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THE LEVISON LETTER
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Action Ideas For Better Direct Mail,
E-mail, Web Sites & Advertising
Published by
Ivan Levison, Direct Response Copywriting
February, 2007
Volume: 23 Number: 2
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My great (unpublished) marmalade campaign
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The legendary art director George Lois once said that
copywriters should
never talk about their great ideas for ads that never got produced.
He didn't want to hear copywriters whining and pouting
about brilliant
concepts that never made it past the account executive or client.
I've always agreed with Lois's philosophy but I'm going
to request that
you grant me a one-time waiver right now. You see, I want to tell
you
about a neat ad campaign that I came up with, but never showed to
a soul.
Here's the story . . . Many years ago, on vacation in
England, I was on the
train heading up to London when I came upon an ad in the Times of
London
Sunday supplement that struck me as extremely dull and unimpressive.
It was for Elsenham Marmalade.
The ad showed a jar of the stuff and the copy celebrated
its many virtues. This ad
was really dead on arrival. It struck me that Elsenham was selling
a profoundly
English product loaded with meaning and rich associations, and yet
all they could come
up with was a boring product shot.
I started thinking about how I would handle the advertising
if the Elsenham
account were mine, and as the train rumbled along towards Charing
Cross
station, I came up with the following campaign . . .
We'd run three, full-page color ads in weekly rotation.
Each one would
feature an instantaneously identifiable, absolutely quintessential
Englishman
or woman. Two that came to mind immediately at the time were Robert
Morley,
the great English comic actor, and Henry Cooper, the old British boxing
legend.
In all ads, the famous person is sitting at a beautiful
breakfast table with a
classic, bountiful English breakfast spread out before them. There's
bacon,
bangers, fried eggs, fried tomato, kippers, baked beans, toast, in
other words
(to mix cultures) the whole enchilada.
The only thing NOT on the table is marmalade. So the
famous English person in
the photo isn't happy. In fact he's irate! He's banging his fist on
the table and
looking to camera, stating with real intensity:
"For MY English breakfast, it's Elsenham's or
else!"
In the body copy he explains that the English breakfast
is a great institution
but it's incomplete, inauthentic, and just not the real thing unless
there's
Elsenham's on the table. Elsenham is what makes a classic English
breakfast, English.
"It's Elsenham's or else!"
The point is, the campaign's great virtue is that it
fully leverages the product's
emotional content. Its appeal is not based on mere claims about flavor
or ingredients.
Instead, it associates the product with a deep sense of Englishness
and gives
Elsenham's a cultural, iconic status.
Anyway, by the time I got to London, I had the whole
campaign written in my
head, my heart was racing with excitement, and I was all set to go!
The only thing I lacked was a client.
Now, twenty-plus years later, I have many clients of
my own and the copywriting
ideas I have are not merely consigned to my imagination. Instead,
they see the
light of day and are produced in media of all kind.
Lots of high tech. Very little marmalade.
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How To Get In Touch
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Ivan Levison
Direct Response Copywriting
14 Los Cerros Drive
Greenbrae, CA 94904
Phone: (415) 461-0672
Fax: (415) 461-7738
E-mail: ivan@levison.com
Web Site: http://www.levison.com
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Copyright 2008, by Ivan Levison, All Rights Reserved.
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