RTedium

Brazenly asking for a retweet in an overly upfront or premature manner – for example, in a Tweet linking to an article that your followers can’t possibly have read yet, or in the introduction to a blog post.

Talentshow timeline

The complaint suffered by those whose Twitter feeds are infuriatingly jam-packed with observations on a TV programme they are not watching. ‘The Voice was on, so I had a bad case of talentshow timeline.’

Unterzeichnensangst

The sense of disquiet and guilt generated by joining, and then not using, a social-media site (other than Twitter).

I’ve had this creeping unease about Facebook for years on a purely social level. More recently, my dutiful signup to Google+ has intensified it, but with more of a work focus. As a long-term unterzeichnensangst sufferer, I obviously won’t be joining Pinterest.

This magnificent Teutonic compound was suggested by Chris Atherton (@finiteattention). It translates roughly as ‘subscription anxiety’.

Bitchcombing

Chancing upon a raging Twitter argument in full cry and nosily clicking back through both sides’ Tweets to see what’s been said, or how it started.

For some reason, Twitter never seems to display the whole conversation in the way I’d like, or expect. However, one thing that’s always very clear is that while Twitter is the perfect medium for starting an argument, it’s the worst possible one for pursuing it.

Bunfight bystanding

The excruciating anguish of watching two or more Tweeters you otherwise respect going at it hammer and tongs over something utterly trivial. (In terms of its emotional content, it’s the converse of bitchcombing.)

As with pub fights, you can always step in to try and break it up, but only at the risk of being pulled in yourself.

Suggested by Claire Lynch (@goodcopybadcopy).

Obsoltweet

The Victorians coined the term ‘staircase wit’ to describe those priceless bons mots that only occurred to a gentleman when he’d already left the drawing-room and was halfway down the stairs.

For the social-media generation, the equivalent is the obsoltweet – a Tweet that’s missed its trending topic by a fatal hour or two, but whose author still feels compelled to post it.

Closely related is Embarrassing Moment Embarrassment (EME): that embarrassing moment when you realise your ‘embarrassing moment’ tweet wasn’t all that momentous. Embarrassingly.

Microbiology

Micromanaging your bio to get every last drop of juice out of those 140 characters.

Microbiologists cram in a career summary, a clutch of hobbies (two or three serious and worthy, one self-deprecatingly wacky), four or five popular hashtags, their personal philosophy and a disclaimer along the lines of ‘RTs do not necessarily imply endorsement’.

Trashtag

A hashtag that someone tries to establish for purely self-centred and/or commercial reasons, rather than to create a strand of content that might actually be useful or interesting to someone else.

Hashtagony

Users pile on the hashtagony when they deploy a ludicrous pile-up of idiosyncratic hashtags to comment on their tweet. #toomanyhashtags #cantreadwordswhentheyrestucktogether #notreallythatfunny

Interaction Man

Interaction Man uses his Eagle Eyes to scan the Interactions page constantly for any signs of allied manoeuvres. RTs, @ messages, follows, favourites, or really anything at all that will stroke his ego and reassure him that his one-way mission to win peer approval hasn’t been in vain. His battle-weary heart leaps when he sees a movement on the horizon – but no, he’s been followed by a pornbot.

Twitchunt

Susan P (@downatheel) suggested this word for a short-lived outcry, such as those over Jan Moir or Samantha Brick, that’s forgotten the next day (if not before).

Twitchunts are becoming an almost daily occurrence now, to the point where they’re arguably damaging the Twitter experience. As I’ve noted before, the nature of the medium makes it very easy for torrents of me-too sentiment to gather mass and momentum very quickly. The results aren’t always particularly edifying, no matter how ‘deserving’ the target.

The icing on the cake is the lame reporting of the ‘backlash’ or ‘controversy’ on mainstream news sites, complete with quoted Tweets standing in for vox-pop interviews. For maximum self-referential irony, follow a link from Twitter to read the coverage.

Hollow follow

A hollow follow is when you follow someone for one or more of these shallow reasons:

• They endorsed your political, musical or culinary tastes, however fleetingly
• They RTd one of your jokes
• They look hot in their avatar.

Roberts’ pronouncements are insane showboating that he’s probably hoping his clients won’t read. But Hendry’s piece is more interesting because it sets out a position that is fast becoming orthodox in much of the marketing world.

Basically, the argument is that ‘everything has changed’, and that marketers need to abandon traditional approaches and embrace new ones if they want to remain relevant. Hendry takes the word ‘consumer’ as his starting point, observing that ‘the name suggests an inanimate object rather than a person who we are clearly trying to understand and engage with’.

We need to strip away the veneer of the consumer and allow people to be at the centre of our thinking. This will enable us to construct a more interesting relationship where we aren’t simply after that “one night stand”, treating those buying our product as simply a way to get to the next sale. What we need to do is deliver a more meaningful and useful experience to people, one that has a mutual benefit at the heart of the relationship.

All consuming

It’s right that we should think of consumers as people. But at the same time, there’s no need to get tied up in semantics. ‘Consumer’ is just a label that we wear – like ‘father’, ‘gardener’ or ‘gamer’.

'Shopping' by vierdrie

When we consume, we select, buy and use products. That’s all. While I may not define myself exclusively as a consumer, I have to accept that it’s one role I play in my life. And we’re all consumers to some extent.

What’s more, marketers have long understood the importance of connecting with people on a human level, without being patronising, manipulative or cynical. As David Ogilvy said, ‘The consumer is not a moron, she’s your wife’.

Whether we call it ‘selling to consumers’ or ‘constructing a relationship’, we’re basically talking about something the best advertising professionals have always done: reaching and persuading people with insightful strategies, thought-provoking creative and brilliant execution.

