We're Back ... and Have a New Name Too!

Hi readers,

Sometimes things just slip away from us.  Unfortunately, one of those things that slipped away over recent months was the upkeep of BullShots! 

Sorry about that!

Anyway, we're back, and we hope to be a bit more diligent about posting.

You might have noticed we've changed the name of the blog to BullShots!   Kinda funky I think.  But don't worry, my vocal opinion isn't gone!  You can expect me to be just as cantankerous a cow as I've always been.  Now Fred ... I don't know about him.  He's a busy guy. 

So here's the deal....  If there's something you'd like me, corporate mascot and all-around beauticious bovine, Brownie T. Cow to write about, let me know.  If you have questions about anything, post 'em.  Comments ...  Recipes (especially for milk products!) ...   The solution to what to do with stale donuts.  It's all good!

So get in touch!  We'd all like to hear from you.  Especially Fred.  He gets lonely working all day in the studio.  Moo!

Love,

Brownie T. Cow

Fred's Advertising Clinic Part 6: Putting it all together

Fred's Advertising Clinic Part 6: Putting It All Together

Now that we have an understanding of the basic formula for creating an ad, in this installment we'll put it all together and create an ad for -- you guessed it -- Dry Erase Markers.

For this ad, we'll take a slice-of-life approach. I like these sorts of ads because they're interesting, take a light approach, and they can be used to educate consumers about the product's benefits without being preachy. Remember, though, that you can use any approach that is appropriate to your product.

Step one: Get Attention

We'll use some sound effects to grab the listeners and add interest. We'll also set up a scene to which they can relate.

Step two: Build Interest

Our scene is a friendly one in which two coworkers - they obviously get along well and are supportive of each other - are talking about the big presentation. One of them is just a little nervous, because it's the most important presentation she's ever given.

Step three: Build Desire

Desire for Dry Erase Markers is built in two ways. First it demonstrates how the markers helped rescue one of the coworker's previous presentations. There's also a subtle endorsement of the markers by that character. This endorsement builds desire for the markers in both his coworker and the listening audience. It's a double hook.

Step four: Action

So that the scene between the colleagues maintains credibility, we bring in an anonymous announcer to make the action pitch. It has two parts: "Save your next presentation with Dry Erase Markers" (which is code for "save your job" and drives home a very important benefit of using them), and the announcer gets us to act with the phrase, "get them at your nearby office supply store."


Here's the script:

Sound Effects: Office sounds, typwriters, telephones, etc.

Coworker: Hey Sally, you ready for the big presentation this afternoon?

Sally: Yeahhhh...but I'm a little nervous about it.

Coworker: What are you nervous about?

Sally: It's the biggest presentation of the year! What if I blow it by making a mistake? I don't want this to be like last year!

Coworker (chuckles): Oh yeah.. I remember that! You misspelled the Client's name!

Sally: How embarassing!

Coworker: Look, all you have to do is use Dry Erase Markers. Then if you make a mistake, you can just wipe it off and fix it. Nobody will even notice! Especially if you have a funny line ready too...

Sally: Dry Erase Markers, huh? I never thought of that!

Coworker: Dry Erase Markers have saved my job dozens of times, Sally!

Sally: Alright! Dry Erase Markers it is! Now all I need is a funny joke...

Coworker: How about the one with the elephant who walks into the engineer's office... (fade out)

Announcer: Save your next business presentation with Dry Erase Markers. Make a mistake? Wipe it off! ...with Dry Erase Markers! Get them at your nearby office supply store.

And there you have an effective spot for either radio or TV that can even be adapted to a print ad.

Want free advertising or production advice?
Do you have a suggestion for a topic?
How about a question about advertising or audio production?
Let Fred know... He's here to help!Visit www.BrownCowStudios.com

Fred's Advertising Clinic - Part 5: Action!

So far in the Advertising Clinic, we've covered the first three parts of the formula for writing ad copy: Attention, interest and desire. Now we move on to the fourth and final part of the formula: Getting the customer to act.

If you've done the other three steps of the formula correctly, you've got the audience's attention. They're listening to what you have to say because you've built interest in your product. They want your product because you've built desire. But all this is for naught if you can't convince them to act.

