"You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different. And that's what too many of the copywriters in the U.S. today don't yet understand"
About this Quote
Reeves is throwing a quiet punch at the advertising industry’s favorite magic trick: distracting people until they confuse attention with desire. The line lands because it flips the usual hierarchy. The ad is not the star; the product is. “Different” is easy - a louder joke, a stranger visual, a weirder voiceover. “Interesting” is harder because it forces a reckoning with what you’re actually selling and why anyone should care once the novelty evaporates.
The subtext is a defense of the kind of blunt, benefit-driven persuasion Reeves championed: the Unique Selling Proposition, the idea that marketing should crystallize a real advantage and hammer it home. He’s not anti-creativity; he’s anti-creativity as camouflage. Make the product interesting can mean improve it, price it smarter, package it better, or at minimum articulate a concrete payoff. Make the ad different is what you do when the offer is thin and the team is hoping style can do the job of substance.
Context matters: mid-century American mass media was becoming a factory for slogans, with television accelerating the temptation to “entertain” viewers into compliance. Reeves is warning that the new tools will seduce copywriters into performing rather than selling. Read now, it sounds like a critique of clickbait culture before the internet: the scroll rewards difference; the market rewards interest. He’s basically saying: stop trying to hack the audience’s attention and start earning it.
The subtext is a defense of the kind of blunt, benefit-driven persuasion Reeves championed: the Unique Selling Proposition, the idea that marketing should crystallize a real advantage and hammer it home. He’s not anti-creativity; he’s anti-creativity as camouflage. Make the product interesting can mean improve it, price it smarter, package it better, or at minimum articulate a concrete payoff. Make the ad different is what you do when the offer is thin and the team is hoping style can do the job of substance.
Context matters: mid-century American mass media was becoming a factory for slogans, with television accelerating the temptation to “entertain” viewers into compliance. Reeves is warning that the new tools will seduce copywriters into performing rather than selling. Read now, it sounds like a critique of clickbait culture before the internet: the scroll rewards difference; the market rewards interest. He’s basically saying: stop trying to hack the audience’s attention and start earning it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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