One of the Habits of Highly Effective Marketers

All experienced copywriters know how advantageous it is to establish common ground from the get-go with those on the receiving end of our messages and offers. Whether we’re selling products and services or raising funds for charitable organizations, like ambassadors of goodwill, it behooves us to speak the same language as the constituencies before us, it pays to strike a chord to which almost everyone can relate.

For instance, in the early ’90s I wrote a direct mail package for Science News magazine that featured the following copy on the outside envelope:

“Electricity so powerful it shocks a heart-attack victim back to life…

Whales so hungry they take a bite out of the beach…

Grasshoppers so smart they change coats to beat the heat…

And other things that will make you go hmmm…”

If that last line sounds familiar to you now, just imagine how many people took notice then when they saw it on the envelope. “Things that make you go hmmm” just so happened to be the name of a hit song at the time by C&C Music Factory as well as a popular skit on a syndicated, late-night talk show hosted by Arsenio Hall. It was almost universally recognized, a clever, common expression that couldn’t help but command attention.

I couldn’t have gotten away with using it just for that reason, though. That would have been gratuitous and superficial and possibly even ineffective. The fact is that Science News really is full of things that make you go hmmm, so I was simply calling attention to its Unique Selling Proposition (USP) with powerful, loaded language that was already embedded in the vernacular of the mainstream, using three of the magazine’s most fascinating stories to sell subscriptions.

And sell subscriptions is what this package did, bringing in thousands of orders over the course of the several years it reigned as a control for Science News, and being honored by the New England Direct Marketing Association with a first place award as a result.

That was more than ten years ago.

What conjures up such fond professional memories is an ad I saw just a couple of weeks ago in the May 9 issue of ADWEEK for The New York Times that adopted the same technique I used on behalf of Science News, leveraging the lexicon of popular culture as a way to build rapport. Promoting the new Business Day, “enhanced business coverage with a specific focus each day,” The Times used a play on the title of Stephen Covey’s best-selling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” as the headline for this ad.

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Business People:

They read it Monday.
They read it Tuesday.
They read it Wednesday.
They read it Thursday.
They read it Friday.
They read it Saturday.
They read it Sunday.

The New York Times introduces the new Business Day.”

Now that’s powerful copy, the perfect marriage of concept and product, creative and message, all buttoned up and good to go.

And unlike the copy I used to promote the circulation of Science News (I had to assume potential readers would have at least heard of C&C Music Factory and Arsenio Hall, admittedly a big stretch when you factored in the different demographics), who among the The Times’ constituency isn’t familiar with Stephen Covey’s book and wouldn’t be able to relate to such a riveting, relevant headline?

Such fine distinctions aside, like my line of thinking way back when, the creative team behind this ad for Business Day obviously realized just how powerful it is to use double entendres and other such word plays to associate their advertising with what’s most popular in culture today. You might say they practiced one of the habits of highly effective marketers. And for that they deserve kudos, if not their audience’s, well, business.

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