Writing Persuasive Media Copy

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Writing Persuasive Media Copy

• Developing and writing Commercials, Promotions,
  and Announcements

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Persuasion

• Persuasion is a type of communication that
  interests many people
• advertiser
• political candidates and parties
• public organizations such as public health
  organizations or MADD
• religious organizations

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Spot Lengths

• Generally 30 seconds or 60 seconds
• Estimating time by words
• dime spot -20 to 25 words wall to wall
• 30 second spot -70 to 80 words wall to wall
• split 30 -two 15 second spots
• 60 second -135-145 wall to wall

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Persuasive Spots

• Commercial Spots
• The Public Service Announcement -PSA
• Promo or promotional
• Station ID
• You are listening to
• W-U-A-G, one-oh-three point one, Greensboro.

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Persuasive Strategies
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Audience Analysis

• Demographics
• age, gender, economic level, political
  orientation, occupation, education, ethnicity,
  geographical location

• Psychographics
• lifestyles, interests, attitudes, beliefs

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Audience Analysis

• Affirmative audience
• Dissident audience
• Skeptical audience
• Apathetic audience

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Creativity

• Creative people will make unlikely combinations
  to make a point or draw attention
• The same is true of copywriters

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Persuasive Creativity

• Writers for Trigon Blue Cross designed this spot
  for television, but the spot found its way to the
  internet, where it is passed around because it is
  so cute. What a tribute to its creators.
• Notice how two unlikely things are paired
• A little boy talking about a movie
• And health care

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Rational and Emotional Appeals

• Understanding human motivation

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Logical and Emotional Appeals

• Logical Appeals
• persuasion based on facts or product claims
• product or service fills practical needs
• economy
• safety
• performance
• maintenance

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Logical and Emotional Appeals

• Emotional Appeals
• appeals to emotional needs such as power or
  prestige
• sex appeal
• patriotism
• family values
• peer acceptance

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Appeals and Needs

• Advertisers construct the persuasive appeals of
  commercial messages based on their perceptions of
  audience needs.

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Human Needs

• Abraham Maslow established the theory of a
  hierarchy of human needs, believing that human
  beings are motivated to action by unsatisfied
  needs.

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Maslowes Hierarchy

• Certain lower needs must be realized before
  higher needs can be satisfied, just as a person
  must cross lower stairs in order to reach the top
  step.

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Abraham Maslow

• According to Maslow, there are general types of
  needs (physiological, safety, love, and esteem)
  that must be satisfied before a person can reach
  self-actualization (and act unselfishly).

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Satisfying Needs

• Satisfying needs is healthy, blocking
  gratification of needs can makes us sick or evil.
  We are all "needs junkies" with cravings that
  must be satisfied and should be satisfied. Else,
  we become sick and dysfunctional.

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Physiological Needs

• Most Basic
• Air
• Water
• Food
• Sleep
• Clothing
• Shelter

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Safety Needs

• Establishing stability and consistency in a
  chaotic world
• Safety can be Psychological
• Safety needs can motivate religious belief
  religion can comfort with the promise of a
  secure place after we die and leave the
  insecurity of this world

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Love Needs

• Human beings have a desire to belong to groups,
  clubs, families, couples
• We need nonsexual love -- to be accepted and
  appreciated by others
• We need friends

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Esteem Needs

• Peer Esteem
• Attention and recognition from others for our
  competencies
• Can be related to desire for power

• Self Esteem
• Competence and mastery of tasks

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Self-Actualization

• The desire to reach the fullest self potential
• Seek knowledge, inner peace, aesthetic
  experiences, oneness with God, etc.

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Audiences and Attitudes

• Need Driven Audiences
• 1. Survivors
• rooted in poverty
• 2. Sustainers
• fortunes drastically ebb and flow with the state
  of the economy

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Outer-Directed Audiences

• Belongers largest and least wealthy-- being
  accepted is extremely important to this group
  --tend to prefer heritage brands
• Emulators want to be accepted, noticed and
  envied-will sacrifice economy and maintenance for
  looks
• Achievers have acquired success and economic
  status but continue to push for more social prizes

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Inner-Directed Audiences

• I-Am-Me Audience group in transition
  unpredictable
• Experientials securely inner-directed, concerned
  with self expression and personal goals
• Socially conscious personal needs defined by
  social responsibility

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Integrated Audience

• Making up no more than two percent of the
  population, this group is so self-assured they
  can combine both inner and outer directed values
  in their preferences without self- contradiction.

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Logical Appeals

• Advertising appeals to needs at the basic and
  middle rungs of the hierarchy of human needs.
• Appeals to physiological needs
• Safety needs
• Needs for community or belonging
• Tend to involve claims of fact

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SIMPLE Logical Appeals

• S afety
• I ndulgence
• M aintenance
• P erformance
• L ooks
• E conomy

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Safety

• Listeners and viewers want to know if a product
  will make them sick, ruin their plumbing or
  injure the psyches of their children
• Consumer and industry action groups have caused
  the advertising of tobacco to be banned for
  safety reasons
• Advertisers appealing to safety assure consumers
  that their product is safe to use

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Indulgence

• Traveling first class may be an indulgence more
  expensive than economy- but may also make someone
  traveling for business more productive arriving
  rested and ready to work.