Deeper connection

Some marketers today don’t like the word ‘consumer’ precisely because of its narrow focus on one aspect of life. They prefer ‘engagement’, which denotes interacting with people at times when they’re not wearing their consumer hat – most notably, when they’re using social media or entertainment channels. The holy grail of engagement is for brands to form a deeper, more meaningful connection with the people who choose them.

Most marketers position social media as a channel through which this can be achieved, but this kinda confuses cause and effect. What really happened was that marketers saw people connecting like crazy on Facebook and Twitter, and have been trying to get in on the action ever since. As part of the ‘everything has changed’ credo, this is usually positioned as some sort of ‘power shift’ from brands to people, or ‘putting people at the centre’, as Hendry expresses it.

Real benefits

If engagement really was a laser-focused quest to understand people’s needs, it would be a worthy goal. The problem is that it often confuses ends with means, providing little more than desultory entertainment that ‘engages’ only on the most superficial level. While the brand may succeed in extending its reach outside ‘consumption’, the relationships it builds are thin, transient and ephemeral.

Arguably, they’re dishonest and transactional too, because they don’t admit their true motive. At the end of the day, companies initiate relationships with prospects because they want to sell them something they don’t yet know about. If the motivation came purely from the other side – people inexorably seeking out the stuff they need – there would be far less reason for brands to exist. Sometimes, it seems that marketers want to wish this truth away.

Another inconvenient truth is that the customer has always had power – economic power, based on their buying decisions. And the fundamental company/customer transaction of ‘money for benefits’ has not changed because people have the ability to post things on Facebook. Firms create value for people to consume; firms can’t really be people’s friends, and people can’t really create value like firms. Sorry about that.

Eternal truth

Despite his valiant insertion of buzz phrases like ‘empowering people to express themselves’, ‘human relevance at the heart of the conversation’ and ‘long-lasting relationships’, I think Hendry understands this very well (perhaps because he’s a down-to-earth planner, not an airy creative).

The real heart of his article is this:

That’s why it is just as important as ever that we find benefits within products and services that meet a human need.

Amen, brother. This is the oldest, most eternal truth of marketing ­– as Hendry admits by saying ‘just as important as ever’. In some ways at least, nothing has changed.

Marketers love new things, and the ‘humanly relevant solutions’ that Hendry cites are all new or recent. But that simply reflects changing times and tastes. Today’s commodities, like loo roll and sliced bread, were yesterday’s earth-shaking innovations.

When you look at them, Hendry’s chosen examples are some of the most transactional and unengaging commercial projects you could hope to find. One is iTunes – a classic ‘walled garden’ that pushes its users towards Apple’s own music store and will only work with its own music player, the iPod. It may be ‘humanly relevant’, but it’s brutally manipulative in the way it exacts commitment in return for benefits. (And it comes from a company that does almost nothing in social media.)

They create, we consume

Many, many people are happy to let Apple into every area of their lives and pay for the privilege. But they don’t do it because they love the brand, or want to have a relationship with Apple. It’s because Apple’s products offer killer benefits that they just can’t get elsewhere (or, perhaps, that they believe they can’t get elsewhere). In other words, people love consuming what Apple creates.

Personally, I think the ‘consumer’ label is both honest and empowering. It’s honest about the type of relationship brands ultimately want to have, and it’s empowering because it highlights the most important way that people to talk to brands: choosing their products.

Le consumer est mort. Vive le consumer!

So begins another day of working alone in my office, not seeing anyone, not speaking to anyone. Yippee!

— Tom Albrighton (@tomcopy) April 26, 2012

When I posted this tweet, several followers assumed I was being sarcastic. I wasn’t. For me, working at home, alone, has been one of the best career moves I’ve ever made.

I’ve always been happy on my own. As a child, I could often be found reading, drawing or building something out of lego. I learnt the piano, perhaps the supreme solo instrument. I always disliked team sports, and today enjoy running (alone, not races) rather than any group activity. And I’ve never really been one for joining clubs or socialising in large groups.

‘In the museum’ by Scott Liddell

Basically, I hate people. But is that so wrong? It takes all sorts to make a world.

However, I never thought I’d be able to bring my sociopathy to my work – because, as a sort of publishing editor/project manager, I always thought my skills wouldn’t transfer to a freelance context. So I’d look at freelancers with envy as they walked out of the office to complete an assignment in their own way, at their own pace, and – most importantly – completely alone.

Knot working

Fast-forward a few years, and I’m giving freelancing a try following redundancy. Immediately, the standard salarybod questions come out. ‘Isn’t it hard working at home?’ ‘Don’t you get lonely?’ ‘Is it hard to discipline yourself?’

No, no and no. I’m right back in a groove I’ve been dancing to since 1976. People give me the work and I go off and do it, only very rarely submitting to a meeting or a conference call. And, having been raised on the uncompromising demands of Technical Lego, I don’t find myself sneaking downstairs to watch reruns of Knot’s Landing.

Also, it quickly becomes apparent to me that what salaried folk call ‘work’ is actually a bit thin. Take out the lunchtimes, coffee breaks, loo trips, emails, company admin, meetings and impromptu friendly chats and it’s a wonder they get anything done. It’s the irony of the post-industrial age – organisations built with the aim of turning people into machines actually transform them into unproductive nuggets.

OK, I still have to use the loo. But it’s not so far away, and I never get waylaid by someone asking me about some ludicrous PowerPoint presentation. I also have to deal with emails and admin – but, as a freelance, all that stuff is much more to the point. The line between productive/profitable and wasteful/pointless is, for me, usually pretty clear.

Political animals

What I really don’t miss is the politics. Even at the time, I knew all that bickering and backbiting was pointless, but it was practically impossible to avoid being sucked in. Put a few humans in a room and they’ll inevitably start creating factions, alliances and conspiracies. On one level, it’s kinda fun, and it adds spice to the daily grind – but it’s also a major drain on the energy and initiative within an organisation, and the dark side can be extremely dark.

