Breakthrough Advertising: A Summary of Part 1
This summary focuses on the key concepts and strategies presented in the first part of Eugene M. Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising.
Chapter 1: Mass Desire: The Force That Makes Advertising Work
- Advertising doesn’t create desire, it channels existing mass desires onto specific products.
- Mass Desire is the public spread of a private want, created by social, economic, and technological forces.
- Amplification Effect: Successful advertising exploits pre-existing desires, generating $5-$10 in sales for every $1 spent.
- Permanent Forces: Instincts (e.g., desire for attractiveness, health) and persistent technological problems.
- Forces of Change: Trends, mass education, and group pressure.
- Copywriters must detect and inventory these forces and harness their products to them.
Chapter 2: Your Prospect’s State of Awareness
- Headlines don’t sell, they compel readers to the next sentence, leading them through the sales story.
- State of Awareness: How much the prospect knows about the product and its ability to satisfy their desire.
- Five Stages of Awareness:
- Most Aware: Prospect knows the product and wants it, only price or convenience are selling points.
- Product Known, Not Desired: Prospect knows the product but requires convincing about its benefits.
- New Product Introduction: Prospect recognizes the desire but doesn’t know a product exists to satisfy it.
- Problem-Solving Products: Prospect recognizes the need but doesn’t connect it to the product’s solution.
- Unaware Market: Prospect doesn’t recognize the desire/need or resists admitting it.
- Headlines must target the specific stage of awareness of the market.
- Fifth Stage Headlines: Focus on identification, echoing an emotion or attitude that binds prospects together.
Chapter 3: The Sophistication of Your Market
- State of Sophistication: How many similar products the prospect has been exposed to.
- Five Stages of Sophistication:
- First: Be simple and direct, stating the need or claim.
- Second: Copy the successful claim and enlarge it, outbidding competitors.
- Third: Introduce a new mechanism to make old claims fresh and believable.
- Fourth: Elaborate or enlarge on the successful mechanism, making it easier, quicker, or more beneficial.
- Fifth: Like the Fifth Stage of Awareness, focus on identification to revive a “dead” product.
- The market’s sophistication constantly evolves, requiring copywriters to adapt their strategies.
Chapter 4: 38 Ways to Strengthen Your Headline
- Verbalization: The art of increasing the impact of a headline by how it is stated.
- Strengthening the claim, making it fresh, and pulling the prospect into the body copy.
- Techniques include: measuring size/speed, comparing, metaphorizing, sensitizing, demonstrating, dramatizing, etc.
Chapter 5: Summary: The Art of Creative Planning
- Three Levels of Creativity:
- Word Substitution: Ineffective, simply replacing product names in successful headlines.
- Formulas: Pouring headlines into pre-existing rules, limiting creativity.
- Analysis: Asking the right questions and letting the problem dictate unique solutions.
- Motivation Research (MR): Provides valuable insights into desires, identifications, and beliefs, but copywriters must transform these insights into creative ideas.
- Product Personality: Every product has a personality, and copywriters must identify the dominant trait to build identification.
- Prevention Headlines: Focus on potential problems affecting loved ones, not the prospect themselves.
- Splinter Markets: Smaller companies can target niche segments to avoid direct competition.
Overall, Part 1 emphasizes that:
- Copywriters must be keen observers of their market, understanding desires, identifications, and beliefs.
- They must analyze their product and identify its unique selling proposition.
- Headlines must be strategically crafted to engage the target audience at their specific stage of awareness and sophistication.
- Verbalization and creative planning are essential to crafting compelling headlines and achieving breakthrough advertising.
Breakthrough Advertising: A Summary of Part 2
This summary focuses on the core principles and techniques of writing effective body copy, as outlined in the second part of Eugene M. Schwartz’s Breakthrough Advertising.
Chapter 6: Inside Your Prospect’s Mind
- Body copy alters the prospect’s vision of reality, creating a new world where the product fulfills their desires.
- Three dimensions of the prospect’s mind:
- Desires: Physical, material, and sensual wants and needs.
- Identifications: Roles the prospect wants to play in life and personality traits they want to project.
- Beliefs: Opinions, attitudes, and prejudices that form their conception of reality.
- Copy must expand or alter these dimensions to persuade the prospect.
Chapter 7: The First Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Intensification
- Intensification: Sharpening and magnifying the prospect’s desire by showcasing the product’s benefits in vivid detail.
- Techniques to intensify desire:
- Direct Description: Describe product appearance and results in detail.
- Product in Action: Show the product working and delivering its benefits.
- Bring in the Reader: Let the reader visualize themselves experiencing the product’s benefits.
- Demonstration-Test: Let the reader test the product’s performance themselves.
- Benefits Over Time: Showcase a continuous flow of benefits over weeks or months.