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Maintenance

• Some things involve more upkeep from the consumer
  than others
• A product that is useful for a long time or a
  service with long term benefits may overcome a
  higher sticker price
• A product that must be replaced, fixed or
  repaired often may not command as high a value.

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Performance

• Will the product or service function in the way
  the consumer expects?
• Does it meet a consumers need?

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Looks

• Often considered an emotional attraction the
  least rational
• Evaluates on how appealing something is to the
  eye
• For example, it is rationally important that
  paint look good its primary function is visual.

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Economy

• Deals directly with costs
• If something is expensive, is it worth what you
  pay for?
• Is an activity wasteful?

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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Rational Appeal Supercuts
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Emotional Appeals

• Deal with needs on the middle to upper rungs of
  the hierarchy.
• Human desire for amusement and pleasure.

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Emotional Appeals

• PLEASURE
• P eople Interest
• L aughter
• E nlightenment
• A llurement
• S ensation
• U niqueness
• R ivalry
• E steem

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Emotional Appeals

• People Interest nosiness, human curiosity about
  others
• Laughter human enjoyment of humor
• Enlightenment need for information
• Allurement sex appeal
• Sensation senses --sight, sound, taste, smell,
  touch
• Uniqueness -novelty
• Rivalry the drama of conflict
• Esteem snob appeal

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Emotional Appeal Fruit of the Loom
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Emotional Appeal Fruit of the Loom
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Emotional Appeal Fruit of the Loom
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Emotional Appeal Fruit of the Loom
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Emotional Appeal Fruit of the Loom
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Emotional Appeal Fruit of the Loom
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Commercial Noncopy Data Block

• A standardized memorandum keeps track of
  scripted messages and their scheduling
• Dates
• Submitted for review
• Revision submitted
• Revision approved
• production

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Noncopy data block

• Agency
• Client line firms official corporate
  designation
• Product line- specific product/service being
  advertised
• Spot title
• Length run time of the spot
• Specific script number for specific ID and
  correspondence can id the originating agency,
  client or company for which the spot is written,
  location in the total number of spots that agency
  produced for that client, year aired, medium,
  length
• Example BE-167-04R (BE chemicals, 167 treatment
  for that client, aired in 2004, radio)

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Types of Radio Commercials

• Univoice (straight) commercial
• Multivoice commercial
• Both voices speak directly to the listener- not
  each other
• Dialogue Commercial
• little radio drama
• Musical Commercial
• Pseudo-sound effect
• Slogan/sales point enhancer
• Backdrop
• Lyric vehicle

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Ad-lib spot

• Use only with known talent, strong on-air
  personality or DJ with a wide listener following
• Writer prepares not copy but a fact sheet
• Radio stations that have top D-Js ad-lib copy
  often charge a premium for that service

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The Music Spot as Pseudo-SFX

• MUSIC IMPRESSIVE DRUM ROLL
• ANNCR In 1985, an old American soft drink
  changed its formula.
• MUSIC BRASSY FANFARE STARTS, WINDS DOWN TO A
  PITIFUL STOP
• ANNCR You were not amused.

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Musical Spots

• Slogan or sales point enhancement
• Music bed or backdrop
• Lyric Spot
• open donut --spot begins with lyric followed by
  announcer copy, lyric is not reintroduced
• closed donut --spot begins with lyric, followed
  by announcer copy, lyric concludes the spot.

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Tenets of good radio copy

• Stay conversational
• Remain present and active
• Keep humor in bounds
• Stress sponsor identification
• Conclude with energy
• Call for action

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Things to Avoid

• Question Lead-ins
• Clichés
• Superlatives
• Talking down to audience
• Confusing statements
• Offensive language/visuals

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Question lead-ins

• Avoid lead-in questions that invite a yes or no
  answer or invite audiences to mentally argue with
  you.
• POOR Are you looking for an inexpensive way to
  cool your home?
• BETTER Heres an inexpensive way to cool your
  home.

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Avoid Clichés and Superlatives

• Clichés
• Conveniently located...
• Stop in soon...
• The next time youre in the mood for
• But wait! Theres more!
• For all your ___needs.

• Superlatives
• fantastic
• unbelievable savings
• lowest possible prices
• outstanding
• tremendous
• super

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Political Persuasion

• Political advertising has become a critical part
  of any candidates campaign
• Here is Robert Goodman, who specializes in
  Republican candidates, discussing two of his
  successful spots
• A successful spot is one that gets your candidate
  (client) elected.

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Political Persuasion

• Political advertising has become a critical part
  of any candidates campaign
• A successful spot is one that gets your candidate
  (client) elected.

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Production in Advertising

• This spot has all the production values of a
  Hollywood film, though produced in Europe.
• What gives the spot its impact?

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Humor in Advertising

• As you might tell from the examples used in
  this presentation, humor can play a powerful role
  in advertising. But the joke must never interfere
  with the message. What is the message of this
  spot?

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Persuasion

•  To induce someone to act by argument, entreaty,
  appeal.
• To develop or change an opinion