NLP in Advertising: The Flip Side of SCORE

People sometimes ask me, how is NLP used in advertising? Then they add, “Well, using language techniques to craft ad phrases and slogans is clear. But are there any specific advertising strategies or models in NLP?”

This is actually a tough question, because it’s hard to take just one element out of the system and make it work on its own. NLP isn’t just a set of tools; it’s a system. However, there is one model that can serve as a standalone template for creating ads. But to do this, you have to turn it inside out 🙂

The Flip Side of SCORE

There’s a model in NLP called SCORE. It’s usually used for consulting. However, thanks to its structure, SCORE also has another, less well-known but equally powerful function: advertising and informational. To use it this way, you need to apply SCORE in reverse.

Remember old Ogilvy? He often said that the best advertising for a product is providing complete information about it. And as experience shows, that’s true. But wait, don’t think I mean technical or historical information! 🙂 No one cares about that until they’ve already become customers. In advertising, people need a different kind of information.

I think all professional salespeople will agree with me: no product by itself is needed by anyone. What people really want is to satisfy their needs, solve their problems, and fulfill their desires. So, they’ll be interested in a product that helps them solve their specific problems in a specific situation. And that’s exactly the kind of complete information you need to provide.

This is where SCORE comes in handy. The five letters of the SCORE acronym stand for five questions (the five SCORE points), and by answering them, you can describe any situation and give a person a logically complete understanding of it.

The beauty of this logical description is that it contains a built-in need, charged with motivation, and the most obvious way to solve it is the advertised product. What does this look like?

The SCORE Points in Advertising

In Russian (and in an advertising context), the SCORE points are:

• S – “Symptom” – The current situation as it is.
• O – “Outcome” – What we’d like to have instead of the current situation.
• E – “Effects” – What positive effects we’ll get when we achieve the desired outcome.
• C – “Cause” – Why the original situation happened.
• R – “Resource” – What we need to get the desired outcome.

By answering the first four questions above, you create a complete and logical description of the whole context in which a person has a need-a conscious desire, motivation, and a full understanding of why things are the way they are. Now, only one question remains, the one they care about: “How?” Or more precisely: “How do I, knowing all this, finally get what I want?”

That’s when you offer them the resource they’re looking for-the advertised product itself. Now you just have to wait for them to make a decision (of course, if the context, need, and motivation are relevant to them).

An Example of a Short Ad Article Using SCORE

Here’s an example of a short ad article. The SCORE points follow the sequence described above and correspond to the paragraphs:

The modern world is set up so that life is full of communication, and a lot depends on it. We all need to negotiate important things with others from time to time, get what we need from them, and sometimes we have to seriously defend our position or point of view in these discussions. We do this as best we can, and honestly, it doesn’t always work out. And when it does, it’s often by raising our voices, applying pressure, using authority, or other not-so-gentle methods.

But probably almost all of us would like to be able to resolve disputes calmly and confidently right in the course of conversation, persuading people with sound logic and well-presented arguments. And not just so people agree, but so they truly accept our point of view and do what we agreed on-as if we were old friends.

The prospects of such abilities are enticing. Those who can persuade and negotiate with people are successful not only in their field. Such people are needed everywhere, which means at the very least a higher social status and increased income, and at best-universal love and respect.

Of course, successful communicators aren’t born that way. And neither school nor college teaches this well enough. So, it turns out that learning to persuade people effectively and negotiate easily can only be done in special courses, which, for various reasons, aren’t available to everyone.

This is roughly how an ad article is built using the SCORE points: first, you describe the context of the problem, then you provide the way to solve it. The order of the first four points isn’t critical as long as the logic is clear, but the resource point always comes last. You don’t have to use all the SCORE points-if needed, you can skip the cause and effects points as long as the article remains coherent.

Author: Egor Bulygin, NLP Trainer