Why we love this
Why we love this
We're suckers for copy that isn't just a good bit of copy, but that changes an entire industry in an instant.
And in 2005, FeverTree did just that. This was pre-financial crisis and pre-craft boom and consumers were starting to trade up across the board. They were spending more on better coffee, better food, better wine... this idea that you could pay a wee bit more and get something significantly better was becoming mainstream.
It was the very early days of the craft boom, basically.
And so, with customers happily paying £35 for a bottle of Hendrick's, FeverTree asked "why are people paying so much for good gin and then drowning it in cheap tonic water?".
And thus, this banger of an ad (and the whole thesis for their company) was born.
Love it.
Steal this for your brand
Now, lots of things have changed since 2003. (Not least of which: the tightness of our jeans.)
Which means that the specifics of this FeverTree ad can't really be applied any more. Every single product on the planet now has a premium version that does this FeverTree move of reframing the conversation.
And it works still. (So if you're launching a new premium product, take note.)
But the bigger picture here is that there's so much power in a simple reframe.
One line of copy that challenges how your customers think can get an "oh yeah, I never thought of it like that" reaction and, all of a sudden, they're way more ready to buy from you.
There's a concept in behavioural psychology called pattern interruption, which is the idea that disrupting an automatic thought pattern forces conscious processing and makes people more open to new information. A good reframe does exactly that.
And the trick to a good reframe is to find a truth that's been hiding in plain sight. Something that makes a customer say "oh shit, that's so obvious, why have I never thought of it like that?"
So here's our method for trying to find a reframe.
(Full disclosure: 60% of the time, this works every time. Reframing whole categories is hard.)
Step 1: find a stat or insight about your customers or category.
You wash your face roughly 700 times a year. You spend a third of your life with your face pressed against your pillow. Your coffee is 98% water.
That kind of thing. (A stat or a number makes it doubly-persuasive. Our brains love specifics.)
Then, reframe it.
Find a twist on that stat that draws attention to the importance of your product.
Let's take the coffee one. (Because we're writing this at 2pm and the siren call of the coffee machine is oh-so-tempting right now...)
And we end up with something like this:
Your beans are single origin imported from Columbia. Your grinder cost £200. Your water is from a pipe in Swindon.
98% of your coffee is water. Why not purify it?
Sure, it's not the most inventive bit of copy ever. And it's a massive rip off of FeverTree.
But it does the trick.
(Like we said, we need another coffee. We're off to purify our water.)
