Rosser Reeves: The Real Don Draper From Mad Men.
Reeves and his friend were walking through Central Park one lunchtime, when they came across a blind homeless person begging for money. He had a cup for donations in front of him with a sign “I am blind” handwritten on it.
Reeves had a bet with his friend that he could change the guys fortune for the day with just 4 words. He changed the sign to read “It’s springtime and I am blind”.
By contrasting his reality with those passing by, he created a deeper sense of empathy for the homeless man’s plight.
Reeves was the man behind M&M’s advertising campaign. His secret to success was thorough listening and research into his market. “He told me the whole history and then I pressed him and he said, ‘Well, the thing is, they only melt in your mouth, but they don’t melt in your hands.’” That was all Reeves needed.
Reeves just happens to be the real life model for the character, Don Draper on the TV series Mad Men. He is also famous for coining the phrase “Unique Selling Point” or USP.
He believed that the purpose of advertising was to show the unique value of the product not cleverness or humour of the copywriter. This is a similar concept to the “BIG IDEA” which we hear Agora Copywriters talk about or Blue Ocean strategy.
He tripled product sales with this advertisement for Anacin offering relief from headaches.
Vintage Anacin Commercial (c.1960) Hilarious Headache Television Spot! — YouTube
In his book Reality in Advertising, he was writing down the formula you can use to write any effective Promise Lead.
Reeves’ formula had three parts.
The first part for Reeves meant starting with the product. But, only if that product was actually good enough to almost sell itself. As a preacher’s son, Reeves was fundamentally honest and felt all advertising should be, too. The product must be able to do what you’ll say it can do.
But, an even better reason for starting with the product is the second part of Reeves’ formula. What the product does, and by default will claim to do, has to be original. That is, the best products do something the competitor’s won’t or can’t. That’s key because the USP — the promise you’ll make — has to sound and feel different from everything your prospect has heard before, too.
Then, there’s the final part of Reeves’ formula. This is the one most forgotten, but it’s impossible to overlook if you’ve got any hope of coming up with a powerful promise. Every promise must target your prospect’s core desire. That is, they have to already want what you’re promising.
Reeves believed that you cannot create desire in a customer. You can only awaken what’s already there.
Successful advertising for a flawed product would only increase the number of people who tried the product and became dissatisfied with it. If advertising is effective enough and a product flawed enough, the advertising will accelerate the destruction of the brand. Fortunes are made from repeat business. Money would be better spent building some kind of meaningful advantage into a product before launching a costly advertising campaign to promote it.
Reeves advised clients to be wary of brand image advertising which is less likely to be successful than his claim-based strategy. This is because when communication relies on an image, the claim is not articulated. An image can almost always be interpreted different ways, many if not most of which won’t do a product any good. The message that a viewer takes away from an image is often very different from what the advertiser had intended.
Every product has a number of benefits that might be claimed. Commonly one of the benefits is more popular than the others, even more popular than the others combined. Again, this is similar to that ONE BIG IDEA. Therefore, it’s imperative to do everything to make people understand the most important benefit, to achieve credibility and to avoid distractions. The aim is to have as high a percentage of people as possible take out of an advertisement what the advertiser intends to put into it i.e ONE BIG IDEA. This is most likely to be achieved if a claim is articulated and proven with credible evidence — in a brief commercial, some kind of dramatic demonstration.
He was also responsible for creating Dwight Eisenhower’s 1952 presidential election campaign ads. He packaged him as a forthright, strong, yet friendly leader.
