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“Spectacular!” Does that word get the blood pumping a little? It should, because that’s how we’re conditioned to react to the next term in my examination of Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama: Spectacle.

Our generation certainly gets its share of spectacle, in the form of zillion-dollar summer blockbusters on the IMAX super-mega screen (“Now with BrainBuster GoogolPhonic Sound!”), extravagant corporate presentations employing all the latest multimedia technology, and amusement parks the size of cities. In fact, as we grow increasingly jaded to the bombardment, the bombardiers have to scale up their ammo, producing an endless upward spiral of bigger and shinier and louder. (Well, endless until we all go blind and deaf, anyway.)

But Aristotle defines “spectacle” much more broadly than in our normal use of the word. In the classical theatre, spectacle refers to all the visual elements of a drama — costumes, sets, makeup (or masks), lighting, and special effects. I would argue that it also includes sound effects, from the venerable thunder sheet and trumpets of Shakespeare’s day to the surround-sound capabilities of modern stagings. Even the ancient Greeks used a form of amplification by sculpting the mouths of their masks into a kind of megaphone.

At first glance, it would seem that writing can’t hold a candle to other media for spectacle. In fact, the opposite is true. Good writing can tap directly into the reader’s mind to summon any sounds, any images, no matter how spectacular. Our imaginations can paint more vivid pictures and sounds than the most extravagant motion picture could ever hope to do. And when you write your marketing copy, you’ve got to paint those pictures for your reader.

Say you’re a travel agent trying to get people interested in booking a flight to Hawaii. You could talk about great low fares or great customer service at the hotels, and those features might score points, sure. But how much more powerful is it to evoke a sunrise on the beach, the swaying of palm trees, the sparkling waves?

By setting the scene just an author does in a novel, the reader is actually pulled into that ideal dream-moment, giving him such a strong taste of the final benefit of your product that he MUST buy, or call for more info, or send off that application, or whatever you want him to do. Make your readers see, hear, and feel the ideal state your product or service promises, and you’ve bypassed the rational “Yes, but” part of the brain and gone straight for the imagination, where all bets are off and anything is possible. Your reader’s mind is the ultimate billboard, just waiting to be tickled with stirring, comforting, or jaw-dropping images.

So get to writing, and make a spectacle of yourself!

Our look at Aristotle’s Six Elements of Copywriting — I mean, Drama — continues with Diction.

That’s the term as it’s normally translated, but Aristotle is referring, not to beauty of enunciation, but to the characters’ choice of words in their dialogue. Diction and Character overlap somewhat, naturally, since the former is a tool used to help communicate the latter. And this element is particularly important in the theatre. Movies have an unlimited range of visual imagery to help reveal characterization through actions, but on the stage, you are what you say. Even when you’re lying, the fact that you’re lying tells us something important about who you are and how you feel. Speeches are dramatic actions, onstage or in real life. Every statement we make, every question we ask, carries an intention — we’re trying to make a particular impact for a particular reason.

That’s what copywriting is about, too.

When you write marketing copy, you must always be aware of what your word choices make you sound like to your reader. Are you comforting? Admonishing? Cultured? Folksy? Your word choices not only paint a picture of your character, they also set the tone for the entire marketing experience. (We’ll be tackling Tone soon, when we examine the element of “Music.”) Are you using a tone your target market will automatically agree with, is it more likely to turn your readers off? You must have a clear idea of your audience’s values, background, field of endeavor, et cetera, before you can have any clue which word choices will ring out loud and clear instead of screeching like nails on a blackboard. Politicians tend to master this early in their careers, enabling them to come across as “just plain folks” at a local carnival, then adapt a high-level of techno-speak for an address to the information technology community.

Unless you’re running for office, you don’t necessarily have to appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. You just have to aim the right words at your little sliver of the pie. But what if your target market encompasses people from many different walks of life, backgrounds, or corporate cultures? Here are a couple of all-weather tips that should help:

1. Find the need and feed it. Figure out what all these widely divergent people NEED and WANT to hear. If they’re all in your target market, then there’s something underneath they all share, some emotional bottom line that needs to be fulfilled. Make sure your word choices are consistent with that underlying need, and your broad base of clientele will all stay tuned to what you have to say.

