“Jesus, that looks frightening.”
There are many cosmetic dentists in the town I’m staying in. Some of these dentists advertise.
So there’s a billboard down the road, and it shows a pretty girl, with perfect teeth, smiling brightly at the driver-by.
And then closing in on both sides of the girl’s face… approaching her like monstrous tentacles of an unseen krakken… are various dental instruments of torture — drills, picks, mirrors, and suction tubes.
Every time I pass this billboard, I shudder. It seems to be such a full-on advertising miss.
I guess they tried to associate dentistry with beauty and happiness. They wound up doing just the opposite — making a bright and happy smile look frightening. But who knows, maybe it works?
In any case, it brings to mind one of the greatest direct response mysteries of all time, at least to my mind. Because here’s a quote from Claude Hopkins, the grandfather of direct marketing and the author of the book Scientific Advertising:
Show the bright side, the happy and attractive side, not the dark and uninviting side of things. Show beauty, not homeliness; health, not sickness. Don’t show the wrinkles you propose to remove, but the face as it will appear. Your customers know all about the wrinkles.
In advertising a dentifrice, show pretty teeth, not bad teeth. Talk of coming good conditions, not conditions which exist. In advertising clothes, picture well-dressed people, not the shabby. Picture successful men, not failures, when you advertise a business course. Picture what others wish to be, not what they may be now.
We are attracted by sunshine, beauty, happiness, health, success. Then point the way to them, not the way out of the opposite.
Can this be true? But it’s got to be, right?
After all, Claude Hopkins didn’t have opinions about advertising. He had hard results — scientific advertising — based on keyed ads. The idea back of an ad either sold, or it didn’t.
But hold on. We know today, from equally scientific advertising, that the story of a fat woman humiliated at a ritzy clothing store…
The image of a frightened and injured dog, loose on a busy highway…
The snapshot of a man walking into a shopping mall, killing three people, leaving his shotgun on the counter, and walking out…
We know these are all are powerful ways to make a sale. Or at least my clients and I know.
Because those were all stories I used to start emails, advertorials, and sales letters. And all of them worked many times better than bright, happy, and attractive alternatives.
So what gives?
Has human nature changed so much in the last 100 years?
Or was Claude Hopkins wrong in reading the data he was getting?
Or was this just a classic case of a marketer saying one thing about his marketing… but doing another?
I don’t know. If you do, I hope you will enlighten me about this mystery. And if you’re into direct response mysteries, you might like my scary email newsletter about marketing and copywriting.