The other day, I asked the Twitterverse its opinion on a particuarly hackneyed phrase I was considering using in a copywriting assignment. Predictably, the reaction was equivocal. I felt unsure myself. And yet I submitted the text with the phrase intact. (The client didn’t complain.)

The phrase was ‘at your fingertips’. Few would dispute its status as a cliché. It appears in Catch-22, which was published in 1961 (‘Lieutenant Scheisskopf had the facts at his finger tips’) and was surely familiar even then. So it’s clocked up a good half-century of use in print. A Google search turns up over 10 million results. By any measure, this is a familiar figure of speech.

I don’t want to rock clichés. But they’re making my readers buy

I was writing about a portable electronic device, so ‘at your fingertips’ had a literal relevance (unlike Joseph Heller’s metaphorical usage). But there’s no doubt that the phrase is what George Orwell called a ‘dying metaphor’ – a worn-out figure of speech that has lost its capacity to add colour to writing. But what could I say instead? Go literal and say ‘within easy reach’ or ‘close at hand’? Or informal with ‘right there where you need it’?

The problem is that none of the alternatives carries quite the same meaning. So I can avoid the cliché, but only by sacrificing clarity. Is that really a trade-off I want to make?

The project I was working on was a B2C landing page selling stylish electronic products as Christmas gifts. Traffic was to be generated with an AdWords campaign. For my money, there were three key perspectives, all relating (naturally) to the audience rather than me or the client.

• Mindset. Once they’re at a landing page, we know the audience is interested, motivated and actively searching for the product. They’re not in ‘socialising’ or ‘surfing’ mode. So there’s no need to ‘interrupt’ them, grab their attention or try to generate interest ex nihilo. They are, in effect, a voluntarily captive audience.
• Profile. People have different levels of literacy and vocabulary. For literate readers, ‘at your fingertips’ is painfully crass. But for others (my target audience), it’s a useful signpost. They don’t read a lot of books. They don’t analyse every ad they see. They’re short of time and buying presents is just ‘one more thing’. I need to inform and persuade, not entertain or intrigue. Trying too hard won’t add value, and could do harm. 
• Resonance. In terms of tone, I’m trying to involve the reader. So I want my words to be warm and welcoming, reassuring them that they’re in the right place. There’s no call for anything edgy, surprising or challenging.

In other words, I believe the cliché was the right choice for the task at hand (or at fingertip).

As copywriters, our aim is not to express ourselves, but to serve the interests of our clients and their customers. We choose the words that bring those two groups together for mutual benefit. Creativity and originality may be appropriate means to that end. But it’s our duty to do what works, regardless of whether we like it ourselves. Copywriters are servants, not artists.

But (you object), surely creativity and originality are worthwhile in themselves? My personal answer is ‘yes’. But that’s because I’m university-educated and aesthetically sensitive (in theory at least). And the idea of ‘worth’ is a value judgement that has nothing to do with what works commercially. If I want to be creative, I should do it on my own time. (That’s one reason why this blog exists.)

Anyway, why do clichés become clichés? Because they’re so useful. Orwell exhorted his fellow journalists to comb through their text for over-familiar idioms and replace them with something newer and fresher. But this misses the point. Clichés endure because they serve a unique purpose. Like favourite cardigans, they get worn out precisely because of their appeal.

To sum up: if a cliché is the right tool for the job, the conscientious copywriter goes right ahead and uses it.

As I write this post, I’m munching on some dry roasted peanuts. (Yes, somebody does like them.) The product is an own-brand (private label) offering from a major UK supermarket. On the back is the following copy:

Our fundamental belief is that few things in life are more important than the food you buy. Good quality is essential.

One immediate comment is that the second sentence is flabby, redundant and pretty obvious too. If it needs saying at all, it can be rolled into the first sentence (‘…than the quality of the food you buy’). But what I’d really like to focus on is the attitude or stance of the text, and what it can tell us about copywriting.

