Noisy Words – how can copywriting stand out amongst the din?
Just like the reasonable deduction that several highly trained chefs could in fact produce an entirely unspoilt fistful of broth, it is also frequently possible to not have too much of a good thing.
When that thing is unwavering in it’s ‘goodness’ and delivered in a time, place and manner that facilitates its enjoyment, then I’d cheerfully gorge on good things until I vomit a sticky mass of excellence and fine broth into your mum’s best hanging basket.
Copywriting, sadly, is increasingly becoming one of those ‘good things’ of which a person can have too much, too often and with too little genuine reward.
Or, rather than an excess of copywriting, I would suggest it’s a surplus of words that is unpicking our day-to-day tolerance for language.
In grubby alliance with the concept of ‘Graphic Pollution’, most of us currently conduct our daily meanderings amidst a state of ‘Word Splatter’. From the moment we wake up to the moment our partner demands we turn off a late night showing of some ‘Killer-Shark-in-an-Unlikely-Situation’ film, we are showered in the written word.
This veritable bukakke of language does not help a marketing message’s chance to be consumed, enjoyed or acted upon. Unquestionably, the sheer volume and frequency with which we are faced with ‘the word’ has seen our receptiveness to persuasive language sink into the murk – a little like the final scene from ‘Concrete Shark’ (‘just because he can’t float, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run!’)
The ubiquity of words, regardless of their purpose or proposition, is in danger of reducing written appeals to just another shape or colour for us to pass quickly by. In such a hazy and abstract space, there is a cruel democracy to copywriting – the best of us go every bit as unnoticed as the worst.
The solution lies in a simple tenet most copywriters I know are fully (if fruitlessly) practicing. Just. Say. Less.
A particularly extensive, though enlightening, exercise is to walk through your nearest town centre and identify every piece of language that adds nothing to the experience. And by ‘adds nothing’, I simply mean that were the language to be swiftly and ruthlessly devoured by, say, ‘Instagram Shark’ (‘Hashtag: Where’s My Leg?’) would your experience be affected or actually improved?
For whatever reason, there’s a conspicuous terror of unfilled space in marketing channels. So aggressively have we been indoctrinated with the concept of ‘Customer Journey’ many brands have formed a wilful misinterpretation in which customers cannot be trusted to reach their own conclusions. How that fits into the picture of the active, curious, demanding modern consumer I’m not entirely sure.
Much of copywriting is understanding what not to say. Were the same principles applied to every wisp of the entire marketing thread and we may again be faced with customers who are, while admittedly still capricious and impatient, at least briefly open to our appeals.
Otherwise the boldest and most inventive things we have to say will simply bounce harmlessly off the oblivion in our readers’ eyes. Just like ‘Tennis Ball Shark’ (‘Advantage: not you’).
Follow Andrew on Twitter @Boultini.