How to write the copy to understand and remember?

 　　Why is there a lot of non-human copywriting in marketing?

　　Straightforward, one sentence is clear: because you don't wake up the user's schema (schema).

　　What is a archetype? This concept comes from cognitive psychology and refers to the massive amounts of information and background knowledge stored in our brains, which constitute a different cognitive structure for each person. You can think of the archetype as a filter. Every day when we open our eyes, there will be a lot of information from the outside world, but with the filter of the archetype, we will only notice a small part of the information in the end.

　　Only with the information that awakens the archetype can we have a ticket to the mind. In the transmission of invalid information, these three mistakes are usually made:

　　1. The user lacks relevant archetypes.

　　Have you ever encountered a similar situation when traveling abroad? Some people slow down their speech, increase their volume, and repeat what they want to say when they encounter a language barrier—as if the other person can understand it. Just like many times, marketers need to convey an unfamiliar concept to users, but for people who don’t have relevant background knowledge, the more you describe it, the easier it is for people to get confused. Because the other party lacks a model in your brain, it is easy for the chickens to talk to the ducks, each saying different things.

　　What's even more bizarre is that the more you understand the product, the easier it is to lose communication. Because every time you learn a little bit more knowledge, you lose a point of understanding for those who don't have this knowledge. Over time, your empathy will become weaker and weaker. There is a term called the curse of knowledge, which is about this phenomenon.

　　For example, what is the following picture?

　　If you have watched "The Little Prince", the corresponding archetype in your mind will be awakened, and you will say: Isn't it simple? This is a snake swallowing elephant! But for most people who don’t know, the first thing they see is a hat.

　　How do marketers test the curse of knowledge? It's very simple, a sentence can be understood by people who are illiterate; a product, can a novice user learn to use it without reading the manual; an APP, whether a novice can quickly get started without being confused. If the answer is no, it is the curse of knowledge.

　　2. Unable to call user archetype.

　　The following is a quiz from cognitive psychologist David Rubin (David Rubin), each question asks you to respond quickly in 5 seconds.

　　Think of the first lyrics of the song "Hey, Jude".

　　Think of the picture of the oil painting "Mona Lisa" (Mona Lisa).

　　Think of the concept of fairness.

　　Think of "watermelon".

　　Think of "truth".

　　Have you found it? Each question seems to trigger a different memory activity in your brain. For example, when you think of a song, a melody may linger in your mind; when you think of "Mona Lisa", her famous smile will appear; the mention of watermelon will evoke a series of memories; but once you meet The abstract concepts of "truth" and "fairness" can easily leave your brain blank.

　　The Rubin test shows a truth, the more specific things, the easier it is to stimulate the rich activities in people's brains. The more abstract and complex the concept, the less able to awaken the archetype.

　　3. Conflict with the user base model.

　　Why can't Alipay do social networking? Why is Ma Yinglong lipstick repellent? Why do Starbucks' medium, large, and super large cups confuse most people?

　　Because they all violate the consensus of most people, they all try to challenge the existing archetypes in the user's mind.

　　For example, in the user base model, Alipay = wallet, but the wallet does not require social networking. Similarly, the use scene of Ma Yinglong is completely different from the use scene of lipstick, so why use one brand for two parts? And Starbucks violates our accepted size standards, enough to make any ordinary person messy.

　　So, how can we avoid the above three big pits and write a copy that users can understand and remember? Next, I will share with you a few points.

Learn to communicate with 90% of people

　　Think about it, how to teach a 3-year-old child not to touch the socket in one sentence?

　　Talking to a 3-year-old kid means that you can't speak too complicated concepts and technical terms because they don't understand. Similarly, you can't make long speeches and reason, because they are impatient. Therefore, first, the information must be extremely refined. For example, tell them: socket = dangerous.

　　Next, you have to think about: what relevant archetypes a 3-year-old child already has. For example, they know that big bad wolf = bad guy, tiger = danger, etc.

　　We can compare sockets to tigers they are familiar with, and tell them: "Electric tigers can bite people and must not be touched."

　　No one can understand a completely unfamiliar concept out of thin air. Cognitive psychology research shows that: new information will float in our short-term memory until we find the relevant background and embed it in the existing knowledge network before we can learn it. Therefore, the essence of learning and understanding is to connect unfamiliar things with familiar concepts.

