0495 – 17 - Lead in Lines

2022.05.10 – 0495 – 17 - Lead in Lines

17 - Lead in Lines

By creating the atmosphere of a conversation, it’s easier to pretend you’re in one.

Most commercial copy sets up a problem, and then provides a product, brand or service as a potential solution. For example, “Want to get your laundry whiter than white?” After that you will presume that the answer will be “Yes I do, but how?” Acting is re-acting to the response that you got. You are having a conversation albeit a one-sided one. Do that and you will sound less robotic.

Sometimes I like to surprise my friends by calling them up and just launching into a conversation. No preamble of “how are you?”, “have you got a moment?” or “I wanted to tell you about so and so…”. I may, as soon as they answer, simply say “You free Sunday?” or “Unbelievable!”. It throws them, because I’ve destroyed the ‘conversational expectation’.

Similarly, if you start a script-read going straight into the first sentence, then mentally you are unprepared. It’s unnatural to just say “The all-new Pontiac Mercury has all-round safety buffer zones” or “Got a stubborn stain that you just can’t shift?” or “The port of Dover is closed tonight and hundreds of lorries and their drivers are queued-up through Kent…”. Logically and naturally, you need to have a reason to start saying those things, ‘permission’ if you like, from your listener, to get into the ‘zone tone’.

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