So I don’t mind having no colleagues – especially when I’ve got Twitter, the watercooler you can walk away from. Whenever I want a dose of wit, fellow-pro chat or just downright silliness, I don’t even have to leave my desk.

Of course, I’m not really a sociopath. I do actually interact with other people, most notably my family, for minutes on end every day. And that’s the best thing about working alone – if things go well, you can get everything done with no friction or faffing about, and spend what’s left of the day with the people who matter. Which, in my book, is nearly as good as being alone.

Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!

The strategy was to promote ‘therapy’ aimed at ‘curing’ gays.

Obviously, the sentiment of the campaign is utterly repugnant, and many other writers have already made that point. In this post, I’d like to look at the way the content was not only offensive and misguided, but rubbish on a technical level too.

Just to be clear, my argument is not that the work ‘should have been better’, in the sense that it might have been more persuasive or acceptable if these faults were addressed. Nor am I going to offer my own alternatives, as I normally do when critiquing stuff, because I have no interest in improving this ad. My point here is the way the lamentable motive of the campaign corrupted the creative process, resulting in truly abysmal work.

Reactive

The ad as a whole is a rework of a famous Stonewall campaign, which used this slogan:

Some people are gay. Get over it.

This was great writing. Using everyday, easy-to-remember words, it conveyed a whole range of overlapping relevant meanings: we are all people; some of us are gay (and they just are, they don’t choose to be); prejudice is an affliction to be ‘got over’; difference need not be a barrier. And because it was phrased so simply, it made it clear that this was a simple, self-evident truth.

In their pathetic anxiety to do their little dance and answer Stonewall back, CIT deliberately adopt the same form for their copy. But it merely makes them look crass, because they are reacting to a simple, positive, liberated statement with a twisted, negative one. That statement is ‘spoken’ by someone who defines themselves in purely oppositional terms – by what they’re not, or no longer are. The effect is to make the ad look like a pale imitation of Stonewall’s, rather than a powerful riposte to it.

Inelegant

Because the CIT ad tries to shoehorn its intolerant message into the same format as Stonewall’s (even aping its design), the result is crashingly awkward. Beginning the text with ‘Not’ wrong-foots the reader from the start, and the phrase ‘Not gay!’ doesn’t sound like something anyone would actually say – it’s just an arbitrary negation.

The second sentence is lame too – it posits itself as a ‘list of three’ device, but the first two items (‘Ex-gay’ and ‘post-gay’) are effectively identical, so it falls completely flat. Presumably these two contentious terms just had to be included somehow, even if the resulting sentence didn’t really make sense.

Why couldn’t they just say ‘straight’? Well, views will differ, but I think those three ‘gays’ in one line tell their own story. These people are, quite simply, obsessed with the idea that someone, somewhere, is doing something fun, harmless and completely private without their permission. Gayness consumes them; they just can’t leave it alone. Could they, perhaps, be just a little bit gay themselves?

Unconvincing

The word ‘proud’ is where the tone of voice, already deeply dodgy, really comes off the rails. If there are people who have undergone ‘treatment’ to reorient their sexuality, for whatever reason (and it seems there are some), I find it very hard to believe they would be remotely triumphalist about it. If anything, they’d surely be more likely to keep very quiet about their ‘ex-gay’ status. They might feel a sort of pride, but I very much doubt it would be a shouty, street-procession sort of thing, which is what’s implied by appropriating this most significant word from gay culture.

CIT’s tactic here is a classic one: the oppressor co-opting the language of the oppressed. But such a switch is non-viable because the two ‘prides’ are not equal. Gay pride is hard-won, defiant and determined in the face of overwhelming extant prejudice. It’s also an actual phenomenon that we can see in real people’s characters and actions. ‘Ex-gay pride’, if it exists at all, exults in the further humiliation and denigration of an already-downtrodden minority. This is the pride of the fascist in his shiny, polished jackboots.

Echoing the ‘get over it’ has a similarly hollow ring. Who’s being addressed here? Who needs to ‘get over’ the fact that some gay people have gone straight? Presumably, this is a dig at all those violent anti-hetero sentiments we’re always hearing from prejudiced gays. Again, this totally fails to convince because there is no converse of homophobia. Oppression works one way only, from the powerful majority to the dispossessed minority – unfortunately for reactionary groups who aspire to the mantle of victimhood.

Bad views, bad writing

As I said, I didn’t want to improve this ad. I’m glad it was pulled, and I’m also glad it was so bad, because its badness would have guaranteed its failure even if it had run. And if there’s anything positive to be drawn from this sorry episode, it’s the comfort that ugly prejudice can’t easily be translated into beautiful copy. Or, as @thebrainofchris put it on Twitter:

Clear writing has its place – and there really are plenty of organisations who should communicate with greater clarity – but sometimes there’s more to life than instructions and information. Clarity is a good first step on the path to effective writing, but in business we should aspire to go further.

As Tim says, Plain English delivers what we need, but not necessarily what we want. And, as a guiding principle, it can lead to a uniform, undifferentiated tone; the price of clarity is similarity.

There’s also something reductive, even oppressive, about the Plain English crusade. At its worst, it leads to mechanistic admonishments to use one word over another – ‘use’ instead of ‘utilise’, ‘before’ rather than ‘prior’, and so on. This is writing guidance for those who shouldn’t be writing at all.

Take care

We shouldn’t criminalise individual words. It’s not their fault; it’s the way people use them. When we roll our eyes at jargon, buzzwords and clichés, the cause of our despair is thoughtlessness. Long words, stuffy words, even overused words – they all have their place. We just need to use them with care.