The call to action means, quite simply, that you're telling your customer what to do. So what do you want them to do?

• Call now!
• Visit your local retailer today!
• Subscribe to "News from the Herd" today! (By the way, you should.)
• Get High-Quality and Terrific Value from Brown Cow Studios. (You should do that too - the link is below.)

Remember, though, that your call to action has to mesh with the rest of your script. If it's a hard sell, you can get right to it and tell them what to do. But if you've taken a softer approach, you'd seem overbearing and maybe even obnoxious, so a gentler call to action is needed. The same if you've taken a comedic approach. Don't blow the punch line with an obnoxious urge to BUY NOW BUY NOW! Stay in the spirit of your piece.

Let's look at the example we've been using all along: Dry Erase Markers.

One of our approaches has the markers saving the customer's job, and maybe even winning him or her a promotion. So our call to action appropriately would be something like, "Get that promotion you've been after -- use Dry Erase Markers."

We also explored an quasi-public service approach, in which Dry Erase Markers helps keep the family together and organized. So we close with, "Bring your family together... with Dry Erase Markers."

If our copy touts the correct-ability of Dry Erase Markers in a pretty straightforward manner, then our action step can be straightforward too: "Fix those mistakes. With Dry Erase."

If you can do it simply, you can even repeat one of the benefits in your action line for an extra boost: "Be Mistake-proof, use Dry Erase Markers."

One other thing: If you're plugging a specialty product, or one that's not available everywhere, don't leave the audience guessing. Be sure to tell them where to find you or your product: "Find Dry Erase Markers at your favorite stationery store." That's a call to action too.

Remember: To make the sale, you have to tell your customer to buy the product.

Next time in the Advertising Clinic, we pull it all together.

Fred's Advertising Clinic is written by producer and voiceover artist Fred Pagano,
owner of Brown Cow Studios of Boston.

Get creative advertising and audio production that sells ...
visit our website at www.BrownCowStudios.com

Read and subscribe to our new e-zine, "News from the Herd"

Fred's Advertising Clinic Part 4: Build Desire

"Wow! I want one of those!"

"That thing sounds great!"

"Yeah? So what?"

Have you ever seen or heard a commercial on TV or radio and had one of those reactions? I have. A notable one happened just a couple of months ago.

I was watching TV, and a spot for a new sandwich from KFC came on. Well, it wasn't really a sandwich, because it had no bread. Just two slices of chicken with other good stuff in between. Precisely the kind of thing this manly man wants more of!

And when I saw that spot, my mouth watered.

I even remarked out loud, "Oh yeah! That's the stuff!...that sounds wonderful" I hope I wasn't drooling, but there's a chance I was. Ask my wife.

Was it a good sandwich? I can't tell you because there's no KFC near me at which to get one. But it sure sounded good when I saw that spot. I wanted one. A lot! And the next time I'm in the mood for chicken for lunch (which admittedly isn't often) I'll definitely get one. Because....

"That thing sounds great!"

Now what about the last reaction? "Yeah, so what?" I had one of those reactions recently too. I've long since forgotten what the product was, so don't ask. What do you expect, anyway? I should remember the name of a product I have no interest in? Life's too short.

A successful spot doesn't just grab your interest. It makes you want the product. It makes you want to install new flooring, have a beer, buy a new car, eat chicken or serve your kids yogurt. It gets your saliva dripping. In other words, it follows the fourth part of our five-part advertising formula: It builds desire.

How do you build desire for your product or business? Well, first think about your product. Who is it targeted to, who is your customer? What need does your product fulfill? Then ask yourself why your customer would want yours in particular. What sets it apart from the others? When you know the answers to these questions, you're on your way to building desire for your product.

Let's take a look at the example we've been using in this series, dry erase markers. A pretty boring product, so what can you possibly do to build desire for them? Think about it. Who uses them? Students and teachers in school, business executives giving presentations, and many homes have dry-erase boards in their kitchens so family members can leave messages. That's pretty much the market for dry-erase markers.

Let's zero in on business use. What would make me desire a particular brand of marker? Suppose it could help me win a promotion, or impress my boss. Or streamline work flow or make the job easier. Any product that fills one of those needs is desirable.

A marker that can get me more money and a promotion? I'll have to look into that!

