content

The creative line opposite to brainwashing advertisement is the content of advertisement.This kind of advertisement is novel, make excellent, with moving copy,which is the best that male friend old and young watches, the originality that circle inside circle outside all be pleased to see.Some of them are masterpieces, such as “what’s page”, which hit the big time earlier this year, or “three minutes” and “a barrel”, which were shot by famous directors such as Chen Kexin and Jia Zhangke.These AD ideas have exploded on social networks with hard-core content, thanks to their stories and techniques that surpass those of some theatrical films.Once triggered, consumers will not passively accept advertising information, but take the initiative to appreciate an advertisement, and some people will even go to douban for rating.

But what seems to be the highest form of advertising — “Here is a ad which is unlike advertising” — is getting some criticism in fact .One of the most typical jokes is that “after watching the ads, I just don’t know what to sell….”If we still use the analogy of the wooden horse, this wooden horse is very big and beautiful, but the soldiers hidden inside the wooden horse seems not too many.But this is also wrong, because the main appeal of content advertising is not to “broadcast” its own product information, but to “attract” consumers to communicate with them, and the story itself is a communication.

The key is what we think of consumers as.

Whether brainwashing or content advertising, their ultimate goal is the same that is to fix the advertising message in the consumer’s mind.And their differences are the two key issues mentioned above: “how to let consumers see” and “how to effectively convey the advertising message.”

So which of these two types of advertising does better?Kotler may be able to tell you.

Kotler has a few key tips for defining marketing 1.0.In the 1.0 era a few decades ago, the goal of enterprise was to “sell the product”;The value proposition is “product functionality” and the way to look at consumers is “mass consumers with physiological needs”.Following these tips, we will find that these are just a few prominent features of brainwashing advertising.

Kotler’s definition of marketing 3.0 also has several key tips.Companies, such as apple and Facebook, aim to “make the world a better place”.The value proposition is “functional, emotional and spiritual”, and the way to view consumers is “complete individuals with independent thoughts, hearts and spirits”.Following these tips, we will find that these are prominent features of creative content advertising.The key, of course, is the last one, “the way you look at the consumer” : whether you think of the consumer as a general consumer with a biological need or as an individual with an independent mind.

The understanding of this issue will directly affect the direction of your creativity and the depth of your insight.It is an inevitable trend of advertising copywriting to respect the high probability of individual consumers.

Finally, Domatters digital marketing China summarizes for you the internal logic of a qualified copywriter:

First, it needs to be a “Trojan horse”, with a beautiful idea, to ensure the smooth communication of the appeal.So in this context, the best idea is not like an advertisement, or at least not so much like an advertisement.

Second, brainwashing advertising is an aggressive way to enter the minds of consumers.Content creative advertising is a softer way to influence consumers.

In the end, the core difference between the two approaches is how you view your customers.And respect the independent consumer is an inevitable trend.

Hope this article is helpful for you or your friends to do business in China.For assistance in digital marketing China, please feel free to contact Domatters.