Ads That Push the Envelope

This article was written by Roy Williams of Entrepreneur.com. Roy is Entrepreneur.com's "Advertising" columnist and the founder and president of international ad agency Wizard of Ads.

Ads that have impact are like nitroglycerine: Handle them properly and they can move mountains for you; get careless with them and you'll blow yourself up.

The worst thing you can do when you've written a powerful ad is to show it to your friends and ask their opinion. Put an ad on trial and every juror will judge two things: Could this ad offend anyone? Was it entertaining?

Consequently, most ads aren't written to persuade; they're written not to offend. But the kinds of ads that produce results make us answer yes to these three questions: Did it get my attention? Was it relevant? Did I believe it?

Ads that twist our attention away from what we'd been doing are always a bit annoying. This is why ads that get results also get complaints. Learn to ignore complaints from controlling people or your ads will forever be emasculated.

Were you slightly offended by that last statement? That's exactly the kind of statement that'll get complaints. But it'll also get results.

I once wrote a radio ad that included the line, "That just ain't gonna happen." My client, a diamond jeweler, received two letters and four phone calls from irate listeners who claimed he was contributing to the erosion of the English language. One of the letters concluded, "How can our children hope to learn proper grammar when the leading advertisers of our city speak incorrectly? I must insist that you withdraw this ad from the airwaves immediately, or my friends and I will have no recourse other than to discontinue shopping in your establishment."

By the time my client had received the fifth complaint, it felt to him as if the sky were falling. But then I reminded him that one of our goals was to be perceived as less formal and less intimidating than other diamond jewelry sellers. I told him, "These few complaints are simply part of the price we must pay to win the heart of the common man. And the common man believes all jewelers are snobs."

I won the argument. My client continued the ad. Traffic and sales went up by 28%.

Later that year, I wrote the same client an ad that said, "Buy her the diamond she's been dreaming of since she was a little girl." Men responded exactly as we'd predicted, but we also got two letters from women who felt somewhat belittled. They said they were doing very well, thank you, and didn't need any man to buy them diamonds.

I immediately sent the following ad script to my client: "This is Richard Kessler of Kesslers Diamond Center. I suggested in a recent radio ad that every man should buy the woman he loves 'the diamond she's been dreaming of since she was a little girl.' [pause] What was I thinking? This nation is full of women who can and do buy diamonds for themselves, and we want to be their store, too. Gosh, I feel like a knucklehead."