I. Assignment I
Clip from current newspapers or magazines five advertisements which in your opinion have effective attention lines. Pick out five advertisements which in your opinion have ineffective attention lines. Give your reasons for your choice.
II. Assignment II
- Taking the attention arguments selected in the preceding chapter, set down all the questions that you might ask as a possible customer if you had been attracted by the attention line.
- In the five examples of effective advertising selected from newspapers or magazines, set down the questions that are answered in the matter following the attention lines.
III. Coherence in Advertising
An effective advertisement must be a logically developed argument leading from the attraction of attention to the point where the reader is convinced that he wants your goods, and beyond that to the point where he will take some definite physical action to get them.
The steps intervening between attention and action may be sketched in the briefest terms, may in some exceptional cases be omitted entirely from the final form of the advertisement, but must be carefully worked out in the mind of the writer, no step being omitted that is essential in the chain of reasoning that the ordinary mind must follow.
Obviously the chain of reasoning must start from the attention line. If you have attracted your reader by saying “Prices Cut,” you must tell him how much the reduction is and why you have made the reduction. If, on the other hand, you have attracted the attention by saying “Our Goods are the Best,” you must explain the reasons why they are the best. That the mind of the reader may be held to the line of the argument from attention to action, all material that has no bearing upon this line of argument must be excluded.
IV. Exercise
Answer the questions about the various articles set down in Assignment I, being careful to follow the logical order in which they would occur and to exclude all material that does not relate directly to the argument you have selected.