Nature of Your Product

I live in this great little east coast town. It’s super walkable there’s a local ice cream shop only a block from my house. Sometimes when it’s nice I bring my sons there after school.

Now, the thing with ice cream is that it’s food. But unless you’re selling some weird organic froyo shit, no one buys ice cream for its nurtitional value. I certainly wasn’t thinking about nourishing my children’s growing bodies. I was thinking about us having a nice time, them being happy—being happy with me.

Products each have a unique nature, or emotional appeal. This is your angle.

• every product has a unique nature
• an emotional appeal
• the emotional appeal is what makes people want the product
• the product may be seen as a mere vessel for satisfying that desire
• there are logical reasons too

For people to buy, they have to first recognize a need. then, they will look for the solution that makes sense to their situation. What are they looking for in that situation? That is what you sell them.

There are many answers to this question.

A smoke alarm should A) work, B) be easy to install.

ACTION: Determine the main reasons people buy your product, both from an emotional and logical perspective. Draft your sales presentation as follows.

How to you express the true advantages and emotions the product has to offer. (the way you express is the tone of the copy.)

What’s the nature of a toy? It’s a fun game. Highlight enjoyment.

What’s the nature of a blood-pressure unit? It’s a serious medical device. Be serious.

Another way to think about this is to ask what the people’s expectations of your product are.

I expect my Toyota to be reliable. I’d much rather by a beater Toyota than almost any other car for the reason. I don’t think it’ll give me any trouble. I have no real reason to believe that is true beyond any other car I can buy. But I don’t worry about my Toyota on the road.

The speecific way the product should be presented to the customer. This is what Eugene called the “key.” What is the nature of the product in the mind of your customer.

Every product has a unique personality. A unique nature or tone. Your job is to figure out what that is.

TCUDORP

The first job of an ad agency is to look at your product in every imaginable way: frontwards, backwards, sideways, upside down, inside out. Because somewhere, right there in the product itself, lies the drama that will sell it to people who want it.

There may be 10,000 ways to bring that inherent drama to the stage. And given a world in which “me-too” products multiply like mayflies, the drama may seem that much harder to find.

It is.

But every good product has it.

And every good agency finds it.

(Please note: the “t” in tcudorp is silent.)

As a copywriter, it’s up to you to discover this product’s uniqueness.

could also be called “What Are You Selling”

As a copywriter, it’s up to you to discover the product’s uniqueness. There are dozens. You must find the most potent of the litter and ramp the fuck out of it.