2. Be clear. Clarity of language is the great “One Size Fits All” solution to making sure your audience gets what you mean, even if you’re not mimicking their precise linguistic or emotional comfort zone. Understanding is the road to empathy, so make sure you’re understood. Use short words. Use precise words. Use active words. Make it easier for your reader to climb on board, and he’ll read all the way to the end.

And then he’ll buy something.

The next exciting installment in my look at the Six Elements of Drama takes us deep into the meaning of it all: Theme.

Theme is the “why” of your story — the statement you’re trying to make, or the question you’re trying to ask, about life, the universe and everything. It’s what your story has to do with the everyday life and experience of audience. The message, the moral, the point.

That’s why marketing exists — to convey a message. Your marketing must go beyond lists of features and benefits and communicate what that all these goodies add up to for the customer. It must go beyond a company’s profile, track record or mission statement to deliver a corporate philosophy in a few compelling words. Your marketing must deliver the bottom line: “Here’s the why of our business.”

You see themes presented all the time in marketing and advertising. The most common theme delivery method is a headline, tagline, or other such slogan that says it all in a single bold statement. “Like a Good Neighbor…” or “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking…” aren’t just clever sayings. They are distillations of their representative business’s entire sales pitch, boiled down into the most powerful message possible. A great slogan is easy to remember, packs an emotional punch, and tickles a specific desire in the reader (convenience, security, joy, wealth, et cetera).

So when you’re constructing your own marketing campaign, pay attention to whether you have a memorable slogan to cap it off with. That slogan is the theme that runs through your business. It’s the “because” to your customer’s “why,” and until you can state it clearly, succinctly and powerfully, you’ll be leaving money on the table.

In this installment of my series on applying Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama to modern marketing copy, I’d like to look at the element known as Character.

You know what characters are, of course. They’re the lifeblood of plays, films, novels, and even nonfiction works such as biographies and autobiographies. Anytime you tell a story about people, those people become characters in your story — even when you’re only referring to them in the third person. Sometimes a character who never appears in a drama makes the biggest impact in the story, if that character’s memory or offstage presence hovers over the other characters and influences their behavior.

Typically, though, the main character, or protagonist, is the person we follow and sympathize with as he or she struggles to achieve an objective. The roadblocks to achieving that objective are often personified in another character known as the antagonist, so we can watch the struggle play out in the conflicts between these two characters.

All that stuff is fine for a book or a play, but who are the “characters” in a company website or brochure? Well, you’re certainly one of them. The point of view you choose for your marketing materials defines a persona. A website’s home page might project an impersonal, monolithic persona, or it might give the impression of the business owner speaking directly to a group of friends. What’s best for your particular brand? As a freelancer and sole proprietor, I use a direct first-person address. If your business consists of a team, you’d probably use “we” instead. If you want to seem really huge or formal or corporate, you’d use the third person.

So, is your “character” the protagonist in your marketing pieces?

No!

Your business only exists because you have customers. The marketing you produce must address their hopes, dreams, frustrations, fears, and needs. Your customer is your protagonist because your business isn’t about you, it’s about that person out there who has a need for what you offer. Your character is the helpful friend, the confidante, the trusted advisor to that main character.

Who’s the antagonist? It’s whoever is causing pain for your customer. It’s the competitor’s product that costs too much and doesn’t work. It’s the lost time, extra work, or other frustration caused by not having your product or service. You, then, are the protagonist’s sword — the magical weapon that cuts the enemy down by solving the problem and bringing the final goal into view.

Stay tuned for more Drama of Copywriting!

As I mentioned in an introductory post, I’ll discussing the six elements of drama, as originally defined by Artistotle, in terms of modern marketing writing. So, let’s kick things off with the nuts and bolts of storytelling, the plot. Plot may seem like the most utilitarian of the dramatic elements, but it delivers a lot more than “just the facts, ma’am” — it reveals the forward motion of the story, both in literature and in marketing.

