The Force of “Reading Gravity”

 I once received a letter from a reader of Scientific American magazine in response to one of our ads on thermostats.  The lady for a thermostat, was not interested in the subject, rarely reads advertisements and when she does, she just scans through them.  But, she went on, “I am a busy scientist.  When I started reading your ad, I wasted five minutes of my valuable time reading the entire thing and I was so upset at the complete waste of my time, that I wanted to write you and complain.”  As  a copywriter, I couldn’t have gotten a more complimentary complaint letter.

 If you can get the majority of the people who scan a magazine to read your ad, maybe you won’t sell every one of them but you will sell a good percentage.  Creating the slippery slide will cause people to “traffic” your ad – to go through the entire text of your ad and then decide if they want to buy.

 ‘Traffic’ is a good word in retail selling.  Any shopping centre that can draw increased traffic will have increased sales for its stores.  But the traffic generated by these stores can only be compared to the people who actually read your copy.  That’s why some of the greatest magazines with the largest circulations do not guarantee the success of your advertisement.  Traffic is strictly the number of people who get into your copy.  When I say “get into,” I mean falling down the slippery slide all the way through to the end of your copy.

 Creating the slippery slide effect is not that difficult once the reader is well into your copy.  In fact, it’s been proven that if a reader reads over 25% of your ad, there is a great probability that he or she will read the entire ad.  So once you’ve grabbed your reader at the start of your ad with your perfect environment and once they’re reading your compelling first sentence, you’ve got them started down the slippery slide.

Slippery Slide Examples

 Let’s look at a few examples of the use of the slippery slide in some of the advertising

I’ve written through the years.  I referred to the thermostat ad above, so lets start with that.  The copy starts out with the following headline, subheadline and first two paragraphs:

            Headline:  Magic Baloney

Subheadline:  You’ll love the way we hated the Magic Stat thermostat until an amazing thing happened.

Picture Caption:  It had no digital readout, an ugly case and a stupid name.  It almost made us sick.

Copy:  You’re probably expecting our typical sales pitch, but get ready for a shock.  For instead of trying to tell you what a great product the Magic Stat thermostat is, we’re going to tear it apart.  Unmercifully.

When we first saw the Magic Stat, we took one look at the name and went, “Yuck.”  We took one look at the plastic case and said, “How cheap looking.”  And when we looked for the digital readout, it had none.  So before the salesman even showed us how it worked, we were totally turned off.

 Now if you’re reading the above ad, you’re starting down the slippery slide unable to stop.  You might find yourself reading the copy even though you have no intention of buying a thermostat by mail.  You’re curious.  What’s the gimmick?

 The environment was set by the very clean layout.  The tone of the ad was one of a flip, sarcastic and skeptical company exploring the possibility of selling a product that we were not very impressed with.

 Of course the rest of the ad told of how we discovered a few nice points and then a few more and then some really great features and finally decided that this was one great product.  At the end of the ad, we finished with:

 Beauty is only skin deep and a name doesn’t really mean that much.  But we sure wish those guys at Magic Stat would have named their unit something more impressive.  Maybe something like Twinkle Temp.

 That single ad ran for over three years and not only generated large volume for us but propelled the Magic Stat people to become one of the major thermostat contenders nationwide.  Finally, after three years of promoting their product, I received a call from the owner of the company thanking me for the wonderful sales and awareness we created for him.  “Had it not been for JS&A, the company would have never even gotten off the ground.”