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No? Why not? It’s your own head and you know more about how it ought to be cut than any tonsorial “expert” possibly can.
This sounds foolish but we’re speaking a parable. This article is written for consumption by those business men who insist on writing their own ads on the ground that they know more about the business than any professional advertising man can.
The agency man who offers to handle your advertising does not insult your intelligence. Advertising is a profession requiring constant study and the agency man pays you the compliment of believing that you are too busy managing your business generally, to master this one phase of it. Especially when it is cheaper and more convenient to have it handled by specialists.
Even if you were an expert barber you probably could not cut your own hair, because you could not get the same view of the job that another man would. It’s the same in advertising. You are intimately acquainted with your own business. Certain facts are so woven into the very warp of your soul, that when it comes to writing your copy you forget that the things which are so very obvious to you are unknown to the public and must be explained.
The professional advertising man brings the impartial viewpoint of the outside, and because of this, if he is an advertising man worthy of the name, he will breathe into your campaign the soul that makes the difference between the copy that benefits and the Frankensteins that crush their creators.
Author: Paul Lessing
Lessing Advertising Agency
Des Moines, Iowa
July, 1911
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Advice that is almost 100 years old but which still rings true today. It IS much easier to eke out the best bits about a business when you are looking in unbiasedly from the outside. Only recently I wrote the entire content for a recruiter's website. The person who briefed me told me it had taken them months of sitting and staring at it and not really getting anywhere in terms of writing the finished piece. I wrote it in just under two days and he was delighted with what he got. Just as you wouldn't cut your own hair or attempt to wire your own house or fix a plumbing problem unless you were an electrician or plumber, so you shouldn't try to create an advertising campaign or, if you want top make the most of the opportunity, even a one off recruitment ad.
Thanks for reading, and for your comments. Mr. Lessing would thank you personally if he could.
That's our favorite part of the Paul Lessing back from the grave experiment. 100 year old advice is still true today. The mediums have changed, but many of the advertising conventions have not!
The trick is getting the client to let go of their bias from their point of view.
I'm a big fan of this post. You could take this and insert the term "attorney" or "financial advisor" and it would still be relevant. The moral: if you are an expert chef, then prepare a tasty meal, but have a CPA handle your taxes.
@claire – correct. Clients are to close to their own business to see through the blinders they've put up.
@phil – thanks, Phil. I am sure if Mr. Lessing was alive today, he would be a big fan of Phil K. James. A "holla" from the grave to you, Phil.
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