I've said it before. It's time to say it again.
Arise, ye oppressed copywriters of the world! Storm down the hallway to the art department! Hammer on the doors! Demand readable display of the copy you worked so hard on!
Wait, I've got it wrong. That was yesterday. Big ad agencies don't have art departments to turn copy into ads anymore.
If my informant is correct, today they lock up a copywriter and art director in the same room and don't let them out until they agree. Now they're a “creative team.”
I had the good fortune in my ad agency career to escape that fate, either as prisoner or as warden. So I can only close my eyes and imagine how Medtronic's copy/art team created this ad.
COPYWRITER: Well, let's start with the copy. I've really slaved over this, fine-tuning it for a week and going over it line by line with the attorneys who decide what we can and can't say.
ARTIST: What are we selling?
COPYWRITER: The product is something called an implantable cardiac defibrillator…
ARTIST: Wow, just what I've always wanted.
COPYWRITER: …or ICD for short — and we're not exactly selling it, since the customer can't just go out and buy one. It's only for people who have had some kind of heart trouble in the past and are at risk for cardiac arrest. It's like those gizmos you see on television dramas where they clap big paddles on a guy's chest and give him a jolt of electricity to restart his heart. Only this device is tiny by comparison and you always have it with you. So if you're a heart patient, it may add days or years to your life.
ART DIRECTOR: So if doctors are already prescribing and implanting one for everybody who needs it — and Medtronic has no competition, right? — why bother to advertise?
COPYWRITER: My guess is that it's to encourage heart patients who may need one but are fearful of it and resisting the idea. And the doctor certainly can't make them accept it. Do you want them to cut a slit in your chest and tuck something the size of a cell phone in there and sew you up again? So our job is to provide a little encouragement. Suggest all the wonderful things they may miss if they die prematurely.
ART DIRECTOR: OK! I've got it! We show the gizmo and a stream of words and pictures gushing upward out of it. 427 beach days. 7,000 snowflakes. 532 candlelight dinners. More like that. Some larger, some smaller. Some clear, some faint, all kind of mixed together. And the headline: “Look what's inside.” Get it? There are more good years for you inside this gizmo.
COPYWRITER: But — but — it doesn't say anything about the heart.
ART DIRECTOR: It doesn't need to, dummy. That's all explained in your great copy.
COPYWRITER: But by the time you show the gadget with all of this stuff gushing out of it and the headline below it and the white space around it, there won't be much room for my copy.
ART DIRECTOR: Don't worry about it. We'll squeeze it in down below somehow. In a nice neat block so it becomes a design element.
COPYWRITER: But will people with heart trouble read it?
ART DIRECTOR: Of course they will! It will be so intriguing, everybody will read it!
COPYWRITER: But — but —
ART DIRECTOR: Don't worry about it, sonny boy. You fuss with your copy some more and leave the rest to me.
And so another literally misguided ad is born.
Now, back to the real world.
For starters, I have a confession to make. When I first looked at this Medtronic ad, I didn't get it. And neither did other people in my household.
But that was our fault. We didn't know what the headline “Look what's inside” meant because we didn't stop to figure it out. However, as my readers should know by now, I am opposed to ads that you have to stop and figure out.
It seems to me that the three paramount principles in constructing an ad of this sort are who, what and why. By this standard, the ad scores OK on only two out of three.
It devotes lots of space to illustrating and dramatizing why you may need this product and what it can do for you.
But to find out what the heck it is and whether it is meant for you, you have to dig into that uninviting copy block at the bottom.
Another thing I had to consider: What's the purpose of this ad? Surely it can't be brand preference, since Medtronic appears to have no competition. And even if it did, it wouldn't be up to the patient to choose.
My best guess is that it is to decrease patient resistance. It might be to get the reader to “ask your doctor,” but the doctor's not likely to reply “Oh, gee, I never thought of that.”
But maybe it's the other way around. Because of your history of heart problems, your doctor strongly recommends it. But he can't force you to do it, after all, and undoubtedly many patients resist the idea unless told it's absolutely necessary for their survival. So the ad can provide encouragement to heart patients who are undecided.
My makeover's headline and illustration seek to get across more clearly what the originals were trying to convey. But it also needed to attract prospects — people with heart trouble. I wanted to say, “If you have heart trouble, how many reasons do you need, etc.,” but that would have made the headline lengthier and wordier. So instead I used, “How many reasons like these does a heart patent need…”
When it came to providing copy, guess what? The original material was just fine, and dealt with technical and legal questions better than I could.
That's what inspired the preceding exchange among the copywriter, artist and art director.
The only change I made in the copy was to set it in larger, more readable type, and to provide generous paragraphing throughout. In many cases ad copy is more readable if every sentence is treated as a separate paragraph.
But my big change was to add something — a box inviting readers to go online and take an instant risk-assessment test.
Too many brand-building ads are passive. My addition gets the prospect out of the chair, onto the Web site, and one step closer to becoming a user.
W
THOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, admaker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.
Find more Makeover Maven columns at http://directmag.com/opinions-columnists/makeovermaven/.
