“A camel is a horse designed by a committee” Naturally you want the best creative work possible. To help you avoid the vision of a beautiful thoroughbred turning into a camel, we’d like to mention three vital points when you’re involved with the creative process. Trust your creative team – and yourself. Give your creative team free rein — and trust your own ability to judge and evaluate the work being presented. Naturally your guidance about corporate ‘sacred cows’ and your target market profiles are imperative, but we beg you to avoid committees — or asking for your staff’s opinions: some will say what they think you want to hear; some will try to prove how clever they are. None are in our business or have our experience. We don’t tell our clients how to do their business and we expect a reciprocal courtesy. “Any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a genius Everyone is human. No matter who your target market is, you’re addressing real people. Even those carrying the most exalted positions are human. They laugh, they cry, they over-indulge, they get excited about rugby or cricket, they fall in and out of love, they pass wind, and most often the most intelligent have a highly-developed sense of humour. When addressing these people, forget that they are CEOs or MDs, remember they are people first. Unfortunately in business-to-business communication too many confuse pomposity for professionalism. Stilted and unnaturally formal language is unprofessional and hard to read. The highest response we’ve had from campaigns aimed at the top echelons of business people have been those where the copy flows freely, conversationally, and avoids the current clichés, overused phrases and unnecessary words such as in terms of, at the end of the day, when it comes to, at this point in time — what’s wrong with ‘now’?, basically, proudly, and that most over-used of all at present ‘solution’. We have even seen this used as a euphemism for a product, as in ‘plug the solution into the wall’! “The art of readable writing is to write as you speak” Copy length. Copy length depends entirely on what you’re selling, whether it’s of high interest or low interest, whether the interest is emotional — like perfume, or ‘intellectual’ requiring serious thought — like investments. Whether promoting your company, your service, or your product our job is ‘selling in print’. Would you expect a salesperson to go out and sell a motor-car, say, using only ten words? There are many more trips and traps and we are here to help you avoid them ... to ensure that your communication reads easily, is clearly understood, and makes you and your company sound like nice, efficient people with whom it will be a pleasure to do business. Which increases business.
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