I noticed this new ad for the Amazon Kindle today….
….and then was reading my friend Tom Fishburne’s weekly Brand Camp marketoon: “What Ads Say” (due homage paid to Gary Larson)
It seems so obvious that the best way to speak to our customers and describe what we do is by using regular language, but it’s so rarely what we do.
The Amazon ad struck me because “No wi-fi hot spot required” is a sentence you absolutely couldn’t have used as ad copy 10 years ago, or 5 years ago….2 years ago? Eh, probably not.
Where you sit relative to the vocabulary your customers are comfortable with is a conscious choice, one that communicates something about your brand and where it sits relative to the mainstream. Of course if you’re actually writing ad copy – as opposed to, say, blogging or communicating in some other sort of anticipated, personal and relevant way – then by definition you’re shooting for the mainstream and you should pick your words accordingly.
Occasionally, just occasionally, you can decide to teach your customers new vocabulary (e.g. “4G”). But I can’t think of a single occasion when it’s OK to use jargon.
Great post Sasha!
As someone who writes radio ad copy for seven years it is my job as a marketing and sales specialist I think to help the client understand their copy needs to speak to the consumer, not to themselves of how great their features.
KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid is what I always try to abide by!