Creating a Common Enemy

A copywriter’s job is to recognize people as they are, and not how he wishes them to be. This is one of the secrets to becoming a great copywriter. If you can see people as they actually are, then you will be much better equipped to write in a way that connects with your readers and influences them to take the action you desire.

Here’s one of those ugly human traits most good copywriters recognize: people don’t like to take personal responsibility. Rather, they like to blame other people, circumstances, government, and everything else for all of their problems.

Take responsibility? No.

Blame others? Yes.

It’s this deep understanding of human nature that leads to the creation (and use) of certain copywriting strategies like the one in which you create a common enemy.

Have you seen this strategy before? It goes something like this:

If you’re struggling to make ends meet; if you can’t seem to ever save any money; if you’re going deeper and deeper into debt every day, week, and month of the year… it’s not your fault!

What’s more, the situation you’re in is certainly not unique. Thousands of people around the country are in the same exact situation. Why? Because big business is doing whatever it can to milk you for all you’re worth.

Every advertising campaign you witness, every product you buy, and every purchasing decision you make has been designed to get as much of your money as possible… often leaving you with nothing left! (Except for a big credit card balance.)

I just wrote that off the top of my head so you could actually see what I’m talking about. In this case, the common enemy is “big business.” It could just as easily be “credit card companies,” “the wealthy elite,” or even “Wall Street.”

By creating a common enemy,
you are siding with your reader.

All of a sudden, you’re the good guy. Imagine… your reader is standing next to you and you’ve got your arm around his shoulder. You point at your common enemy and play the blame game. “It’s your fault we’re in this mess!” you yell together.

All this is really just a set-up for making the sale. Because while your prospect is distracted by blaming everybody for his problems, you’re getting ready to present the solution. And since your reader’s state of mind has been altered, he will be more receptive to whatever solution you present him with.

The ironic (sad?) part is, the solution being offered will probably also be designed to get as much money as possible from your prospect. Although your reader won’t recognize this immediately because he sees you as a friend.

Let me give you an illustration not at all connected with business, sales, or marketing:

David Barsamian: In A People’s History of the United States, you quote Randolph Bourne, “War is the health of the state.”

Howard Zinn: Randolph Bourne wrote that around the time of World War I. He saw that war was something that the state needs, that the government needs, for various reasons but one of them being that it gives the government a reason for existence. It gives the government a rationale for all it does. It gives the government more security from the possible rebelliousness of its own population when they face difficult situations. Because war gives the government, the state, as Randolph Bourne put it, an opportunity to unite the country around a foreign enemy and therefore to put into the shadows the grievances that people have against their own system.

[Source: Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics by Howard Zinn with David Barsamian, p. 89]

I found this passage illuminating because as we do in war, we also do in advertising.

Just as the government wages war to unite the people against a common enemy, thereby making citizens more receptive to legislation that takes away personal freedom, so copywriters “wage war” against a common enemy, thereby making prospects more receptive to products that take away their money.

“Advertising is much like war,
minus the venom.” –Claude Hopkins

My observations are by no means unique. Claude Hopkins made some of the same observations many decades before I did. Although I might alter Hopkins’ quote to say simply, “Advertising is much like war.” Period.

In business, there are casualties along the way (overextended consumers), and often the ends (profit) justify the means (advertising), even though the means are not always entirely above board.

But that is the nature of the business we find ourselves in. The trick, then, is to recognize these things and act in a way that is ethical, honorable, even admirable.

-Ryan M. Healy