WHERE DO IDEAS COME FROM? (Building Blocks of Local Radio-TV Copy)

We start out by saying that a commercial, to be successful, has to be built on an Idea.

But, as you and I know, there are ideas and IDEAS. Advertising has a sole purpose, and it is not to pay your salary. If you want it to pay you regularly, and perhaps more than you ever dreamed possible, know this: The purpose of advertising is to make the advertiser rich and famous.

To achieve that purpose you must convince the listener/viewer that he will become "rich" or "famous" as a result of the advertiser's product or service. Rich need not pertain to money, and fame can be important in one's own family.

People, and that includes you and me, want to be richer and more famous, in one sense or another. So we all really want to believe that your client's product or service will actually help us get what and where we want. We all really do want to believe that out there is someone or something that can bring us closer to our life's goals. But we're all gun-shy too. We've been ripped off and brushed off and rubbed the wrong way too many times. So...we want to believe, but we're skeptical.

In order to convince me that your client's product or service will help me in a way that I really want to believe, you must think of something original to attract my attention. A new comparison, perhaps, between your product and something I am already familiar with.

Obviously, you can't just come out and say what you have in mind. Obviously. Back in the bad old days, when cigarettes were advertised on radio and TV, an unknown had the gall to simply state: We taste good, like a cigarette should. Remember the brand? Winston, of course. Even though the commercials have not been on the air for five years or more, who could forget? It's an idea that doesn't strain credibility, insult your intelligence, or call attention to other brands. It delivered a promise that the average smoker wanted to believe. Dozens of cigarettes that promised too much came and went, were unbelievable, and thus sank out of sight. Winston stuck to its one believable promise, and they became America's Number One Selling Brand--bad grammar notwithstanding! So the first criterion for a commercial idea is that it be believable.

The second, that it be simple, easy to understand.

The third, that it be memorable.

Put them all together and they spell Central Selling Idea.

Rosser Reeves, in his excellent book Reality in Advertising, called it the ESP or Exclusive Selling Proposition. Call it what you want; every successful commercial has to have one. And once it has one, and it's a good one, it should be repeated over and over again. A good idea wears well.

But where do ideas come from? They come from a thorough knowledge of the product.

the market, the consumer, and your own attitudes toward these. They come when you know what your audience is looking for-when you present the product in terms of believable benefits.

For example:

-When you buy one of my cars, you buy me.

-The Little Profit saves you more than anything you ever bargained for.

-It only takes a minute to get a better deal.

-First Federal Savings is the Great Green Machine.

-First National Bank is Second to None.

-Let the competition beware.

-It's about time a car dealer delivered more than just a car.

The first three ideas spell out the benefits. The next four hint at them, encouraging the listener/viewer to come to his own conclusions. Both tacks can be successful if they're good ones. The Winston line spelled out the benefit "tastes good." When the Budweiser jingle said, "Budweiser is the king of beers...but you know that," it alluded to promises that were better implied than stated. The marketing people at Bud obviously knew that meaningful product differentiation among beers is hard to make believable.

(Their Beechwood aging story, in fact, is a good exception.) By using the line "but you know that," they planted in each consumer's head the idea that Bud is the leading beer, for whatever reasons are important to the individual consumer, and that if he doesn't "know that" there is something wrong with his taste buds. Obviously, stating the product benefit as part of your central idea rather than hinting at it is by far the safer course. Hinting is less direct and therefore a riskier way to make a point.

In any case, an idea grows out of discovering the best reason why a customer should buy your client's product or service.

A commercial starts with an idea. It will not accomplish its purpose--making you and the advertiser rich and famous--without one.