Take ‘engagement’. Chewed over endlessly by digital marketers, it’s starting to lose its flavour. But that’s because they use it so hastily and indiscriminately, as conveniently vague shorthand for hazily understood ideas.

Look again, and there’s still plenty of juice still to be squeezed out. Engagement can mean physical interlocking; a long-term relationship leading to commitment; the occupation of a room meant for one. All relevant, fruitful ideas, ripe for development.

Expectation and surprise

Making writing fresh is all about expectation and surprise. When we come across an unexpected style that also does the job, we’re pleasantly surprised. We enjoy reading, we want to read more and we remember what we’ve read. Reading becomes, in the parlance of our times, a value-adding experience for us.

The surprising style could mix things up in any number of ways: word choice, tone of voice, structure. It could break some rules, or observe some that are rarely kept. It could say something that isn’t said very often, or it could leave the reader to infer its most important message.

In some situations, the surprising style could be very plain. For some ‘posh’ or ‘real’ food brands, the standard-issue tone is funky and informal (a phenomenon I’ve covered at length). Once radical and surprising, it’s been worn smooth by imitation and is now merely expected. A ‘Plain English’ tone would really stand out.

Expanding the focus to branding, we can see a clear received idiom with online financial brands like Credit Expert, Compare the Market, Money Supermarket, Wonga.com and Go Compare. Each brand is different, but there are many common elements – humorous characters, madcap action, maddening jingles. These brands are all ‘different’ in the same way. Again, there’s a road less travelled here, to ‘reformalise’ one of these brands and make it look grown-up compared to its peers.

Shut your eyes and see

How far could we take go with surprise without leaving the reader behind? In his most recent piece, Tim contrasts standard-issue Plain English with an extract from James Joyce’s Ulysses, from which I’ll repost just one sentence:

So you need hardly spell me how every word will be bound over to carry three score and ten toptypsical readings throughout the book of Doublends Jined (may his forehead be darkened with mud who would sunder!) till Daleth, mahomahouma, who oped it closeth thereof the. Dor…

Joyce’s prose was (and is) surprising in every way: irregular syntax, extreme structure, made-up words, indeterminate meaning. Or, as Tim puts it, it’s stuffed with ‘allusions, delusions and gorgeous profusions’. Imagination and talent permitting, could we write like that in a commercial context?

That fascinating question goes right to the heart of language theory. What does ‘meaning’ mean? What does it mean to ‘understand’ what we read?

How do we ‘understand’ Molly Bloom’s famous stream of consciousness, which closes Ulysses? Is it enough just to soak up the sound of the words, or let our unconscious minds do the thinking? Or do we have to parse the text scientifically, atom by atom, distilling all its elements? If we chase the meaning, does it just move further away?

Cognitive misers

As copywriters – writers with a practical purpose – we want people to ‘get’ every point, understand every thought. So we write in the way that we think will achieve that outcome. What else can we do?

But we know from our own experience that readers’ attention does not live up to the care we put in. We don’t process text in a linear, logical fashion. Most of the time – and especially with commercial messages – we read intermittently, inattentively and impatiently. What we do to most ads probably doesn’t qualify as ‘reading’ at all.

Arguably, devolving to the expected style encourages this. When we encounter something written exactly how we expect, we ration our cognitive investment in it. Since, at some level, we already ‘know what it says’, we feel we can get away with skim- or speed-reading. Similarly, when we see the latest comparison-site ad, no matter how nutty and anarchic it is, we’re on familiar ground. Therefore, we don’t ‘lean in’, in Luke Sullivan’s phrase – there’s plenty of incident, but less intrigue.

This could be the most damning criticism of Plain English. It can never transcend our expectation, or capture all our attention, because it lacks the crucial element of surprise. All the nutritious ingredients have been diligently added, but the lack of spice or seasoning means the dish might never be finished.

Levels of meaning

Let’s say we shake things up, and start writing in completely unexpected ways. What if people don’t understand? Surely it’s madness to gamble with their attention?

One answer to that is that there are different levels of meaning and understanding. First, there is the meaning in the Saussurean or structuralist sense: the fixed, absolute and final ‘centre’ of the text, which we reach by decoding a complex system of linguistic signs. However, there is also meaning in the Derridean or post-structuralist sense, which is relative, endlessly deferred, and located beyond the boundaries of the text.

For an example, have a look at this post discussing the long copy on the packaging for Kiehl’s Ultimate Strength Hand Salve. Few people will read the copy from beginning to end. But it still communicates important brand messages of seriousness, authority and ‘scientificity’, simply by virtue of its existence. These meanings reside not in the words themselves, but in the tension between the text as an object and the culture that it’s part of.

A century ago, it might have been merely informative; in another country, it might look utterly bizarre. But right here, right now, it sends a very clear, very deliberate message that doesn’t depend on the literal meaning of the words.

Clean and pleasant brand

Here’s another example (again, from my bathroom). It’s the packaging copy for Anatomicals’ Norfolk Lavender Hand Soap (tagline: ‘England’s clean and pleasant hand’):

patriotism comes in many guises. bravely fighting for your country in wartime. saluting the flag and singing the national anthem. or extreme forms of nationalism as whipped up by maniacal dictators. only in England though could patriotism come in the guise of a hand wash. each time you use this glorious cleanser, you’re reminded of rolling hills, the Queen, tea and scones, cricket, Oxford, Cambridge and Churchill. never in the field of lavender was so much, picked by so many…
we only want you for your body

So what does this text ‘mean’, in the context of a purple plastic soap dispenser? The literal meaning is the footling meditation on patriotism, with its tenuous link to the key ingredient of the product. But that’s only a small part of what we’re meant to infer. The real meat is meta; that is, implied messages such as:

• Our product is valuable enough to warrant 87 words of copy on the side – and it doesn’t even say anything important!
• We’re clever.
• We’re funny.
• We’re different from boring soap brands.
• We’re so radical and creative, we don’t even use capital letters at the start of sentences – although we do, intriguingly, grant them for proper nouns.
• Because you’ve bought this, you share our values. You’re clever, funny and interesting for choosing us. Congratulations!