On the household front, dry-erase markers help people keep in touch. They remind Dad to pick up Junior after the soccer game, or to grab milk on the way home from work. I want my household to run smoothly, and if dry-erase markers help do that, then I want dry-erase markers. Lots of 'em!

When it's time to write the copy, key in on those desirable traits in your product or business. Tell the exec how markers can help to win a promotion, or tell parents how they can run the house better. Be creative. Have fun.

Need to build desire for your product?

You can do it yourself. Or you can have Fred do it.

For spots that sell, come to BrownCowStudios of Boston.

Fred's Advertising Clinc Part 3: You've Got Their Attention - Now Get Them Interested

In our last installment of Fred's Advertising Clinic we explored the first part of the formula for writing effective copy: Gaining attention.

We did it by asking a question or making a statement that got your audience to want more information; something that would induce them to pay attention to the rest of your message.

Fair enough. We've got their attention, now what? Well, it's time for Step Two: Building interest.

Building interest is the meat of your presentation. It's where the listener gets rewarded for paying attention. You answer their questions, explain how your product can help them. You even entertain them or shock them, if that's the approach you've chosen to go with.

Let's return to the example we used earlier, dry-erase markers. We came up with some good workable attention grabbing lines, so let's build on them.

Our first attention grabber was a simple statement: "You're only human." So it follows that humans make mistakes and the great thing about dry-erase markers is that they make it easy to correct your mistakes. (Remember in our last installment we decided to focus on the mistake angle for our ad.) You can go into as much detail as you want about fixing mistakes, that's up to you as the copy writer. The important thing is that you interest the customer in the benefits he or she can derive from using your product.

We also came up with a simple attention grabbing statement: "Everybody makes mistakes." The approach to this lead is almost identical to the above. The audience wants to know about how they can fix their mistakes, and you tell 'em.

We also tried a lead that set up a specific scene in the audience's mind as our attention grabber: "It's the biggest presentation of your career...and you don't want to blow it." This can be a bit more of a hard sell style ad, but that's okay. Tell the audience how dry-erase markers can save their jobs, maybe even help them win a promotion. How? By making sure they've got the full line of dry-erase markers in the briefcase to correct those little spelling mistakes that might crop up - like misspelling their client's name on the big whiteboard; or helping them to express their ideas clearly by using all the different colors the markers come in. Or maybe, you hope along with them that they will never have to take advantage of the easy-erasure feature, but it's comforting to know it's there just in case.

My favorite attention grabber of the bunch is this one: "Dry-erase markers don't taste very good." It's the sort of attention-grabber that lends humor and personality to an otherwise dull product. So build interest in your product by playing on the humor. Contrast the great features with the one (quite inconsequential) disadvantage they have. "Dry-erase markers come in 36 different colors, but don't eat them for breakfast."

Interest the customer in your product and its benefits by building on your attention grabbing lead. Sell your product's features, sell its benefits, or sell its personality. Just keep it interesting.

Next time we'll talk about Step Three - Desire. You gotta want it!

Attention grabbing, interesting spots
that sell is what Brown Cow Studios of Boston is all about.
Visit www.BrownCowStudios.com to learn more.

Fred's Advertising Clinic Part 2: Grab Your Audience's Attention!

We live in a fast-paced world...


Don't let this happen to you!


Save 65% and get Free Shipping too!


Chuck Norvell, What a Great, Great Guy!


In a different way each of these lines grabs your attention and makes you want to know more:

• What's so great about Chuck Norvell?
• Tell me how I can save and get free shipping...
• No, I wouldn't want that to happen to me, so how can I prevent it?
• How can I slow the pace of my life?

There's nothing fancy or splashy about these leads. They're quite simple. But they all have one thing in common: When you see them you want to know more.

That's what the first part of our advertising copy formula is all about -- Grabbing your audience's attention. There are many ways to do it. You can tease the audience, offer a benefit, or entertain them. It doesn't matter as long as you accomplish one thing -- Your audience has to want to know more.

Let's suppose we are writing a spot for dry-erase markers. I picked this product for our example because I've got a couple of them on my desk, and they're fairly mundane as products go. Nothing really sexy about dry-erase markers, is there?

So how do we get the listener to pay attention to our dry-erase markers? Let's brainstorm ....