　　For example, once the media reported on the quality problems of a famous fast food restaurant chain, they used a very impactful way of writing, which is unforgettable. How does it do it?

　　The first step: condense the core information.

　　From the many phenomena, see the big from the small, and refine a very convincing detail. For example, the report focused on the large amount of bacteria contained in ice cubes, because most customers would contact and drink ice cubes, and everyone would care about it.

　　Step 2: Look for analogies.

　　If you directly say that the ice cube contains billions of bacteria, it will be difficult for everyone to understand. So you need to find an analogy that most people are familiar with. For example, the toilet represents dirty. The amount of bacteria in the ice cube = the amount of bacteria in the toilet.

　　Step 3: Use familiar concepts to match new concepts.

　　Wonderful copywriting is out: ice cubes are dirtier than toilets.

　　This method can also be used for product copywriting in many categories. For example, Melatonin compares the unpopular ingredient of melatonin to a precious ingredient like platinum; when DJI drones were first launched on the market, they compared the product to a "flying camera."

Mobilize user association

　　What is reification? In the words of behavioral psychologists Dan Heath and Chip Heath: If you can perceive something by your senses, it is called concrete.

　　For example, during the epidemic, a sentence from Kitano Takeshi spread throughout the Internet: "The disaster is not the death of 20,000 people, but the death of one person, which happened 20,000 times." Among them, "Dead." "Twenty thousand people" is abstract, because our brains can't understand huge data; and "one person died 20,000 times" is very specific, and you can even have a sense of the picture for the first time.

　　The slogan "respect service and respect you" is abstract and not human; "Haidilao packed me a whole watermelon", this kind of story is concrete. "Reassuring golden milk source" is abstract, and "adopting a cow" is concrete. Any description that allows people to see, hear, smell, touch, and feel is called concrete.

　　For example, when you describe braised chicken feet as delicious, don't use the clichés like "crispy and tempting, authentic craftsmanship, private kitchen secret recipe", try to replace it with a highlight moment of food, for example: it melts with one sip.

　　When you want to say that the food is delicious, stop using the description of crispy and replace it with a sound experience. For example, click and bite down 5 layers of sandwich; the sound of a spoon scraping cheese salad salad; unscrewing the coke, the sound of foam screaming.

Don't try to challenge the archetype

　　An old American lady was scalded by McDonald's coffee, so she took McDonald's to court. Usually the amount of compensation for such small cases is tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Amazingly, the old lady received a sky-high compensation of 2.4 million US dollars. How did you do it?

　　It turned out that the lawyer hired by the old lady was particularly powerful. He knows that when the judge and the jury make a verdict, they will refer to similar cases and set a standard for compensation.

　　If you want to get dozens of times the amount, you must first remove the previous reference, and then set a new standard. What standard is reasonable? The lawyer did not propose a specific amount, but proposed: McDonald's coffee pays one day's sales as a punishment.

　　This new requirement frames people’s thinking and encourages the jurors’ thinking to revolve around two questions: Is a day’s coffee sales fair? How many days of coffee sales are fair?

　　What lawyers do is to avoid other influences and set up a new frame of reference. Just like when you are shopping or ordering food, mature sales will not ask you: Do you want an A? Instead it asks you: Do you want A or B? Let you subconsciously choose one of the two.

　　There is a well-known multiple-choice question on the Internet: Do you want to eat chocolate-flavored baba, or baba-flavored chocolate? Then everyone split into two factions and quarreled together. In fact, this question also sets up a frame of reference for you to choose from.

　　Consider a question: Under the epidemic situation, fast food products usher in opportunities for consumption upgrades, but why does Ramen, which has only been established for two or three years, said that it has defeated old brands such as Master Kong and Uni-President?

　　Some people say that it is because of the aging and slow response of brands such as Master Kong and Uni-President, which gave new players a blank opportunity. Actually not. They began to transform into high-end and healthy products a few years ago, and successively launched high-priced products of 20 yuan and 30 yuan, but they have repeatedly suffered setbacks. Why don't consumers buy it?

