What is Copy Thrust?

You may have or will come across the term “copy thrust.” So, what is copy thrust? According to my old Essentials of Marketing it is: “what the words and illustrations should communicate.” It continues with “carrying out the copy thrust is the job of advertising specialists. But the advertising manager and marketing manager need to understand the process to be sure that the job is done well¹.”

So, how do you plan the best message? Through knowing your target market, market research, and knowing past successes and failures of your previous campaigns and those of your competitors.

Will your strategy be funny, or dramatic? Will you use a video to get your message across, use a celebrity endorsement, or have black font on a red background? Other factors to take into consideration is font selection, ad size (direct and digital), and style of campaign (persuasive, informational, etc.). All these and more are contributors to copy thrust.

Pretty much, copy thrust answers the question “how are we going to communicate this?”

I’ll leave this quote by Don Draper that I think fits nicely here. “Every great ad tells a story.”

1. Perreault, W., & Cannon, J. (2010). Essentials of marketing: A marketing strategy planning approach (12th ed., p. 392). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.