The words “plot” and “story” are sometimes used interchangeably, but plot really refers to the sequence of events IN a story, since “story” also encompasses characterization, theme, and all that other stuff we’ll get to later. When someone asks what happened next, they’re asking about the plot. (I’m going to substitute the word “story” myself from time to time, since talking about “your company’s plot” sounds vaguely criminal, or at least paranoid.) Plotting a story is a similar process to plotting a line on a chart — just draw a line of action through the plot points, and you have an image of your story in action.

If someone at a mixer says, “Tell me about your company,” chances are you’ll launch into a few juicy facts about what field you’re in, what products or services you offer, and maybe some details about a current big sale or marketing push. Those facts certainly help to describe the actions your company is taking, or where the plot currently rests. But the story of your company extends much further.

Your company’s story includes not only its current status and offerings but every step taken along the way. The sequence of actions that brought you to the dance tells a story of growth, evolution, persistence, luck, determination, drive — all the factors that contributed to your current success. In dramatic writing, we refer to these given circumstance, or “backstory,” through exposition. Two characters might recall old times, or discuss the changes in their lives or world, in a way that paints a picture for the audience. Exposition can be awkward to handle convincingly in a story or play, but it’s usually pretty straightforward in copywriting, especially if there’s an “About Us” page or “Our Company’s History” blurb involved. Of course you don’t include everything; see my previous post about cutting to the chase and giving us just the inspiring parts. Once readers see how you got where you are, they have a deeper appreciation for your present position.

So much for where you’ve been and where you are now — what about where you’re going? Usually at the end of a story we’re given indications of what the characters are likely to continue doing after the curtain falls; even if they themselves don’t quite know, the author does. And so do you, when you’re writing your marketing content. Your presentation of the facts may end at the bottom of the page, but the story goes on. Capture your readers’ imaginations with a final call to action, and they’ll be ready to learn more.

And that’s when you’ll hear those magic words: “What happens next?”

If you’ve read about me, you already know that my copywriting background differs from the usual B.A. in Marketing, Business, Journalism, English, Advertising, et cetera. I come from a theatrical background, having earned a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting, and I’ve learned that this experience gives me an advantage in capturing the drama inherent in any business’s story. That’s right, your business has to tell a story to its prospects and customers — and it had better be an exciting one. I can find and present that exciting story, using my knowledge of dramatic principles to make an emotional impact on your audience.

Those principles have changed surprisingly little over thousands of years. Today’s writers rely on tricks of the trade as outlined by Aristotle in his theatrical treatise, The Poetics. Artistotle’s Six Elements of Drama are:

1. PLOT – The order of events in a dramatic presentation. When you tell someone “what happened next” in a story, you are describing the plot. In copywriting, this is the information about your business, its history, its services, etc.

2. THEME – The central idea or meaning of the play. In your business, it’s the why factor — why you do what you do and why that should matter to the reader.

3. CHARACTER – A person represented in the play. Who are the principal players in your company? More importantly, whose point of view does the reader hear in your written words?

4. DICTION/LANGUAGE/DIALOGUE – The word choices and enunciation patterns used by the characters, selected by the writer to help us understand who these people are and what kind of world they live in. I interpret this more broadly in copywriting as the overall tone of voice in your content.

5. MUSIC/RHYTHM – The rise and fall of human speech, as well as the use in ancient Greek drama of sung or chanted passages. It defines the flow and emotional pace of drama, just as copywriting must vary its flow and pace for maximum impact.

6. SPECTACLE – The visuals of a play. Just as costumes, lighting, and special efffects add a “whiz-bang” factor to a play, copywriting uses words to create visual images and inspire the imagination.

So over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll examine in more detail how of these six elements relate to marketing content. You’ll see how the same techniques that moved Greek audiences over 2,000 years ago can work on your “audience” — that is, your target market — today.

Stay tuned!