This is a blog about words in everyday life. People often say we live in a visual culture, but (in case you haven’t noticed) words haven’t gone away. If anything, in our blogging, text-messaging, status-updating times, they surround ufs more than ever. This blog is simply a place for me to write about some writing I like, some writing I don’t like, and the reasons why. Because I’m going into business as a copywriter and editor, my main focus will be on the words businesses use to communicate with their customers. And because I’m particularly interested in writing for the web, you’ll probably read a lot about websites here. But I’m not ruling anything out; anything is fair game if I think it illustrates something interesting about communication.
To begin with, here’s something I got in the mail the other day. Yes, it’s a direct marketing letter; not exactly a form of communication with a reputation for creativity. But this one, I think, is an exception.
First of all, your eye is drawn to the big red “teaser” on the front of the envelope: “You’re probably thinking of throwing this away.” OK, so this is one of those marketing letters that starts its sales pitch on the envelope itself. At this point I’m only mildly interested; there’s nothing unusual these days about advertising that “winks” at consumers, trying to engage their distaste for the fact that they’re being sold to and turn it into a virtue. It’s a standard way of trying to reach a certain kind of customer, the kind who thinks he or she is “above” advertising. But hey, at least it’s more interesting than “FREE GIFT INSIDE!!!”
The really clever bit, though, is hidden away in the top left corner:
“With the absence of a logo, you check to see if you recognise the return address.” What makes this little insight so effective? Well, first of all it cleverly mirrors what you’re doing, as you’re doing it. The relative size and colour of the two blocks of text mean that you read the “set-up” sentence first, even though it’s placed lower on the envelope, then you look up, just like it says. That in itself is something you can hardly help but find engaging. But it’s not just that: what’s been brilliantly identified here is a habit that’s probably universal (at least among the target market), but will seem personal, even idiosyncratic, to those who recognise it in themselves.
In other words, on reading that sentence I immediately think “Ha, yes, I do that all the time! How did they know? I thought it was just me!” What the copywriter is banking on here is a whole lot of people having the same reaction. (I imagine I’m being sent this letter as a subscriber to the London Review of Books or the New Yorker, so the market segment being targetted here is easy to identify: tertiary-educated people who are interested in the arts and humanities, see themselves as “readers”, maybe even “intellectuals”, and are resistant to the more crass forms of marketing but–confession time here–very susceptible to anything that flatters their intelligence.)
The same “story” is continued as you turn over the envelope, open it, and read the letter inside. At every step, the writing anticipates what you’re doing (glancing at the postscript before you read the body of the letter, for instance) with an accuracy that seems uncanny, but is really just based on good research. So what’s being sold? It’s a subscription offer from The Economist, and no, I didn’t take them up on it, largely because I already have a towering pile of unread magazines in my living room. But they got my attention, and that’s a pretty good start. If I’ve got yours, then I’m grateful, and I hope you stick around.
