David Garfinkel has a great post about Aesop Glim’s classic 1945 book, How Advertising is Written - and Why.

Garfinkel quotes Glim’s snappy summary of the core tenet of copywriting, that customers buy benefits:

Why does he buy it?

This is the most misleading question of all– because we have the paradox that what you sell is almost never what your prospect buys.

…

People don’t buy soap — they buy cleanliness. People don’t buy dentifices — they buy beauty and freedom from toothache.

People don’t buy automobiles — they buy transportation, social prestige, the great outdoors, life, liberty, and the pursuit of the opposite sex.

People don’t buy houses — they buy homes.

I’d endorse all of it.

(Apart from the bit about using your car to pursue women, which I’m pretty sure is against the law, even in the States.)