The ad that said too much
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Let me show you an ad I saw the other day.
This is an ad for an Australian company called Avant, which provides indemnity (malpractice for my American readers) insurance for doctors.
Don't feel like you need to read every word of the ad - just take a look at its overall framework, which is what I want to talk about today. It's a headline, a subhead then three benefit statements.
It's an example of copy being too wide when it could be deep. I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute.
(And please excuse my photography skills, which cut off a centimeter or so on the right-hand side.)
Take a look:
So we have:
Award-winning defence - they have a massive legal team, and a giant health law firm on retainer.
Advocating for your interests - they lobby for stuff that makes doctors' lives better, like PPE and so forth
Financial stability - Pretty self-explanatory.
Breaking down the benefits
That first benefit is great - particularly the bit about having retained the largest health law firm in Australia. I don't know the specifics of that arrangement, but I do know that law firms like to avoid conflicts of interest. So it's not out of the question that they may be the only insurer to have retained the largest health law firm in Australia. That is a huge benefit for a doctor being sued.
The second one is nice enough, but it's not something you get by working with Avant. They can't advocate for PPE just for their members. If you're a doctor in Australia, you're going to benefit from this regardless of who your insurer is.
And that third one is just tickets to the game. It's like advertising the fact that a car's wheels don't fall off. Wheels not falling off is one of the bare minimum things we expect from a car; it's not a benefit.
It's too wide!
Here's the problem: these three benefits are not equal. One is really good, one is okay, and one is of very little consequence whatsoever.
Yet, the ad gives each of them equal priority. It gives a little nod to each of three things, rather than really honing in on one compelling thing.
This is a really common problem in copywriting. In fact, it's so common that I wrote about another brand making the same mistake, nearly a year ago.
I think it comes from an effort to "cover all your bases." Listing three things, and giving them equal priority, lets you avoid the hard decision of focusing on just one really good thing.
But while it may make you feel safe, it's not actually safe. When you list out three or more things, you're effectively diluting the really compelling benefits, and needlessly elevating the less-compelling benefits. The whole thing comes off as kind of bland. A reader has a hard time figuring out what really sets your product apart from its competition.
Choose one, and go hard
My advice in a situation like this is to choose one benefit, and structure your whole ad around that. The headline, the subhead, the body copy - make it all focused on telling one story, really well.
In the case of this ad, I would build the whole thing around that first benefit - the 270 lawyers + the top health law firm on retainer. I'd write the headline around that, and then, rather than have three benefits, I would devote an entire paragraph or more to really getting into the details of why working with the top lawyers in the field makes Avant a great insurer. Maybe include some short, anonymised success stories for good measure.
And that's not to say you can't talk about more than one thing. Those other two benefits can easily be slotted in! But since they're lower priority, you can just leave them at the end as a short sentence or two. Something like "and on top of that, we advocate for your interests every day - and have the financial stability you expect from your insurer."
The downside of this approach is that it comes with risk. What if you choose the wrong benefit?
But the way to mitigate that risk is not to just throw a whole bunch of things at your ad and hope that one of them sticks. Rather, the way to mitigate that risk is to do your research ahead of time. Talk to customers, talk to your sales team, read reviews - whatever you need to do. And use that information to find the one thing your customers really care about.
Then serve that thing straight back to them.
It takes time and energy, and you need to back yourself. But the end result is a lot more compelling than a set of three random benefits.
Give it a go sometime. Let me know how you get on.
Sam
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Photo by Bill Oxford on Unsplash