What kind of advertising copy is considered creative?

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The story originated from a brand service that I still can't get over.

W is a startup company that mainly provides certain Internet virtual services to enterprises. In a comprehensive industry evaluation report, it ranked among the top three.

The client hopes to systematically sort out and shape the brand in order to change the embarrassing situation where the brand was weak due to the previous focus on products and services.

At first, things went smoothly. Through interviews and questionnaire surveys, we learned that the reason why W was able to stand out among the giants of BAT is precisely because of their "smallness" (nearly a thousand employees) and "specialization".

Because of its small size and specialization, market decisions can be made faster and services more flexible. Compared with the same old modular products, more targeted services are what enterprises really need. This is why, although the W brand value is low, its price is not inferior.

Another point that must be made clear is that in this industry, in addition to excellent products and services, resources often become a magic weapon to reduce the dimension of attack on opponents. For example:

Company W frowned and realized that the problem was not simple. Although efforts have been made to build the competitive advantage of the ecosystem, it will take at least five years before any signs of success can be seen.

After several rounds of communication, we all agreed that:

1. Before the ecological advantage is achieved, brands should focus on the present and not rush to get there first.
2. Find your core advantages among current and foreseeable competition and build your brand accordingly.
3. The company’s achievements prove that personalized service is the key to acquiring customers, which is our advantage.
4. After the company's strategic deployment is completed, the brand will transition to the "ecosystem" stage.

So we came up with the core brand concept of "tailor-made" . The client was quite supportive of this, but only requested adjustments to the specific wording of the slogan because it felt a bit flat and lacked meaning.

Things got out of control...

First, we found that the slogan needed to satisfy the feelings of everyone in the decision-making group. This is as difficult to achieve as having one child carry the expectations of all family members.

Later, during the see-saw proposal process, the clients expressed their preferred advertising style. We understood in an instant: the throne of strategy will be lost. Sure enough, traitors such as "entrepreneurial spirit", "dream", "market position" and "product characteristics" took turns to enter the palace and take charge of the government.

Finally, the strategy was completely deposed and exiled, and the prince of slogans had no basis for selection, let alone other princes of copywriting .

So the palace was bustling with noise and quarrels all day long.

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I am very ashamed that in the end I was unable to write an advertising slogan that would satisfy my customers. In fact, through the examples I can vaguely feel what the customer meant.

Personally, I also prefer the feeling of copywriting A. There is a sense of refinement buried between the lines, like encountering a tree full of peach blossoms around the corner. But I find it hard to agree that B is inferior to A based on this. If you are a second-tier domestic automobile brand and everyone likes your affordability, sincerity and cost-effectiveness, then do you still have to put on a high-handed attitude as a leader?

"Borrowing" copywriting without context and environment is actually hooliganism!

Why did your copy get rejected?

Do ads need to be interesting? Of course advertising needs to and must be interesting! But the question is what counts as interesting. When you take the subway to work every day, how many advertisements can you see? How many of the advertisements you saw did you remember and how many of them did you take action on?

I still remember the advertisement from two years ago because your consumers are selfish and they care about themselves.

I never feel that changing jobs is a fun thing. The tone of a workplace brand and a social brand is actually the same.

Only women have a say in this ad.

This has nothing to do with functional appeal or emotional appeal. Whether your copy and advertisement are interesting depends first on whether it serves the product brand and whether it serves your consumers.

Since the basis for the existence of products and brands is to solve needs, why should advertisements based on product brands be unbridled and self-pitying? No advertiser is willing to admit that his or her advertising is out of touch with the brand, at least not when it comes to proposals. But in the tug of war with customers, we may really compromise and even start to deceive ourselves in the end.

When form begins to outweigh content, and even demands a certain sentence structure, word count, terminology, and style, how can you expect to make an interesting advertisement? The "interesting" things in the mouths of some clients are like the White Bone Demon in Journey to the West, which changes randomly. What appearance they show to the public is mainly determined by which advertisement has been all over the screen recently, which advertisement has become popular, and which advertisement has brought tears to people's eyes.

Once again, we are not denying the fun of advertising. In fact, in the next part of this article, we will take print advertising as an example to talk about the difference between the dramatic advertising advocated by Leo Burnett and the popular dramatic advertising.

Before that, we decided to help you overcome this "interesting" difficulty first.

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A. Homophonic Method

The biggest advantage of homophones is that they can mass-produce "familiar strangeness". For example, your automotive client wants to emphasize the driving experience:

XX, gradually entering the driving realm

Your bank customers want to highlight offers:

Good luck, world!

Your real estate clients need to demonstrate a unique style:

Life should be different.

Don’t think that homophones can’t be high-end and classy.

B. Break the rhythm

Rhythm is grammar, and breaking the rhythm is anti-grammar.

Let’s take a few examples. The title of a German real estate project is “From now on, enter German life”, which can be directly shortened to “From now on. Germany”, and the tone becomes more powerful and resolute.

For example, the theme of the salon forum is "Meet the Future", which can be divided into "Meet, see the future." Doesn't it sound grand and elegant?

There are many such techniques, such as adding words, subtracting words, changing words, stealing words, etc. For detailed information, please go to "Xiaofeng Modern Chinese Advertising Grammar Dictionary".

C. Cross-border words

This is my personal experience. Transferring specialized terms that are commonplace in one industry to other industries can immediately produce a refreshing effect. For example, the first two lines of Chen Qizhen’s song "Fish" are, "I sit on a chair, watching the sunrise revive. I sit in the sunset, watching the city decline."

According to this method, we can prepare as follows:

Write a " Jiang Xiaobai " style copy

Fresh food e-commerce customers

Cocktail Customer

When using cross-border words, avoid using unfamiliar words. For example, if you say "dungle", many people will be confused.

The above secret recipe is given away as a gift. If you encounter robbery on the road or catch a cold and fever at night, take it with water and it will be effective after one dose. If it is ineffective, increase the dosage.

In the past, there was a saying among the artists who traveled around the world: "The fishy and sharp taste makes it look like a god." Sharpness is the real skill of technical work, while fishyness is the technique of observing people's words and expressions to deceive them. The ancients’ wisdom is so sharp.

What interesting advertising experiences do you have? Welcome to add more.

The author of this article @Gewuzhengyi was compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services Advertising platform Longyou Century