Nov
22

National Enquirer Headlines

Filed Under headlines 

Here we go now with the “National Enquirer” that all the major league copywriters are raving about.

For some reason I have a really hard time to get the brilliance of them – because most of them reference to celebrities that I don’t know (despite consuming more mainstream media recently). But, now here’s one that caught my attention:

JACKO MUSLIM CONVERT
King Bizarro becomes Islamic Mikaeel.

Michael Jackson becoming a muslim? I mean, com’on, there’s no explaining why this is a good headline. (Although I find it a lot less weird than “Michael Jackson getting white”…

SHOCKING INVESTIGATION: MOM BURIED MISSING GIRL AFTER SHE DIED IN CAR

“Shocking investigation” will go into my swipe file of power phrases… Can you imagine something like: “Shocking Investigation: Former Librarian Evaded $1.2 Million Taxmoney He Made On MySpace” or something like that…

STALKER SENT RAZOR BLADES TO PAULA BEFORE HER SUICIDE
‘Idol’ judge STILL IN SHOCK over deranged woman’s note

Makes you wonder what the note was, doesn’t it? The formula here of course is ___ sent ___ to ___ before his ___

LARRY KING CATCHES WIFE CHEATING
Her 1-Year Affair With Son’s Baseball Coach

Obviously another headline with celebrity appeal, but think about ways you could use that same headline formula without the celebrity… ___ Catches ___ ___

JOHN REESE CATCHES GOOGLE ENGINEER SPYING
His “Industrial Espionage” That Made Him Millions

and here’s another one

AFTER 4-YEAR WAR…
ANGELINA APOLOGIZES TO JEN!
- Their private conversation
- Jen gets the last laugh
- Brad ducks for cover

Now, this is like a soap opera, and we’re taken IN on the celeb world (we even can eavesdrop on “their private conversation”. Why does Jen get the last laugh? And why is Brad running for cover? Uhh… wanna know that (well, no, not really, thanks).

But could you imagine…

AFTER 3 YEARS OF SILENCE…
JOHN REESE APOLOGIZES TO INTERNET MARKETERS
- His shocking confession
- Small guys get the big bucks
- Frank Kern ducks for cover

Now, after this little rewriting exercise I’m beginning to see that NE headlines could be quiet powerful – if we can find a way to use their “formulas” and match them to our offers and market. However, it takes some serious digging to make a great headline out of it, and the above examples are still far from the final thing.

Comments

One Response to “National Enquirer Headlines”

  1. Kylie Batt on May 20th, 2010 3:01 am

    Полностью разделяю Ваше мнение. Я думаю, что это хорошая идея….

    But, now here’s one that caught […….

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