Copywriting Project

These posters were made and submitted for my 2017 copywriting class.


Commercial Advertisement




            This advertisement is for a new fragrance product; from a brand namely In Bloom, with the headline ‘Touch Me,’ and with the the tagline ‘Touch It, Smell It, Own It.’ There are some theories of copywriting from different authors that were applied in some aspects of the advertisement, such as Andy Maslen and Joseph Sugarman.
            The major concept of this advertisement is taken from Sugarman’s theory of psychological triggers about feeling of involvement or ownership. Rather than making the potential customer imagine the product in their minds, the advertisement ask them to directly touch and smell the fragrance by using the headline ‘Touch Me’ so they can literally smell it after touching the ad. As Sugarman observes, “In your copywriting, let your readers take a stroll down a path with you or let them smell the fragrance through your nose or let them experience some of the emotions you are feeling by forming a mental picture from your description.” Rather than using description, this ad directly and literally introduce the product by using images and taglines which will be explained in the next paragraph.
            Other theory that is applied is Maslen’s theory of layout, graphic, and typefaces. This ad relies on a significant graphic, since its purpose is to sell the smell of a flower. The actual graphic quality is high enough, as advised by Maslen, but somehow there is a slight difference in the printed version and the digital version (photo attached). Maslen’s theory of type font is also applied on the ad. The branding and taglines are using Sans Serif, and the little subheading is in italic. According to Maslen, the headline is better in Sans Serif, but because of personal aesthetic view, the headline is written in Serif to highlight the product’s feminine feel rather than in Sans Serif that would make it more rigid. The headline was applied based on the theory from a video that is shown in the class that talks about some types of headline. Because the purpose of the ad is to make the customer directly smell the fragrance, command type of headline and tagline are used.
            The last concept of this advertisement is giving a discount by using Maslen’s theory of greed in psychological trigger. The ad offers a 50% discount for minimum two purchases to make it seem cheaper.



Public Service Announcement (PSA)




            The theme of this public service announcement is suicide hotline prevention. The announcement relies only on headline without any visual imagery. Some theories from Maslen is applied in the ad.
            Maslen’s theory of headline is the major concept of this ad. Sans Serif is used in all of the words. To differentiate the headline (main heading), tagline (sub-heading), and other sub-section head, Maslen’s theory of point sizes, along with color-combination is applied. The main heading is written in the biggest sizes and the rest of sub-headings follow in smaller sizes with small differences. Color combination is used to make the reader easier to read with priorities. The strongest the color, the more important the word is. Starting from red, to black, and finally to shades of grey and white.
            The last concept is the use of question type and command type heading. The headline uses a simple questioning word “Tired?” to attract the viewer emotionally. In the sub-heading, sentences like “of feeling worthless” and etc. is used to show the viewer that this NGO can relate to the emotions that they feel, as to gain trust. The last sub-heading is in command type of a sentence saying “Talk to us, we’ll be listening.” The question heading that leads to command subheading is used as a way to give resolution to a problem.
            

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