Like the Oscars, advertising awards (ADDYs and CLIOs, to name a couple) are worth big money to the people and agencies that win them. But the flaw in the ointment is that the effectiveness of the advertising has nothing to do with winning.

What does? Glad you asked. Over the years, I've studied the awards annuals enough to know that most of the big winners have traits in common. I've even sorted them out, and I count twelve different types of ads that seem to win the laurels. Over the next few issues, I'll discuss them all. But let's start at the beginning. Headlines. And the first winner is: the Chutzpah Headline!

The chutzpah factor

Don't let a word like chutzpah throw you. It's just a showbiz term, like so many others with the same kind of sound. All you need to know is that chutzpah describes extreme self confidence! A chutzpah headline is very, very sure of itself.

A few years ago, Revlon won a spate of awards with an ad that showed a beautiful woman, smiling confidently, with the headline, "Introduce Your Husband to a Younger Woman." The ad ran in Cosmopolitan, Elle and lots of Sunday supplements, and I know that it had a one-two punch that scored big for Revlon. One, was the "stopper" quality of the headline. When most women read it, they must have felt a mild pang of alarm. Two, when they realized that Revlon was talking about them, the pang quickly turned into pleasure, amusement and sales. I'm sure a million women looked at that ad and said, "Thank, you, Revlon."

Get the feeling? This kind of assertiveness is certainly a powerful way to recommend a product. It carries a sense of endorsement and positive assurance that sets a brand apart from its competition. But the skill required to bring it off is something else. You've got to be able to do it with a smile. A chutzpah headline has to appear bombastic, but quickly dissolve into a pleasant and rewarding discovery. The chutzpah headline isn't brash -- it's pure, unadulterated charm.