Marketer Denies Theft of Newspaper Headline

Says, ‘I was only borrowing.’

I did a good thing today, and a bad thing. Resisting my normal urge to avert my eyes from the tabloid press, I took every headline writer’s advice, and actually made a note of the headline on the front page of The Sun. It was so simple, so brainless, that it was, of course, absolutely brilliant.

Brainless, that is, for the reader, who could deduce both sides of the story, and the back-story, just from the 11-word headline, without needing to think about it. A simple denial that implied accusation, suspicion, the anger of the falsely accused and even a sense of guilt (although that last part may just be me).

It was:
‘Prince’s club girl speaks out
I’M NOT TRYING TO STEAL HARRY’

So I stole it – sorry, borrowed and adapted it - and used it for this article.

Every copywriter of any note will have a ‘swipe file’ of letters and headlines they can adapt and re-use in future campaigns, and we should always be alert for headlines that work as a headline should – grabbing and holding the readers’ attention.

Because a good sales letter always needs a brilliant headline to capture the attention of the reader – who is trying to resist becoming interested, after all – and newspapers need their headlines to do the same in their perennial circulation war, we can usually find at least one great headline on every news stand, every day.

Which ought to be enough for the busiest copywriter to be going on with.

Roy Everitt, Writing For Results

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Just click on the ‘Let us pay you’ link and help yourself to some of our money.