Win cars or money by describing a favorite product in 25 words or less

It’s easy! Grab a favorite prod­uct that you’ve bought and write a sen­tence describ­ing why you like the prod­uct. Use just 25 words or less. That’s about 140 char­ac­ters, includ­ing spaces— as long as the first Tweets were per­mit­ted to be. 

Don’t use fan­cy writ­ing or flow­ery lan­guage. Just a sin­cere, orig­i­nal expres­sion of your opin­ion. A sim­ple state­ment that pops into your mind as you read this. It will only take a few min­utes but those min­utes could bring valu­able prizes. 

Write your entry on a sep­a­rate sheet of plain paper. Print your name and address and include the name and address of the deal­er who sold you the product. 

Send as many entries as you wish, pro­vid­ed each one is accom­pa­nied by part of the product’s pack­ag­ing. And, if you didn’t buy the prod­uct, you can even sub­mit the entry with a fac­sim­i­le of that par­tic­u­lar piece of packaging.

All of the above is taken from Procter & Gamble “25 words or less” advertisements for Oxydol laundry soap and Ivory bar soap

The Ivory Soap adver­tise­ment offers a “wealth of prizes.”  60 Stude­bak­er sedans, each with a Stude­bak­er-Philco Cus­tom-Built Radio worth $54.95, and 1000 gal­lons of Tex­a­co Fire-Chief Gaso­line – enough to last the aver­age dri­ver about 2 years.

The 1938 Stude­bak­er 6 cruis­ing sedan was cho­sen “for its clean-cut styling, its impres­sive roomi­ness, its spe­cial safe­ty fea­tures and its ‘lev­elized Mir­a­cle Ride’.”

These thrilling prizes were offered for one rea­son only—to “encour­age you to find out how many ways Ivory Soap can help you.”

Then the adver­tise­ment gives hints on how to win the “25 words or less” con­test. “Prob­a­bly you use Ivory for your bath, com­plex­ion, shampoo…for baby’s bath…for silks and woolens…for dish­wash­ing and smooth hands. So just tell us about it…as sim­ple as this: I like Ivory Soap because there is noth­ing sweet­er than to pick up a baby whose clothes and skin, have just been washed with Ivory Soap.” 

(That’s 22 words after the “I like Ivory Soap” introduction.)

Then the reader/consumer is told  that the sen­tence  is not mere­ly lit­er­ary it is a good sen­tence because it is sin­cere, orig­i­nal and apt. Mean­ing? “Sin­cere means that a sen­tence should sug­gest the per­son­al expe­ri­ence of the writer. Orig­i­nal means it has char­ac­ter of its own with­out being eccen­tric. And the sen­tence is apt because it is appro­pri­ate to Ivory Soap in one of its many uses.”

That explains everything. Now start to compose your sentence…in 25 words or less!

The Oxy­dol adver­tise­ment also pro­motes a 25 words or less con­test but this time it is for $1,000 Free, every 24 hours. Ten $100 prizes every day, except Sat­ur­days and Sun­days for six weeks.

Like Ivory Soap, the pur­pose of the con­test: “To induce more women to try this amaz­ing, new, ‘No-Scrub, No-Boil’ laun­dry soap—that real­ly SAFE.”

Odd­ly, this con­test is adver­tised as an utter­ly new and dif­fer­ent kind of con­test! Real­ly? Well, the sen­tence this time reads “I con­sid­er OXYDOL the per­fect laun­dry soap because…” in 25 words or less. Con­trast that with the sim­ple Ivory Soap sen­tence “I like Ivory Soap because…”

The Oxy­dol hints are also dif­fer­ent. They read:

For exam­ple, if you like the way OXYDOL soaks whiter and saves work, you might say: I con­sid­er OXYDOL the per­fect laun­dry soap because…it gets my clothes so white with­out scrub­bing and I nev­er have those nag­ging Mon­day night back­ach­es any more

Or, if you like Oxydol’s speed and safe­ty, you might say: I con­sid­er OXYDOL the per­fect laun­dry soap because…it works so much faster, yet nev­er hurts my hands—and col­ored things come out fresh and bright as a new dollar.

The first sug­gest­ed con­test entry is only 19 words, the sec­ond is 22 words. Just an aside; how can a paper dol­lar be bright?

After all that are you game to try the contest?
 Spend only five minutes of your time describing
how you like a certain product — in 25 words or less.

See. It’s easy!