Crafting the High-Value Advertisement
An advertisement without news or a specific call to action is simply an expensive ego trip for the owner. According to the standards of David Ogilvy, an ad must perform three functions: it must provide news, offer a benefit, and establish superiority. If you aren’t doing these, you are just “mucking around” with your capital.
Today, you will write the copy that defines your market position and demands attention. You want every ad to be a high-performance machine.
Step 1: Fabricate “News”
If you don’t have news, why are you advertising? “Untuckit” shirts are news because they are designed from scratch to be worn untucked. American Family Insurance created news by promising to rebuild homes regardless of inflation costs.
If your business doesn’t have news, find it. What is happening now—inflation, a new law, a technological shift—that makes your offer relevant today?
Step 2: Stake a “Superiority” Claim
Differentiate yourself from “commodity” providers by being in a category of one. Look at Rhino Shield. They don’t sell “house paint”; they sell a “porcelain coating” that lasts forever.
They back it with a transferable warranty—a key detail that establishes superiority over any local painter. They move out of the “painting” category and into the “permanent protection” category. What is your Rhino Shield angle?
Step 3: Audit the “Small Stuff” (The Sweatbox Method)
In the TV infomercial business, eight people will sit in a small, smelly editing “sweatbox” for hours, debating over three words or 12 seconds of footage. They are sweating milliseconds because they know those tiny details determine the ROI.
Your advertising is no different. Every word must earn its place. If a word doesn’t add to the seduction or the sale, cut it ruthlessly. Success is built on incremental, small improvements.
Step 4: Define the “Dog Whistles”
Use language and imagery to attract your ideal client and repel the “wrong” ones. If you want to be seen as a high-value professional, stop wearing “logo polo shirts”—that’s the uniform of a fast-food worker.
If you want to attract affluent clients, your ad should “sound” affluent. Use specific language that acts as a dog whistle to your tribe while making the “low-value” prospects feel out of place.
Step 5: The “Adulting” Critique: Avoid Implicit CTAs
Facebook recently ran ads for “Adulting” groups featuring a depressed 20-year-old girl and a guy with butterfly tattoos telling her “It’s okay to be lost.” The ad is “creative,” but it has no call to action. It implies you should join, but it doesn’t tell you to join now to get a specific benefit.
People only do what they are specifically, emphatically told to do. Don’t leave it to the prospect to connect the dots. Tell them exactly what to do and what they will get for doing it.
The sale is just the beginning. Tomorrow, we turn buyers into lifetime evangelists and build real equity.
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