- Audience Participation: Bring in celebrities, average users, or experts to validate the product.
- Contrast and Comparison: Emphasize the product’s superiority over alternatives.
- Negative/Positive Contrast: Highlight the problem the product solves and the relief it offers.
- Ease of Use: Show how easily the product delivers its benefits.
- Metaphor and Analogy: Use figurative language to make the benefits more dramatic.
- Summarization: Use a “catalog” to list all the product’s benefits and applications.
- Guarantee as a Summary: Reinforce the product’s promises through a strong guarantee.
Chapter 8: The Second Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Identification
- Identification: Building character and achievement roles into the product to allow the prospect to project their desired self-image.
- Two types of roles:
- Character Roles: Personality traits like “progressive,” “chic,” or “well-read.”
- Achievement Roles: Status roles like “Executive,” “Home Owner,” or “Career Woman.”
- Products can help prospects achieve, simplify, or symbolize these roles.
- Primary Image: The existing image the product holds in the prospect’s mind.
- Copywriters must either intensify a favorable primary image or subordinate an unfavorable one by building new, desirable images on top of it.
- Believability: Images must be believable and resonate with the prospect’s existing beliefs and aspirations.
Chapter 9: The Third Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Gradualization
- Gradualization: Leading the prospect through a logical chain of acceptances, starting with readily believed facts and gradually introducing more complex claims.
- Belief is structural: It depends on how claims are presented and the preparation laid for their acceptance.
- Techniques for radicalization:
- Inclusion Question: Start with a question the prospect will answer “yes” to, establishing agreement.
- Detailed Identification: Describe the prospect’s problems and desires in detail to show understanding.
- Contradiction of Existing Beliefs: Directly challenge false beliefs with strong authority.
- Language of Logic: Use words and phrases that convey reason and proof (e.g., “This has been proven,” “Here’s why”).
- Syllogistic Thinking: Build logical arguments to demonstrate the product’s efficacy.
Chapter 10: The Fourth Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Redefinition
- Redefinition: Giving a new, more favorable definition to the product to overcome objections.
- Three categories of drawbacks: Complexity, lack of importance, and high price.
- Techniques for redefinition:
- Simplification: Reframe complicated processes as easy and manageable.
- Escalation: Increase the perceived importance of the product and its benefits.
- Price Reduction: Justify and make the price seem more reasonable through comparison or context.
Chapter 11: The Fifth Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Mechanization
- Mechanization: Verbally demonstrating how the product works and delivers its promises.
- Three stages:
- Name the Mechanism: Sufficient for well-known products.
- Describe the Mechanism: Explain the mechanism in detail when it’s less familiar.
- Feature the Mechanism: Highlight a strong or unique mechanism as a key selling point.
- Mechanism for Price Cuts: Justify price reductions with a believable reason or mechanism to increase their impact.
Chapter 12: The Sixth Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Concentration
- Concentration: Directly comparing the product with competitors, highlighting weaknesses and emphasizing the product’s superiority.
- Focus on weaknesses that the product addresses, offering solutions rather than just attacking competitors.
- Two structural approaches:
- Point-by-Point Contrast: Compare specific features, highlighting the product’s advantages.
- Time-Sequence Contrast: Describe the negative experience with current products and contrast it with the positive experience offered by the advertised product.
Chapter 13: The Seventh Technique of Breakthrough Copy: Camouflage
- Camouflage: Borrowing believability from trusted sources by mimicking the style and format of the medium.
- Three methods:
- Format Adaptation: Matching the layout, typography, and visual style of the publication.
- Phraseology Adaptation: Using language and terminology common to the specific media.
- Mood Adaptation: Adopting an “understated” or “deadly sincere” tone to counter hard-sell skepticism.
Chapter 14: The Final Touches
- Verification: Strategically placing proof and documentation where it will have the most impact and believability.
- Reinforcement: Combining emotional images and claims to create a compounded impact greater than the sum of their parts.
- Interweaving: Blending emotion, image, and logic into every sentence to maximize persuasive power.
- Sensitivity: Anticipating the reader’s needs and shifting copy direction to maintain engagement.
- Momentum: Using phrases and incomplete statements to draw the reader deeper into the copy.
- Mood: Crafting the desired emotional atmosphere through word choice and rhythm.
Overall, Part 2 emphasizes that:
- Body copy must intensify desire, build identification, and establish believability to convince the prospect.
- Structure and flow are critical to guiding the reader through a persuasive journey.
- Copywriters must be sensitive to the reader’s needs and anticipate their questions and objections.
- Every sentence and element must be strategically crafted to maximize impact and drive action.
Breakthrough Advertising provides a comprehensive framework for crafting persuasive copy that resonates with the reader’s desires, builds trust, and ultimately compels them to choose your product.