The reading age of the text is about 13. That’s probably lower than yours, but it’s still three years beyond what most tabloid newspapers aim for. And it’s a high-risk strategy if you want to be widely understood; it restricts your audience.

I’d wager that relatively few readers will understand the word ‘maniacal’ or pick up the allusions to Churchill’s wartime speeches (70 years ago now) and Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’. But that only matters if we’re concerned about the literal meaning, which in this case is pretty much irrelevant to the brand. In other words, this text works despite – perhaps even because of – the reader’s lack of comprehension.

OK, this is a fairly extreme example. But you take the point. At best, Plain English can only communicate values of honesty and straightforwardness. Those are laudable values – but, in another sense, they’re simply the least we would expect. Plain English is the baseline, not the finish line.

That’s why I agree with Tim that clarity is overrated. Let’s see more writing that dares to really say something. And more clients who dare to commission it.

You’re probably thinking ‘what a saddo’. But while it was nice to be able to sit and look out of the window undisturbed, it wasn’t a surprise. At least, not for me.

Throughout my adult life, I’ve regularly been utterly ignored by attractive women I don’t know. Once, a well-dressed lady pushed in front of me in a train queue, while there was another occasion when a pretty barmaid completely failed to return my hopeful smile.

Of course, I’ve never asked what I’ve done to deserve such treatment. I already know. It’s the fact that I look like a potato.

While I’m no John Sergeant, I’m of middling height, badly receding and, so I’m often told, an average-looking man. I know how unlucky I am. But there are upsides to being ugly – the main one being that other men love me for making them look good.

If you’re a man reading this, I’d hazard that you’ve already formed your own opinion about me. For while very few doors indeed have been opened (metaphorically) as a result of my looks, just as many have been literally opened – usually by locksmiths and doormen of my own sex.

I’m not smug and I’m no flirt, which is why over the years I’ve been trusted implicitly by countless friends who felt absolutely no threat if I was merely in the presence of their other halves. If their partners dared to actually talk to me, they would feel relieved that they could grab a cold beer and talk to someone about the cricket.

And it is just not happy husbands who have welcomed me into their lives. Secure female bosses have also been happy to promote me at work.

And most poignantly of all, not one girlfriend has ever asked me to be her bridesmaid.

You’d think we men would denigrate each other for taking very little pride in our appearances.

I don’t work at mine. I drink regularly, run intermittently, and constantly succumb to dry roasted peanuts. Fortunately, men find nothing more pleasing than an overweight 40-year-old being the least attractive man in the room. I find that older men are the most welcoming to ugly guys – perhaps because they feel their own bloom fading.

So now I’m 40 and probably one of the very few men entering his fifth decade welcoming the decline of my looks. I can’t wait for the wrinkles and total hair loss that will help me to look like an arthritic, dessicated Brian Eno.

Perhaps then the brotherhood will finally stop judging me so favourably on what I look like, and instead accept me for who I am.

I hope not.

• This article is a tribute to Samantha Brick.

Consider the way a traditional ad works – a poster on a bus shelter, for example, or a display ad in a magazine. We could divide people who interact with the ad into three groups:

• Viewers are simply people who see the ad. They are often quantified as ‘impressions’ or ‘views’. Under the CPM charging model, the advertiser might pay a particular rate for a nominal number of views that their exposure is thought to generate.
• Readers are those viewers who read and digest the ad. The exact number is unknowable, and depends on the power of the ad to attract and hold attention through its creative. Many factors might prevent the reader from grokking the ad in its entirety: inattention, interruption, irrelevance and so on.
• Finally, responders are those readers who actually take action as a result of reading the ad. For the type of ads we’re talking about, the most likely DCR (desired customer response) is a purchase.

The diagram below shows these three subsets in approximate proportion, showing the way they decrease in size as the interaction progresses.

Actual response rates for outdoor and press advertising are hard to gauge, so let’s use the generally agreed average for direct marketing as a benchmark: 3%. So if your ad was seen by 100,000 people, and 3000 made a purchase, you’d probably be satisfied with the result.

The actual figures will vary based on the product, sector, ad location and many other factors, but these three groups will always be there.

Advertising 2.0

Now let’s consider the same breakdown, but with a QR code thrown into the mix. In addition to the main DCR, we now have a secondary DCR: scanning the QR code in order to visit some sort of online presence.

Unlike the option to make a simple purchase, the option to scan a QR code is not open to everyone. You need a smartphone, you need a scanning utility on your smartphone and (crucially) you need the willingness to get your smartphone out and actually scan the code.

All these factors have the effect of reducing the pool of potential responders – and it is primarily responders rather than viewers or readers we’re talking about, because the ad must still do its job of communicating benefits before anyone will be willing to take action. People are not going to suddenly get interested in an ad because it has a QR code stuck on it.

Stat’s the way

So how many people might we attract with our QR code? Let’s check some stats.

The figures for smartphone penetration are improving all the time, and now stand at nearly 50%. The figures for QR code recognition sound promising too, with 40% of UK consumers now knowing what they are. Actual usage figures, however, are far weaker – just 12% of people have succesfully scanned a QR code.

Twelve percent sounds pretty good as a response rate, but remember that we have to slot that figure into the mechanic of our ad. If our ad manages to turn 3% of viewers into responders, but only 12% of responders actually have the means, motive and opportunity to respond, then the best figure we can hope for is 12% of 3%, which is 0.36%.

