Ad Copy Mistakes Even The Big Names Make

Writing effective ad copy is an art, but…
It takes time and effort to learn what to convey in a sentence. Many copywriters are under the wrong impression that one well crafted ad can change the world.
King of the Jingle
Lots of bravado and chest pounding is done from a few copywriters who claim to be able to write a line and magically make big things happen.
That’s laughable.
Think about it.
Over the last 75 years there have been a few soft drink companies and fast food chains who advertised almost to the point of saturation.
Why?
Because that’s the way effective advertising is done.
Those companies with the largest advertising budgets in the history of the world DID NOT hire one copywriter to write one ad and wait for it to change the world.
No way.
They used the art and precision combination of effective advertising.
They used good, basic ad copy to tell their story in a thousand different ways.
None of it had to be great or masterpieces, just decent.
So many loud, proud copywriters rally around their own egos.
Sure, there are some good copywriters in the world, but if they were that good wouldn’t the largest ad campaigns in history have employed them to just get the job done in one ad and be done with it?
Of course.
Show Me The Money
But it does not work like that despite the claims of a few highly paid ad men and women who
do write good copy
but don’t make magic.
There seems to be a braggers club among ad copywriters.
They seem to enjoy inventing tall tales of how they accomplished this or that with some special line of copy, some precise wording.
Some headline that drew in hordes of people like a wind tunnel sucking an entire village into it’s force field.
Be careful of those folks. They honestly get deluded by their own stories.
Keep It Simple Stu…
Again, good copy is basic and tells the story of benefits about a product or service. That’s usually all that is needed.
Where’s the Beef?
The magic is in the coverage and distribution of that story. Getting the message out enough to make a difference and create word of mouth advertising and trust among potential customers.
So the formula for an ad campaign that works is as follows.
One-Good copy that tells the complete story of a product or service.
Two- wide spread distribution of that message using the forms of media that best serve the potential audience.
Repeat without stopping year after year.
The largest, most successful ad campaigns in history have used this method with great success.