Your next chore is to find out what kind of advertising your competitors have been doing for similar products, and with what success. This will give you your bearings.

BRAND IMAGE You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place. The personality of a product is an amalgam of many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of its advertising, and, above all, the nature of

At the start of your career in advertising, what you learn is more important than what you earn.

Says James Webb Young, one of the best copywriters in history, ‘Every type of advertiser has the same problem: to be believed. The mail-order man knows nothing so potent for this purpose as the testimonial, yet the general advertiser seldom uses it.’

Aldous Huxley, who was once a copywriter, said, ‘It is easier to write ten passably effective sonnets than one effective advertisement.’ You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.

Sorry, we’re unable to display this type of content.

WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? You can do homework from now until doomsday, but you will never win fame and fortune unless you also invent big ideas. It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.

Did it make me gasp when I first saw it? 2. Do I wish I had thought of it myself? 3. Is it unique? 4. Does it fit the strategy to perfection? 5. Could it be used for 30 years?

By attempting to cover too many things, they achieve nothing.