Dry-erase markers come in many colors ... they are odorless ... the one I'm looking at right now has a fine point, but others have thicker points ... they erase easily ... Hey, I like that. one -- They erase easily. Can we use it? Let's try some approaches that tie into easy erase-ability:

• We can ask a question: "You're only human, right?"
• We can make a statement: "Everybody makes mistakes."
• We can set up a scene: "It's the biggest presentation of your career. Don't blow it!"
• How about a testimonial: "Dry-erase markers saved my job!"
• We can present the unexpected too: "Dry erase markers don't taste very good."

Each of these attention grabbers gets your customers wanting to know more. "Yes, I am only human -- what about it?" "What can I do about my mistakes?" Some tug at them on an emotional level: "The last time I blew a presentation the boss yelled at me for an hour!" And the last one is just too weird not to want to know more.

The key to each is that they hook you, they tease you. They make you want to know more. As a copy writer, hooking your audience is the hardest part of the job. Once you've done it, the rest of the copy flows naturally.

Your next step is to keep your audience's interest and to build upon it -- to get them interested in your product. We'll talk about that next time in part three of "Fred's Advertising Clinic."

Need to get attention for your product or business?
Fred Pagano's Brown Cow Studios of Boston creates attention-grabbing commercials,
Internet ads, product demos and presentations that sell.
Visit the Brown Cow Studios website at www.BrownCowStudios.com to learn more.
Or send an e-mail to Fred Pagano - Fred@BrownCowStudios.com

Fred's Advertising Clinic - Part One: The Formula

Years ago I had quite a chuckle when I saw a poster on the wall of a friend's office. It read, "Mankind's greatest need is to edit another person's copy."

If you've written any sort of copy - from a business letter to a commercial to an article for a science journal - you get the joke. You might write the world's greatest copy (hmm ... sounds like me), but once you submit it to the client or your boss, it's torn to shreds (hmm ... how could they!). Maybe the edits are an improvement; perhaps they're not. The only thing we know for certain is that your copy will be edited.

People who run small businesses, as always, are up against a special challenge. Not only do they have to write their own copy, but they have to edit it too. With a limited budget for advertising time, it's especially important that their commercial copy gets results.

In this series we'll take a look at copy writing as both an art and a science, and explore some techniques for writing great copy.

Unlike many things in life, writing ad copy can be broken down into a formula. This formula has been used by professional writers forever because it works. Are you ready? Here it is:

Attention - Interest - Desire -Action.

It's known throughout the ad world by its acronym, AIDA, and it's a blueprint to effective copy. Just follow the steps in order.

1. Attention - The foundation of all effective ad copy is to get your listener or viewer's attention. So you write a catchy headline, or ask an important question. Amuse them, question them or shock them. How you do it doesn't matter as long as you grab your audience's attention.

2. Interest. Once you've got your audience's attention, your second step is to keep it and build interest in your message. In part, you're building on your attention grabbing lead, and you're setting the audience up for the next step.

3. Desire. This may be the most important step of all, because if you don't build a desire for your product or service, your audience won't want it. I find it's often the hardest part of the formula to write.

4. Action. This is the windup. It's time to get your audience to act, so tell them what they should do. Buy your product. Visit your store. Call for more information. Or cross only when the light is green. If you've done the previous steps well, that's exactly what your audience will do.

In principle it's a very simple formula. But some take years to master it, and others never quite do. That's where good copy writing becomes an art form.

Start practicing the formula now by applying it to daily life situations. Use the AIDA formula as the structure of your next letter or e-mail. Try it on your next sales call, or even with friends and colleagues in everyday conversation. Instead of just talking about last night's game over the water cooler, see if you can instill a desire to attend the next one or watch it on TV. Just follow the formula and see what happens. It's good practice.

Check back for the next article in this series, as we take an in-depth look at step one.

By the way, did you notice this article uses the AIDA formula? I'm sneaky that way. Thanks for reading!

Fred Pagano's Brown Cow Studios offers complete creative and production services. From great copy writing to creative audio production and lots more, let the creative herd at Brown Cow Studios of Boston help grow your business. Send an e-mail to Fred@BrownCowStudios.com, or visit our web site, www.BrownCowStudios.com.