We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
46 HEADLINES
demands and/or impulses. These may be aroused or stimulated through suggestion, Curiosity, comparison, example, explanation, assurance, promise and guarantee, arbitrary assertion and dramatic situation or problem-and-solution story.
Such copy will represent—or should represent—a carefully developed sales plan which presents the product and its benefits as alluringly as possible, telling the advertiser’s story with glamour and appeal. Many approaches may be traveled, many reading inducements employed, but the copy aim is always the same—to attract attention, to interest, persuade and convince the reader, to create urgent desire, develop action, produce sales. Frequently, actual sales will tell the advertiser just how effective his copy has been.
Like the basic dramatic plot of “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl,’ much advertising copy will follow a fundamental formula of ‘“‘need recognition, answer to need, promised benefits.” The urge to have, to see, to buy is aroused and stimulated and directed to the point of sale.
The term “copy” doubtless referred originally to the manuscript which is copied as typeisset. In advertising usage today “copy” may be used to describe the entire ad layout and all of the elements included in the composition (as when an advertisement is sent to the newspaper’s composing room or submitted to the engraver). But copy also may refer specifically to the text of an advertisement. And it is in this sense that it is being discussed here.
First of all, copy or advertising text must be clean-cut, easy to read, easy to understand. Generally speaking, the reader will not devote time to copy that requires close study. A brilliant sales idea loses its value if typographical hurdles in the form of complicated or overlong copy discourage the reader. Although some advertising stories justify longer text, a brief, clear, concise message usually is more likely to be read by more people. The exception is long copy slanted to a partly pre-sold audience, interested readers who will follow every word written on the subject. But even selective copy, to be effective, will require a stopper in the form of display lines or illustrations to arrest initial attention.
Copy is likely to be more acceptable and more effective if it is simple in its construction and in the manner in which it is displayed. Easy natural expression can be forceful and quickly understood. But it is debatable whether copy should be written down to an audience. The reader is smarter than many advertisers believe.
Everyday language usually rings real in print. It seems friendly and personal. If appropriate, colloquial copy may register as genuine, natural—and convincing. First person text is often effective.