I need help writing clever ad copy

[Roger Feeley]

My grandsons preschool silent auction fundraiser is in a couple of weeks. Most people use these auctions like Black Friday. They are on a hunt for bargains. I take exactly the opposite tack. I view it as an opportunity to donate. My strategy is to find something that I would like to have in the $20 range and grossly over-bid. That has generally been a certificate to the local ice cream shop. Yes, I could just write a check but I’m trying to get other people to over-bid too.

This year, I want to take my strategy to the extreme. I’m pressing the auction folks to put some dryer lint in a ziplock and have the kids sign it. I plan to bid somewhere between $50 and $100. I will probably be the only bidder but I would love to see some competition. Maybe, with the right descriptive text, I could lure in another bidder or two.

Some ideas
1. You won’t have some nick-knack that you may or may not want. This item removes all doubt. You don’t want it.
2. It’s convenient. Since you have no use for it, you won’t have to come up with a use for it. There’s no gift card to cart around or remember.
3. Timeless. This item will fit into any decor. Inasmuch as it has no style, it will never go out of style.
Some of the cleverest writing I’ve ever seen comes from this forum. I need hyperbole, false claims.

[Tom Stenzel]

1. Official "Build A Nest" (trademark pending) material for building your own birds nest.

2. Stuffing for your pet hamster's pillow.

I'll think on it during the day...

-Tom

[Zachary Hoyt]

Unique, Priceless and Premium are all concepts that could also be applied. Anything is Premium nowadays, you just have to say so.

[Sam Force]

How to instructions on how to start a camp fire. You pay for a starter pack and with knowledge gained from instructions you can now start to build your very own collection of exotic fire starters. No 2 packs are ever alike. :)

[Roger Feeley]

Sadly, this has to be G rated. One of my thoughts was a treatment for hemorrhoids and leave the how to peoples imagination. But other quack cures are welcome.

Sam, if I go down the fire starter route, I would be implying that there is a use for dryer lint. I don’t want anyone to even entertain the thought that dryer lint has value.

[John Stankus]

The ultimate in Haute Coutre, we present the deconstructed garment. So Avant garde, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture scoffs it is too high brow for us. Forget "form following function" this is the ultimate embodiment of fashion where form has no function! Rare! signed by the next generation of fashion icons.

John

[John Stankus]

Belly button refills. Don't leave home with a lintless bellybutton! (superglue available for an extra charge for outies)

[Thomas McCurnin]

Picture of a cute puppy with a pistol to its head. "Please bid, or I shoot the puppy."

[Malcolm McLeod]

Don't forget it's 'official' ... as in official lint (or deconstructed garment) of .... the NFL? WWE? V.Putin's belly button? Seal Team 6?

'Sanctioned' too. Or, 'collector grade'. Display case available.

Time saving - no need to endlessly clean your dryer, or non-famous neighbor's belly.

Maybe sawdust as IKEA-esque Krenovian chest-on-stand - some assembly required. Glue included. No instructions, but can be completed in average of 39 years. (Of course you include a stunning picture of what the finished product looks like.)

[Roger Feeley]

I love where this is going! I’m kind of leaning into Johns Haute Couture for a lead paragraph. It dovetails nicely with an idea I had to provide a certificate authenticity.

[Bill Dufour]

Natural, Organic, hypoallergenic, billet, upgraded, digital, hyper, works with I-phones, low carbon footprint, saves gas, proven to stop covid, reduces visible signs of aging, aids hair growth. excellent for applying lotion to the skin. impress friends and family, trend setting. Not available in stores. Just like the kind in fancy hotels and Hollywood costume departments. Similar to Rolls Royce and Tesla seat padding. low carbs high fiber, unbalanced nutrition. verified by independent lab studies.

[Roger Feeley]

Picture of a cute puppy with a pistol to its head. "Please bid, or I shoot the puppy."

Oddly, that has been done and done well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Save_Toby

[Mike Soaper]

Made in the USA (with gobal materials)
Hand Selected Materials (I used my hand to pick the laundry out of the basket)
Limited edition (cause we're never gonna have the same combination of clothes in the dryer again)
Like a pet rock but softer and warmer

[Dave Zellers]

I’m pressing the auction folks to put some dryer lint in a ziplock and have the kids sign it.


I would bypass asking permission. I would take a perfect pad of dryer lint gently peeled off the screen, carefully mount it in a picture frame (that you made?) under glass without squeezing it (spray mount?) and have the kids sign the frame with a fine point sharpie.

Inside, next to or under, maybe something like this:

There once was a dryer with lint.
Where, I can’t give you a hint.
Signed by the kids,
You know that it is,
Bound to be worth a mint!


Right before you harvest the lint, dry a fuzzy sweater to give it a touch of color!

[Kev Williams]

Contents:
A unique, one-of-a-kind collection of short, fine fibers that have been mechanically separated from the original surface of various cloths and yarn, accrued during the process of decontaminating and disinfecting fine linens using 'flood style' treatments consisting of a patented mixture of specialized soluable surfactants in conjunction with a proprietary mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, subsequently subjected to a process of rapid deconstruction of the hydrogen/oxygen mixture via a combination of rotational collision forces and high-pressure thermal bombardment, resulting in the bonds of the hydrogen and oxygen molecules breaking free from the fabrics and of each other, ultimately atomically disintegrating in a harmless vaporized state, at which point the fibers are carefully collected by a microscreen filtering system. NO TWO ARE ALIKE!

[Mike Soaper]

Right before you harvest the lint, dry a fuzzy sweater to give it a touch of color!

and thus Designer Lint was first created

[Doug Garson]

Gluten free, not tested on animals, vegan. Guaranteed not to rust, bust, boil, spoil or split at the seams.

[Roger Feeley]

Dave, this is genius. I’m pretty far down the bag-o-lint path but I may work this again.

[Mike Soaper]

Made from missing socks

[Bill Dufour]

specially treated with dihydrogen oxide. Zero carbon footprint.
Bill D

[Roger Feeley]

Many thanks to all that helped.

I led with Johns Haute Coutre paragraph. Then I put in some of my own bullet points. The big finish was Dave’s limerick.

I struggled with getting enough bidders until I learned about Plus Addressing. This allows you to add text to your email address. For example, if your address is A@B.com, you can add a plus and some text to make A+DEF@B.com. The system will strip off the plus and you will receive as normal. The recipient field will show the extra text. Adding the plus and text allowed me to set up about a dozen bidding accounts that were totally under my control.

This may be confirmational bias but I think that there was more overbidding than in past years. I wonder if I normalized moderate overbidding by extreme overbidding.

[Dave Zellers]

What did it sell for?

[Roger Feeley]

What did it sell for?

$120.
The selling price was predetermined inasmuch as all eleven bidders were actually me.

I divided into three acts:
Act one. These were local sounding screen names that could plausibly be friends and relatives. They ebbed and flowed and got the price up to about $35.

Act two. Collectors learned about the auction and left the locals in the dust. They ran it up to about $80.

Act three: A broker in NY and a US based museum chimed in and then a Paris based museum started bidding. In the end a museum in London acquired the piece.

bidding could have been easier. I had to keep track of what the bid was because I had to log out of the auction site and log back in as a different bidder. I did that a LOT. But, for all the tedium, it was still better than marshaling eleven people. I suppose I could have created eleven email accounts. What I did was the least obnoxious.

[Dave Zellers]

A nice donation. Like you said earlier, maybe it will start something.

I like the silliness of it.

Maybe it evolves into 'Lint From Around The World'.