Page 130 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

a) Sat with a couple of colleagues, smiling at a computer monitor,
while one of you actually touches a pie chart on screen?

b) Stared into the middle distance, sucking pensively on one end
of your designer glasses frame, while standing by a venetian
micro-blind taking in the view over that beguiling mistress we
call The City?

c) Taken part in a meeting with a group of five impossibly good-
looking people where you all laughed and showed off your very
white teeth.

None? I’m not particularly surprised. Want to know why? Because . . .

a) Nobody ever does that. It’s a stupid thing to do.

b) You’re too busy. (And your office looks out onto a main road. Or
a ventilation duct.)

c) People who are that attractive work as models.

And, in fact, that’s my point. Those stock library shots are always
posed by models. Of course they are: that’s their job. But they
don’t look anything like real purchasing managers. Or lawyers.
Or marketing executives. So why do so many companies produce
websites/brochures/ads populated with these twinkly eyed, buff-
bodied “businesspeople”? I suspect they harbor a subconscious
desire to appropriate just a little of that glamor for what they perceive
to be their own rather humdrum products.

In practice

• Why not take photographs of your customers. Or your staff.

Doing what real customers and real staff do.

• Caption them in a way that reinforces your positioning and

copy points.

100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS • 121