So, on average, we can expect about a third of a percent of people seeing an ad to use a QR code. The diagram below gives an idea of the proportions we’re talking about.

Of course, response rates to QR codes will always vary as the result of many factors – the product, its target sector and the strength of the creative that surrounds them. If we’re selling smartphones to under-30 hipsters with black-framed glasses, for example, we might expect uptake to be much higher.

But for other sectors, the QR code will offer only the most marginal utility. For example, just 1% of those aged 55–64 have used a QR code successfully. In the viewer-reader-responder model I’ve outlined, that could reduce response rates to 0.03%, or just 30 responders out of every 100,000 viewers. So if we were selling round-the-world cruises to grey-pound consumers, we’d be well advised to pick a nice appealing photo for the poster, and not rely on anyone QRing themselves online to view our TV spot on YouTube.

Dilution not addition

Given the sacrifices we must make in order to include a QR code – altering the layout of the ad itself, and creating an online presence for the code to lead to – is it worth it?

A QR enthusiast might point out that the QR route isn’t offered instead of the main conversion mechanic, but alongside it. Doesn’t it offer the possibility to generate extra interest, extra sales? Can’t we get the 3% we would have had anyway, and add on the extra 0.36% as a bonus?

The answer is a very cautious, very qualified ‘yes’. We might get some readers to scan – people who are interested in the ad but won’t carry out the DCR because they’re not ready to buy. This is the arena of ‘engagement’ as opposed to (old-fashioned) ‘selling’ – encouraging interaction as a prelude to a sale.

However, the idea that engagement leads to a sale is questionable at best, misguided at worst – read this superb article for a discussion of the arguments against it. A snappier summary is by Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman:

We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product.

But what if our QR scanners are drawn from our 3% of responders, rather than wavering readers? In that case, all we’re doing is cannibalising our own conversions. By offering the QR code as an option, we’re simply diverting readers from the main DCR – getting them to play a Facebook game when they might otherwise have just bought the product, which is (presumably) what we’re trying to achieve. In other words, we’re diluting our response rather than adding to it.

Online playground

From the traditional adman’s point of view, capturing the reader’s attention and then handing them off to some other channel is sheer insanity. Instead of closing down the interaction towards a sale, you’re opening it out by pushing the reader towards an online playground with a million other shiny things to click on. It’s like a salesman getting a face-to-face appointment, then spending it chatting about last night’s TV. For more on the incompatibility between tried and tested ad writing and the QR-code mechanic, see Alistaire Allday’s excellent recent post.

Maintaining interest and commitment across multiple channels can only make things harder and more complex. There’s more creative to do, and it must all be in the right tone. The user experience needs to be smooth and uniform, or people will feel unconsciously ill at ease. Operationally, it’s likely that more agencies (or freelancers working for them) must work together to deliver a seamless result. Basically, there’s more work to do, more balls to juggle and more things that could go wrong.

Muddy waters

Visually, QR codes are terribly obtrusive, adding a distracting new element that clashes with what the copywriter and art director are trying to do. They take up valuable ‘real estate’ that can be used to strengthen the main message. They generate plurality of meaning and, crucially, ambiguity in terms of the DCR. What do you want me to do – visit a branch, or scan this code? Am I missing out on something if I don’t scan it? And how do I know that it will take me somewhere I can trust? What is that weird blocky thing, anyway? (Remember, a whopping 60% of people have no idea what a QR code is.)

Arguably, a URL on an ad also detracts from the DCR. But this is a known, accepted and much less conspicuous convention, with a clearly understood purpose: ‘if you want to know more about us, you can go to our website’.

Then there’s the implied meta-message of including a QR code, which is ‘we’re targeting savvy smartphone users’. As noted, older readers are very unlikely to scan. So they might feel put off just by the presence of the code; it might give them a sense that ‘this isn’t for me’.

Unasked question

It’s notable how few ads have chosen to rely on QR codes as the sole DCR. If they were that powerful, they’d be trusted as the one and only means of response in an ad. Right now, that seems a long way off, and QR-only remains the domain of leftfield teaser campaigns.

For the rest of us, QR codes are the answer to a question nobody asked. Before they happened, I never heard anyone express a longing for a way to automatically ping readers over to their website – particularly one that involves requiring them to take a (slightly weird) physical action in a public place.

Yet because QR codes exist, and seem to fit with fashionable notions of ‘engagement’, they’re being shoehorned into ads regardless. The whole thing is led purely by technology, not customer preferences or psychology. It’s madness and I expect to see it end very soon.

There are many reasons to blog. First and perhaps foremost, there’s the need to unburden yourself. Then there’s the professional imperative to show everyone how clever you are. But there’s also a third motivation: the naked, yearning hunger for approval from your peers.

Two out of three ain’t bad, but you do feel a bit bereft if your post gets a tepid reaction. Trouble is, in my experience, it’s almost impossible to write a popular post by sheer force of will – or, indeed, identify one once it’s written. Three years into my blogging career, I’m no closer to knowing which posts will soar and which will sink.

Those with no understanding of pop music often claim that ‘anyone’ can write a chart hit. True, a journeyman can turn out a serviceable melody with technique alone. But creating a truly expressive, genuinely popular song is something else.

In blogging terms, I’m probably more Paul Hardcastle than Paul McCartney. But I’ve still had a few power plays in among the potboilers. Here they are, along with the experimental B-sides that only my staunchest fans still listen to.

