Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Astronomer or Copywriter? Copy from Carl Sagan


Carl Sagan - Copywriter
Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not a copywriter. 

But the following words about the image below checks all the boxes for strong copy:

☑ It sucks you in.

☑ It keeps you engaged.

☑ It ends with a call to action.

But even if you don’t want to consider the parallels to copywriting, you can’t deny it’s a marvelous example of writing that makes you feel.


Voyager 1 photograph of earth, 1990
Photograph by the Voyager 1 space probe as it was leaving our solar system, 1990

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor, and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar,' every 'supreme leader,' every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."


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NOTE: A nod to Carolyn Barclay who introduced me to this example of exemplary writing and drew a parallel to it and persuasive copy.  



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