Page 45 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

16 IMAGINE . . .

One of the simplest techniques for getting your reader to engage
with your copy is to ask them to use their imagination. And the
simplest way to do this is to use the verb “imagine.” Telling people
to imagine something engages far more of their brain than simply
writing about your product.

Instead, you give them license to daydream—a far more pleasurable
activity than reading. Then all you have to do is create a place for
them where that daydream leads, inexorably, to interest in whatever
you’re selling.

The idea

From dreamcarhire.com, a sports car hire firm
As a self-confessed petrolhead, I love everything to do with fast cars.
And I guess like a lot of people, I’d love to tool around in a Ferrari
for a day—or longer. But until that lottery win or inheritance from
a mystery millionaire relative, it’s going to have to stay as just a
dream. Or is it? Because, of course, for every dream we in the West
can conjure up, there’s at least one outfit catering to its fulfillment.
In the case of sports car hire, there are dozens, from membership
clubs to straightforward hire companies.

Flicking through the back pages of Top Gear magazine, I came
upon a really great ad for dreamcarhire.com. As an aside, it follows
the ideal ad layout, as used by great copywriters from David Ogilvy
and John Caples on down: picture, headline, body copy, call to
action, logo.

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