The Ad-Writing Acid Test

The Ad-Writing Acid Test

A quick but revealing story. Ten years ago. The Pillsbury mansion near the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Chuck Anderson and I are sitting in his second floor office admiring the Institute and ignoring Chuck’s office walls. Those walls are covered with our ideas of an ad. After two days, our creative director notices the stench and boldly enters Chuck’s office.

Then he mumbles and leaves.

The next day he returns, he sees we haven’t progressed.

He says something I still remember vividly. “If it’s this hard to write the ad, the product is flawed.”

It’s true. If you cannot write a reasonably good ad for your service- an ad that makes an attractive promise to your prospect- your service needs fixing.

Write an ad for your service. If after a week your best ad is weak, stop working on the ad and start working on your service.

Extracts from “Selling the Invisible”