RADIO ADVERTISING THAT OVERCOMES “AESTHETIC” OBJECTIONS

Last week I shared 6 ways to anticipate and, in your radio commercial, overcome six types of objections the targeted consumer might have to your offer.

If the objection is Aesthetic, you can overcome it by educating and/or repositioning.

In the 1970s, legendary copywriter and entrepreneur Joseph Sugarman found himself faced with the task of marketing a great, ugly product: an ion generator.

Of course, ion generators are quite familiar to consumers today…thanks to the hundreds of thousands of units sold by Sugarman.

Great: The Energaire ion generator provides a much healthier breathing environment.

Ugly:  In his MARKETING SECRETS OF A MAIL ORDER MAVERICK, Joe explains:

“The product looked strange. It was a cylinder with the top slanting down and a small ball of steel wool at the very top center of the product, the ion-emitting portion of the unit….

“The part of the unit I did not like from an esthetic product design standpoint was the small ball of steel wool; it really took away from the beautiful design.”

So the “objection” Joe had to overcome was the ugly steel wool ball.

Here’s how he did it in his magazine ad:

Headline
Miracle Fuzz

Subheadline 
A new space-age invention and the same effect as lightning combine to create the world’s first home oxygen generation system.

Copy
You need oxygen to live. You can live without food for 60 days, without water for seven days, but without oxygen, you won’t make it past two minutes.

That small piece of fuzz located on top of the cylinder shown above emits negatively charged electrons which attach themselves to molecules of oxygen, thus creating ionized oxygen.

Rather than allow consumers to see the picture and think, “But it’s so ugly!” Sugarman anticipated and swept away that objection by:

A)  Repositioning that ugly ball of steel wool. It’s not an ugly ball of steel wool; it’s MIRACLE FUZZ!

B)  Educating the consumer as to how that Miracle Fuzz can add so much to their daily lives.

When you’re writing your radio advertising copy, ask yourself:

“What might prevent people who would benefit from this product or service from giving it a try?”

and

“How we can ‘get ahead of’ that object and present it positively?”