It’s ChicBut What’s It About?

Quick! What’s that illustration?

Maybe one of those gruesome X-ray views of your intestines like you see in constipation-remedy mailers?

Quick! What’s a canister?

According to Merriam-Webster:

1. An often cylindrical container for holding a usually specified object or substance (i.e., a film canister).

2. Encased shot for close-range artillery fire.

3. A perforated metal box for gas masks with material to adsorb, filter or detoxify airborne poisons and irritants.

According to Wikipedia:

1. A cylindrical or rectangular container usually of lightweight metal, plastic or laminated pasteboard used for holding a dry product (as tea, crackers, flour, matches).

2. Any of various cylindrical metal receptacles usually with a removable close-fitting top.

3. A special short range antipersonnel projectile consisting of a casing of light metal, loaded with preformed submissiles such as flechettes or steel balls. The casing is designed to open just beyond the muzzle of the weapon, dispersing the submissiles.

4. Component of canister-type protective mask containing a mechanical filter and chemical filling to filter, neutralize and/or absorb toxic chemical, biological and radiological agents.

5. Projectile component containing colored or screening smoke or riot-control agent composition.

Nowhere do any of these definitions say anything about vacuum cleaners! Of course if the ad had said “canister vacuum cleaner,” most everybody would know what that meant. And they would then understand what the illustration was.

Quick! How much return on investment do you think this ad produced?

Hmm. Let’s move on. Even after you figure out what the picture is and what the headline’s saying, it doesn’t help much. The head provides no reason whatsoever for buying a Dyson Stowaway except that it’s different.

But down below, in the currently fashionable white-on-black small type, it does provide a reason.

In fact, it provides it over and over again — four times in all!

“Introducing the only canister vacuum that doesn’t lose suction. Other canister vacuums lose suction. The new Dyson Stowaway canister has our patented cyclone technology so it doesn’t clog and doesn’t lose suction….Dyson Stowaway. No clogging. No loss of suction.”

And by the way, did I mention that that it doesn’t lose suction?

No one is a greater admirer than I of the classic Rosser Reeves book, “Reality in Advertising,” and his brilliant concept of developing and hammering home a product’s unique selling proposition over and over again.

But his concept applies chiefly to everyday commodity brands like beer and laundry detergent. It’s not appropriate when it comes to a one-time sale of a unique high-ticket item that calls for both the emotional appeal of a compelling illustration and unique selling proposition and the rational appeal of a compelling, credible, well-supported case.

In the case of this Dyson Stowaway ad, if you take the trouble to learn the whole story elsewhere, as I did, it’s so compelling you want to rush out and buy one whether you need it or not.

James Dyson is sort of the Thomas Edison of England. With his research team, he’s developed products that have achieved a total of $10 billion in sales.

One day he was vacuuming (smart guy, not too proud to do household chores himself) and got annoyed at the way the machine gradually lost suction power as the bag filled up with dirt and clogged the flow of air.

He decided to design and build a better vacuum cleaner. It took 15 years and 5,000 prototypes before the Dyson vacuum cleaner with patented Cyclone Technology was born.

It didn’t lose suction like ordinary vacuums; it sucked dirt into a powerful spinning vortex at 70,000 G’s, instead of into an annoying bag. Then it collected the dirt in a clear bin that allows you to see when it’s time to empty!

Aren’t you drooling to buy one already?

But the big vacuum cleaner companies like Hoover turned up their noses at this crazy new invention. No bags to replace, no bag sales. Just as Gillette clings to selling razors as cheaply as possible so it can make money selling blades forever.

But Dyson refused to give up and decided to manufacture it himself. Today his vacuums are No. 1 in dollar sales in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

I had to search for this story. It isn’t mentioned either in the original ad or on Dyson’s Web site. The only thing I could find was a link to “The James Dyson Story,” and clicking on that led to a slide show of photos — because people don’t read any more, right? Never mind the billions of words that are stored and read every day on the Internet. Reminds me of the famous last line in the movie “The Bridge Over the River Kwai”: “The horror, the horror!”

In planning my makeover, I wanted to engage the reader’s left and right brain. So I combined the appeal of the photograph (once the reader knows what it is) and the unique selling proposition to the left brain and offered as much of Dyson’s fascinating history as could comfortably be included as an appeal to the right (reasonable) side.

This required a drastic reduction in the illustration’s size, which I would be first to admit diminishes the visual effect. But print advertising often requires a compromise between two or more desirable objectives, and I decided that sales appeal was more important than visual appeal.

Perhaps if I were Dyson I would resolve this conflict by running, half as often, an ad twice as big — a two-page spread with a dramatic product photo on one page and the fascinating product story on the other.

But even as a one-page ad with illustration, my copy managed not only to tell the Dyson story but to “start where the reader is” — common problems with ordinary vacuums — and provide strong reasons for visiting the company’s Web site.

Which approach do you think would sell more Dysons, both now and in the future?

THOMAS L. COLLINS ([email protected]) 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/.