I was doing my blogging rounds and came across a post about market research on American Copywriter. The image leaves you wondering why a poster regarding mental illness would be on a payphone. The comment by Jennifer Whetzel pretty much sums it up.
Seth, as your friendly, neighborhood planner, I did some research on the topic for you. I think it might be a bit more relevant than you think. One of the symptoms of this disorder is paranoia. So when someone’s suffering, maybe they think their phones are all being tapped, and that “they” are listening. So, they very well might be looking for a “safe” land line.
So, paranoia=pay phone=relevance. Brilliant, in my opinion.
So Here’s my question: Did the advertisers who created this campaign make this up?
What I mean is did they all come together and decide on where to put the poster because Joe had a crazy uncle who used payphones because he thought “they” were tapping the line?
I think not, it’s research baby. I bet they polled a group of mental illness sufferers and discovered that 53% prefer using payphones. So as far as an answer to the question of whether research proves relevance, I would say hell yeah. I think when all is said and done if you haven’t a drop of research to go off, you’re writing fiction rather than copy.
It’s actually really interesting what you’ll find next to a payphone.