What makes advertising successful? What is it that all successful copies share?
It is the correct identification of the mass desire that is shared among millions of people.
Copy does not create mass desire, it merely focuses it, hones it in on a particular product.
Again, copy does not create mass desire, it directs it. So what then is mass desire?
Mass desire is the public spread of a private want. Take for example, the desire to communicate.
We all wish to talk to share stories with our family, share gossip with our friends.
When our desire to communicate became shared among millions, the market for the phone was born,
and with it, the copy to write.
There are two types of forces that create this mass desire:
Permanent, such as instinct, or a mass technological problem and forces of change, such as trends,
and mass entertainment.
The job of a copy writer is to identify the mass desire his product solves best, then create copy that
acknowledges it–reinforces it–and offers the most powerful means of satisfying it.
This is the most important single task of a copy writer.