Fashion & Accessories 1984
Rockport
RocSports: The feeling is pure magic. The explanation is pure science.
FROM THE PRINTED PAGEOriginal ad copy
OCR transcription from the archived page. Scanning and reading-order errors may remain.
BUS STOP RocSports: The feeling is pure magic. The explanation is pure science. The world's leading lightweight shoes are so comfortable, they're magical. RocSports make your feet lighter. They make the streets softer. They add a bounce to your step that puts you far above the ordinary. But there's a very rational explanation for the way RocSports make you feel. It's the way RocSports are made. With the Rockport Walk Support System™—the unique synthesis of running shoe technology, space-age materials, and innovative design that gives RocSports the light weight, firm support, and effective shock absorption that makes them more comfortable than any shoes you've ever worn. It took us years of research and development to get RocSports off the ground. You can do it in one step: try on a pair. See what you've been missing. And feel how truly magical modern science can be. Heel counter for lateral stability. Foam heel cup and arch for support and comfort. Full-grain, glove-tanned leather. Resilient foam insole. Rocker profile aids natural walking motion. Morflex™ sole by Vibram.™ Super light, great shock absorption. Rockport® INNOVATIONS IN COMFORT The Rockport Company, 72 Howe Street, Marlboro, Massachusetts 01752 Available at: EDDIE BAUER • OVERLAND TRADING CO. • OPEN COUNTRY
Commentary
I notice the umbrella before I notice the shoes. It points toward a pavement occupied by people who seem to have resigned themselves to gravity. Above them, a man in a red jacket strides through the air. The color difference does nearly as much work as the levitation: his day has apparently started; everyone else’s is still waiting for the bus.
Then the page changes professions. Below the photograph, an illustrated shoe is dissected into a heel counter, foam support, leather, an insole, a rocker profile and a Vibram sole. This is the ad’s useful contradiction. Comfort is difficult to demonstrate in print, so Rockport supplies an impossible picture of the feeling and a plausible diagram of its cause. The diagram cannot verify the sweeping superiority claim, but it gives a shopper specific construction details to investigate.
The retailer list brings the fantasy down to street level. Eddie Bauer, Overland Trading Co. and Open Country are the proposed next stops. The transaction still requires a fitting: the final test is putting a foot inside the shoe. Against today’s product pages, ratings and delivery promises, that invitation makes physical trial the decisive source of information. The ad offers technology as an explanation, while reserving judgment for the customer’s body.
For a beginning copywriter, study how the two headline sentences balance feeling against explanation. Their repeated structure makes emotion and engineering sound equally assured. The body extends the photograph through references to bouncing, height and getting off the ground, then contracts the long research process into one easy action: trying a pair. A practical lesson is to carry a visual idea into the verbs, while giving the reader a concrete way to test the promise.
Rockport dates its beginnings to 1971 and a father-and-son business in Massachusetts. Its company history connects that origin with combining comfort and conventional shoe styling; the current range continues the footwear business.
The enduring idea is that an ordinary-looking shoe can improve an ordinary day. The specific Walk Support System belongs to this advertisement, and the floating commuter remains a metaphor. Its persuasive structure still travels well: show the sensation, explain the construction, invite the fitting.