　　Because when it comes to Master Kong and Uni-President, what is the base model that users are awakened? Instant noodles. As for instant noodles, it is easy to associate negative perceptions, such as unhealthy, unpalatable, cheap, and favorites of migrant workers. Naturally, all actions made around the cognitive model of instant noodles, such as more exquisite packaging and more ingredients, are ineffective.

　　So consumers don’t pay for such high-priced products, instead they complain:

　　“I have the money, why would I want to eat instant noodles?”

　　“30 yuan can be used to stir-fry two dishes and get a bottle of beer.”

　　“It’s so expensive. Instant noodles can’t be eaten.” Once you have

　　mastered the concept of cognitive archetypes, you can understand why domestic products that have been established for a short period of time have risen rapidly, defeating the mainstream brands that have been in the market.

　　Because in the basic model of people, when Nestlé instant coffee = low-priced instant coffee, it is difficult to transform into a "premium instant"; when Quaker = middle-aged and elderly cereals, it cannot become an Internet celebrity fitness slimming meal replacement. .

　　Therefore, setting aside the model of the old generation of brands and successfully setting a new frame of reference that is more in line with the needs of the times is the essential reason for the counterattack of small brands such as Ramen.

　　Step 1: Remove the cognitive archetype of instant noodles.

　　Ramen said that in every aspect of packaging, pricing, channels, etc., it deliberately draws a line from instant noodles.

　　For example, instant noodles are on the shelves in the snack section, while ramen is said to be sold in the cold and fresh section. For many years, we have been accustomed to classify products according to the classification of shelves. Of course, in people's minds, ramen is not instant noodles.

　　The second step: establish a new model, Ramen said = health + understanding of life + convenience.

　　For example, instant noodles are brewed with boiling water, while ramen noodles are said to need to be boiled on a low heat for 3 minutes. Don't underestimate this ritualistic action, because compared to the instant noodle eating scene, Ramen said it tried to awaken the model of people eating at home. Compared with instant noodles, cooking at home is of course healthier and more understanding of life.

　　Using the method of resetting the frame of reference, imagine what would you do if you were asked to write product copy for an air fryer?

　　When it comes to air fryer, most people will understand it literally, it seems to use some black technology related to air to complete the frying. Some people even think of air fryer like popcorn. The memory it recalls is deep-fried cooking props.

　　In this case, can we use the perception that fried foods are unhealthy? For example, it can be written as: oil-free and smoke-free, protect family health, bid farewell to traditional frying. Or find the use scene of air fryer, for example: without fryer, KFC can be made at home.

　　There are scenes, associations, and advantages. It seems very reasonable. In fact, most air fryer is popularized in this way. But when I look at it, I always think something is weird.

　　So I asked myself another question: What is the first association of most people when it comes to fried food in the copy? It may be food such as French fries, potato chips, grilled wings or even fried dough sticks. So in what contexts do these foods usually appear? It may be a snack for children at home, or it may be a snack for young people before and after meals.

　　Did you find it? The people and scenes associated with fried foods are very limited. Mobilizing such a model association is definitely not a good thing for the product. Then what should be done?

　　Step 1: Remove the scene association of fried food.

　　In fact, I always think air fryer is a bad name. Because it is more similar to the principle of baking in principle, it uses hot air convection to achieve cooking. But its name limits itself to the deep-fried category. Therefore, if you want to get rid of this limitation, the air fryer may consider changing its name and switching to the track of oil-free cooking utensils.

　　Step 2: Associate mainstream Chinese cooking.

　　The principle of hot air convection can actually do many things, such as no frying, frying, baking, roasting, and stir-frying, everything is versatile. But what we really need to do is to set up a new frame of reference that allows users to connect to the mainstream scenario of three meals a day in most Chinese families.

　　For example, when you mention a wok, you can think of a family eating scene; when you mention a bread oven and a microwave, you can think of typical scenes such as eating breakfast and warming milk before going to bed. Under such a frame of reference, the air fryer is redefined. For example: an air fryer = fryer + microwave oven + oven + bread machine + steak pot + wok.

　　When we are doing marketing and writing copywriting, what we can really do is from the user's point of view and constantly thinking about how to closely connect the information we want to deliver with the user model. This is the primary proposition for most product promotion, and it is also the scarcest ability for marketers.