The hits…

• Why I hate networking. I wrote this fast and furiously after attending an actual networking event. But it was so acerbic that I left it in my drafts for nearly a year, and, even then, asked my Twitter followers if I should publish it. The answer was a resounding ‘yes’ – and the mob was right. The post drew 23 comments within a few hours, and still gets responses today.
• How to define your brand’s tone of voice. This is the sort of ‘slow burner’ post I’m always encouraging clients to aim for: a non-timebound, first-principles guide that can sit there forever, getting shared and maturing like a fine wine. Of course, I had no idea it would be such a keeper when I wrote it – in fact, I thought it was pretty weak.
• Engagement smells fishy. The exact opposite of the tone of voice piece, this was a quickfire bandwagon post capitalising on someone else’s 15 minutes of fame. But I think I had something worth adding to the pot, and a high-profile tweeter (@indiaknight) agreed, giving it a major traffic boost and taking it over 250 tweets.
• An honest ‘about us’ page. This was another one I thought was far too bitter to score. Turns out I’d sorely misjudged the cynicism of my audience, who loved it. I like using parody to make a serious point, but it’s hard to think of subjects that will work.
• Wackywriting and the cult of Innocent. Probably the best post I’ve ever written, taking into account both style and substance. Music critic Dorian Lynskey quoted it in his own post on the same subject, and that post drew a response from Dan Germain, Head of Creative at Innocent. I don’t think I’ll ever get closer to the stars than that.
• Why crowdsourcing is rubbish. This used a specific (bad) example of crowdsourcing as the starting point for an analysis of why it doesn’t work. It got picked up and Tweeted by Creative Review, and the resulting traffic torrent swept away my web server like a paper boat. Using thematic cross-heads (summarising the argument instead of commenting on it) helped guide the reader through a relatively long and closely argued post.
• Brummie slang of my youth. A great example of long-tail ‘sniping’. Refreshing my knowledge of this subject, I was amazed to find there was no online compendium of Birmingham slang terms – just a couple of forum pages. Mine ranked pretty high from the outset and now ranks #1 (above Wikipedia!) for ‘brummie slang’, mainly thanks to Facebook likes I think.

…and the misses

• Why marketing is evil. Discussions about the morals of marketing on Twitter left me with an itch I just had to scratch. Marshalling my arguments took months of revision, and I was so pleased with the result that I invested in a licensed image from artist James Marsh, who I’ve always admired. A few people liked it, but it didn’t set the world on fire. Maybe, bizarrely, people didn’t want to read over 2000 words explaining why their profession was morally bankrupt?
• Twitter, transience and truthfulness. An attempt to bring a Buddhist perspective to social media, and a good example of why it doesn’t pay to get too far outside your home territory – people won’t Tweet it if they can’t relate. Reading this title over my shoulder, my partner made a two-handed gesture as though stimulating a monstrous phallus. It was hard to take that as a compliment.
• Google indexes the human mind. I worked on this April Fool for ages, convinced I had a viral rocket in my pocket. I’m really not sure why, since ‘Apple/Google invents implausible something’ pieces are two-a-penny on April 1. Surely I can’t be less funny than I think I am?
• On pronouncing ‘Quinoa’. Following (I feel) in the footsteps of Noël Coward, Hilaire Belloc and Ogden Nash, this delightful squib came out of a Twitter poll on the correct pronunciation (result: about 50/50). I was intrigued to see if a four-line post could actually succeed. The answer, as you’ve no doubt already guessed, is no.
• How times change. A long piece contrasting life today with life in the 80s. Obviously restricted in appeal to those who can remember that era. A few liked it, but it was probably too long and self-indulgent to hit home. Also, titles are very important, and try as I might I just couldn’t think of a good one for this.
• Agents of conformity. Another flog at the dead ‘marketing is evil’ horse, this time predicated on a clip from a 1988 John Carpenter film. How could it fail? I had an idea I could build quick-n-easy posts around videos, but soon realised it was a short cut to total unpopularity.

But the top turkey is undoubtedly a post I’ve deleted since publication. It escalated an argument originating on Twitter, leading to disaster for the other party and deep regret for me. All I can say is think before you publish – as Benjamin Franklin said, ‘whatever is begun in anger ends in shame’.

In grammatical terms, the passive voice is formed with an auxiliary verb (usually ‘to be’ or ‘to get’) plus a participle of a transitive verb. The subject of the sentence is the person or thing being acted upon (the ‘patient’) rather than the person or thing taking action (the ‘agent’).

It’s much clearer with an example. This sentence is passive:

The loo seat has been left up again

…whereas this one is active:

You’ve left the loo seat up again!

As this example shows, it’s possible to avoid mentioning the agent completely, which has the effect of obscuring or diffusing responsibility. Something was done, but it’s not clear who actually did it.

Sometimes, this can be useful. There are occasions when you need to describe a situation without ascribing responsibility, because such a remark would probably be construed as blame:

The amends to the document haven’t been done yet

However, by the same token, the passive can be used to weasel your way out of culpability. Let’s review those classic Waterman quotes in full:

She certainly wasn’t a beaten wife, she was hit and that’s different.

I could be so good for you

With this majestic double-barrelled evasion, Waterman erases himself from the picture completely. Whatever went on in that marriage, it clearly wasn’t anything to do with him.

First we get ‘she wasn’t a beaten wife’, which uses a personal characterisation (‘beaten wife’) to describe a physical event (being beaten). This makes the beating an attribute of the wife, rather than an action of the husband.

Then we have ‘she was hit’, which is a classic passive-case reworking of ‘I hit her’. Again, by making Rula Lenska the subject, Waterman implicitly lays the blame at her door. What was she thinking of, being hit like that?

It doesn’t end there:

if a woman is a bit of a power freak and determined to put you down, and if you’re not bright enough to do it with words, it can happen. And it did happen in my case.

What ‘can happen’ exactly, Dennis? A troublesome event like, oh I don’t know, punching your wife in the face? Yes, that does happen and it’s a right pain – like a rain shower just as you’re starting a round of golf. ‘It did happen in my case’ is a roundabout, passive way of saying ‘I did it’.

