Page 141 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

64 USE PICTURES YOUR
READER IDENTIFIES
WITH

Using pictures to attract people is as old as advertising, but you
have to choose the right ones to make your copy work harder.
Attracting them is one thing, getting them to read on quite another.
Believe it or not—and why should it be so hard to believe?—people
look at photos they can identify with. That often means human
faces. Human faces of the same gender as the reader.

You can go further of course. If you’re selling a business product
or service aimed at CEOs, show some CEO-looking person. In
other words, unless it’s a software product, someone in their forties
or fifties. If you’re selling to parents, show a mum. (Yes, I know
dads are parents too, but it’s the women who make most of the
purchase decisions.)

The idea

From a health supplements firm
If you were writing an ad aimed at persuading young men to buy protein
muscle-building supplements, what picture would you choose? A buff
looking guy with ripped abs? A close-up of a pile of the miracle powder
that would give the reader muscles like these? A set of dumbbells with
the caption, “Throw these away—you won’t be needing them any
more”? Any of them would be a great place to start.

Yet, following a long and not particularly honorable line of builder’s
merchants, petrol companies, and tool manufacturers, the makers

132 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS