John Stingley on copywriting

Pay careful attention to your first ideas. They are formed with the same innocence, naivete and lack of jadedness that consumers have when first exposed to your advertising. There is value in that innocence and simplicity.

On the other hand, don’t stop too soon. Even if the essence of your first ideas is correct, explore every possible expression of that essence. Write every headline 100 different ways.* Advertising is art, and like poetry, every comma will affect the balance of meaning.

Understand what the perceptions of your product are now. The current attitude of the consumer is the starting-point and the desired attitude is the finish line. Often, clients are reticent to admit what the current attitude towards them is. You have to make them understand. You can’t start a race in the middle.

Once you have placed yourself in the mind-set of the consumer, relax and be human. Don’t be afraid to think cynical thoughts or joke about the product as you work. I’ve found that a lot of great ideas started as jokes which, when explored, could be turned around to make a powerful, positive statement. Ideas that start this way have an honesty the consumer appreciates.

Headline one says: “Security you can trust.”

It is obvious, bland and probably close to the customer’s first concern. Deleting it immediately would throw away the concern along with the dreadful wording.

By headline twenty, the writer has tried fear, reassurance, locks, sleep, hackers and one truly appalling pun about passwords. At forty-three, the idea changes: customers spend less time wondering whether they configured the system correctly. The promise becomes certainty after setup.

At seventy-eight, the language is cleaner. At ninety-two, it becomes clever again and loses the point. One hundred exists chiefly to prove that arithmetic cannot guarantee taste.

The writer returns to headline one. Trust was the useful part. Security you can trust was merely the phrase every competitor reached before breakfast.

Treat first thoughts as evidence. They record the immediate association before familiarity and professional habit complicate it. Keep them. Then generate until the obvious expression has been exhausted and the embarrassing ones have had their say.

The selected line comes from number forty-seven with two words stolen from number three. Nobody receives a prize for originality of sequence. The page beneath it finally explains how setup is checked, because a headline promising certainty without proof would be the original cliché in cleaner type.