How to Break (Almost) All the Rules And Still Laugh All the Way to the Bank

You can find all kinds of opinions and “rules” about what it takes to make your advertising work—and they certainly have their place.

But in the final analysis, the rules don’t matter much if you’re not saying anything that really connects with readers.

Likewise, you can break a lot of the rules as long as you are saying something that actually connects. (In fact, breaking the rules can sometimes help you break through and gain attention.)

But the one rule you can’t break is the one E. M. Forrester suggested for novelists: “Only connect.” It applies to advertising as well.

Case in point. Here is the headline for one of the most famous ads in advertising history, written by the legendary John Caples (half a century ago) to sell a course in learning to play the piano:

They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano,
But When I Started to Play…

Some would say it’s too long. Others would say that it doesn’t have the name of product in the headline. Others would say that talking about being laughed at is a negative. (I’ve heard all these “rules.”)

And granted, this doesn’t sound like a typical ad headline.

Yet the ad sold a ton of products, won a bunch of awards, and helped secure John Caples’ reputation as one of the great copywriters of all time. (See ) Because it connected.

What Caples did was to imaginatively put himself in the shoes of the customer at the moment that the customer was experiencing the payoff of the product. Then he wrote a headline, in the customer’s language, that captured the experience of that payoff.

By focusing on the payoff, he hit pay dirt!

The next time you’re stuck for a headline—or wondering if the headline you’ve got is really working as hard as it could—try this yourself. Imagine what it would be like to be the customer at a crucial moment when the customer experiences the product paying off. Imagine what the customer might do or say. Then, write a headline that captures that experience or tells that story.

For a moment, forget all the rules. Except to “only connect.”