Something must have brought it on. When frustration builds up and you can’t think of a way out… It happened and I’m very, very ashamed of it.

Again, ‘it happened’, not ‘I did it’. But again, it really wasn’t Waterman’s fault – ‘something must have brought it on’. And my guess is that ‘something’ wasn’t Waterman’s free will, or his capacity to think, but some perniciously irritating attribute of his ex-wife.

But the worst of all has to be this:

It’s not difficult for a woman to make a man hit her.

This isn’t a passive construction, but the sense is the same: the five-year-old’s plea of ‘look what you made me do!’ Like rape victims who bring it on themselves by wearing particular clothes or leaving the house at night, Lenska practically asked for a beating by being so ‘intelligent’ – the witch.

Contrast that verbal ignominy with the way Lenska herself describes events:

There were times when he hit me. I became the object of his hate.

‘He hit me’ is unambiguous, but note how she avoids saying ‘he hated me’. Instead, Waterman’s hate is characterised as a ‘thing’, while Lenska passively becomes its object. This convoluted construction again removes Waterman from the picture, while framing his hating in a rather abstract way – but who can blame someone for shying away from such a painful truth?

Clearly, Waterman always likes to have the last word, so here goes:

It’s been suggested that I’m chauvinistic but I don’t think I am, I’m just… I think there is a place for women at home.

So where would that be, Dennis? In the kitchen? Or crouching under the stairs, bleeding and terrified, dialling 999?

Ostensibly, the text of the poster is a direct quote from Dr Brigid Sheppard. If it is, she’s missed her vocation, because this copy is healthier than a GP’s bank balance.

Dear Mr Cameron,
You’re making a big mistake with the NHS.
Please, please listen to us.

First off, the salutation makes it clear that the campaign regards David Cameron, rather than Andrew Lansley, as the author of the NHS reforms. We’re talking to the organ-grinder, not the monkey. Going over Lansley’s head pre-empts any move to hang him out to dry (which has looked more than likely, many times) and appoint a new patsy to make cosmetic tweaks and push the reforms through regardless.

Using ‘Mr’ makes the whole thing seem polite and reasonable, in a way that ‘Dear David Cameron’ wouldn’t. This is no class-war bolshevik rant, just one professional writing to another.

‘You’re making a big mistake’ is inspired. This line could easily have been something much more inert and passive like ‘These reforms will damage the NHS’. The underlying meaning is the same, but framing it as a direct assertion in the second person is dynamite.

The use of a colloquial expression like ‘making a big mistake’ makes the sentiment sound like it’s just common sense – something that anyone could agree with. Again, something dry about ‘misguided reforms’ or similar just wouldn’t pack the same punch. ‘Big mistake’ is the perfect way to describe a momentous, irrevocable and ultimately ill-advised decision.

Please please me

‘Please, please listen to us’ ramps up the emotion on both sides of the argument. First, the repeated ‘please’ positions NHS professionals as put-upon martyrs pleading on behalf of the people. Secondly, ‘listen to us’ subtly paints Cameron and his government as heedless tyrants, ploughing on with their market-based madness with utter disregard for the human cost. What sort of man doesn’t listen to a nice lady doctor?

Because it’s a quote from a real doctor (or purports to be), the whole thing has the persuasive power of authority – it’s not a marketing agency saying this, but someone who understands the reforms and their impact. The powerful ’66%’ statistic adds evidential ballast to Dr Sheppard’s personal view. (You shouldn’t really start a sentence with a numeral, but we’ll let that slide.)

Such hard-hitting copy doesn’t need a lot of visual clevering off, and it doesn’t get it. The (genuine?) handwriting tells us that these are Dr Sheppard’s own words, while a simple grey and orange colour way ensures that she is by far the warmest thing in our field of vision.

Dark clothing is always powerful, and the direct look to camera conveys sincerity, honesty and concern. The clasped hands may give Dr Sheppard a faint air of supplication, but showing knuckles projects confidence and strength. And just in case we were in any doubt over who to trust, that stethoscope puts us right in her surgery, waiting for her to reassure us about our persistent cough.

Airbrush with fate

Compare that with the Conservatives’ famous campaign poster for the 2010 general election, which featured Cameron himself ‘saying’ the following lines:

We can’t go on like this.
I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.

Having championed colloquial language, I can’t fault the first part. However, it’s worth noting that this is knocking copy – critcising Labour, rather than proposing an alternative. A more positive version would be something like ‘There is a better way’. But as the coalition’s sorry-assed first term has shown, the ‘Blame Labour’ tactic is a gift that just keeps on giving. (To be fair, ‘read our plan for change’ at the foot of the poster does at least hint at something more positive.)

The second part – ‘I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS’ is semantically a bit awkward. By setting up a diametric contrast between cutting the deficit and cutting the NHS, it (a) suggests that they are mutually exclusive opposites and (b) implies that Labour was doing the converse of what’s proposed – that is, cutting the NHS as opposed to the deficit. But if anything, it wasn’t cutting either – that was the whole problem.

Presumably, the final copy was the ultra-punchy, ultra-condensed version of a longer, wordier version – something like ‘I’ll cut the deficit without cutting the NHS’. If so, the longer version would have been clearer. But perhaps it was felt that actually using the phrase ‘cutting the NHS’ was just too toxic, even as part of a denial.

The ludicrous artwork, rightly derided, makes liberal use of Photoshop airbrushing to magic away Cameron’s forehead wrinkles. But the only effect is to make his face look like a shop-bought pie, instead of one you made at home. How did it ever get signed off?

Well, I’ve spent the whole post focusing on style over substance, and I’m no closer to an informed opinion on the NHS. But at least I know which one of these posters I believe. How about you?