OK. This is nothing to do with Ethel Merman and it's possibly a bit treacly - but humour me.

As many a producer of West End or Broadway theatre musicals knows only too well, communicating with an audience is the essence of success - and there is an interesting formula that has been developed that seems to work every time (as long as the content is good) and producing a piece of advertising copy is exactly the same. It's just like writing a show.

There's one big difference between Les Miserables and a piece of advertising copy is that people pay specifically to sit down and watch the show, unlike all advertising where the audience is generally happily doing something else at the time; quietly reading a newspaper, watching some pointless reality thing on the telly or 'not particularly' listening to music on the radio - and they have to be interrupted and distracted to read, or listen to, your ad.

However, the rules are the same. The theatre producer needs to grab the audience's full attention for two and a bit hours as they can still get bored, walk out or give bad reviews. But they rarely do because many a successful West End show works to this tried and tested formula and it's a perfect analogy to creating a piece of successful advertising copy.

Act One: Curtain up, the Big Opener.
The headline - to grab their attention from whatever they were doing (eating popcorn, sneakily using their mobile or, oddly, sitting at home with their feet up reading the news).

Act Two: Set the Stage - Tell the story.
We have their attention, now let's set the scene and quickly explain what this story is all about because we've got more for you coming up. Get to the point pretty quickly.

Act Three: The Main Event - What's in it for me?
What's the answer? How's all this going to turn out?
Am I going to really like this? What's the benefit? What
am I going to get out of this?

Act Four: The Fun Bit.
Let's now give them a bit of interest, the fun scenes, the naughty scenes, the interesting bits - make them feel good, sad, excited!

Act Five: The Finale - Leave them wanting more!
Now make them feel great. Let them leave the theatre thinking "I want to see that again, buy a programme, a DVD, a product?". It's the Call to Action!

And that's how most great West End shows are put together, and also how all successful copy is structured and you may notice more than a passing similarity with another tried & tested formula. (see AIDA).

There, that wasn't too treacly was it?