I do like healthy food as well, honest

Be relevant

Does the average dry-roasted-peanut consumer care that much about quality? I personally doubt it. We’d better give the benefit of the doubt: this text probably appears on every product line. But even if I was reading it on the back of some broccoli, or baby food, do I really care that much about the beliefs of a supermarket? Therefore:

• Write about customer benefits or don’t write at all. Otherwise you’ll just dilute the relevant messages you do have to offer.

Be believable

Who’s talking here? Who does ‘our’ refer to? The company? A company is a legal or financial construct without ‘fundamental beliefs’. Perhaps ‘our’ refers to the people who work there. Are they all together on this point? Do the checkout ladies, the drivers and the shelf-stackers all buy in? When beliefs are so fluid and so personal, can they really be shared?

The truth is that no-one really believes this kind of egotistical, self-centred ‘value statement’, or learns anything from it, or remembers it (apart from grumpy copywriters). It does almost nothing for the reader – and, as a result, for the company too. The key take-away is:

• Don’t stretch credibility. Read it out loud and see how it comes across.

Be respectful

Although ostensibly about ‘our’ beliefs, the copy is just as just about ‘you’, and the importance you attach to your food. There’s an insidiously preachy undertone. ‘Come on now, you can’t really want to eat those Wotsits. Try this couscous instead, it’s divine!’

Too proud to use actual evidence to support its position, it comes across as snooty and patronising, washing over the reader and missing a precious chance to connect with them. My advice is:

• People aren’t stupid. Don’t talk down to them.

The key to having the right copywriting attitude is simple: picture your average reader, put yourself in their position and imagine what they’d want to read. It may be very different from what you want to tell them.

It’s important to focus on benefits in copywriting – the good things that will happen for customers as a result of using the product or service in question. Another way to think about this is in terms of where the copy is focused: on the company, the product, or the customer.

Imagine a conversation between the company and the customer. They are talking over a table, and on the table is the product being sold. It’s a fairly one-sided conversation – the company is doing the talking, and the customer is listening. When the company has finished talking, the customer will decide whether or not to buy. This is what happens when customer encounters marketing copy.

Now imagine a line stretching from the company through the product and on to the customer. This is shown below (apologies for the terrible, terrible icons):

The self-sell continuum, from company to customer

• Purely selfish copy is all about the company: how long it’s been trading, who runs it, where it’s located, its principles and vision. Unless these points can be translated into benefits (a particular location, for example, could help customers access the product) they’ve got no place in marketing copy. This is the stuff that goes in ‘About us’ on websites, so people can easily avoid it. Some company facts do constitute indirect reasons to buy – being a market leader, for example, is compelling – but most don’t.
• Slightly less selfish is stuff on the business/product boundary – how a product was developed, the thinking behind it and so on. This might add some value, but it’s background at best.
• Material on the product itself is good, but remember that a straightforward factual description will only sell to those who are already very clear about what they want and why. However, this content is ready to be re-expressed as customer benefits in order to sell harder.
• Copy about the interface between product and customer concerns how the product can be bought, how and when it’s used, what it does and so on. This is where customer benefits begin to enter the picture, particularly if the text explains why the various attribute are good.
• Finally, and most powerfully, we come to copy that focuses purely on the customer. This content starts with customer concerns and goes on to explain how the product will help them, in words they’ll understand. Effective copywriting spends most of its time here.

Companies who produce their own copy often start with themselves and the product. That’s perfectly understandable for people who are closely involved, but it highlights the importance of getting a fresh perspective on the text. As a newcomer and an outsider, the copywriter’s job is to move the emphasis to the customer by (politely) asking questions such as:

• How does that help me as a customer?
• How does that affect my decision to buy, or not to buy?
• As a potential customer, why should I be interested?

Any points that are too company- or product-focused should be recast in terms of things the customer wants, or failing that deleted. The end result should be text that talks directly to the customer’s own priorities, linking them clearly to the product. To confirm that this is so, compare the number of times you’ve said ‘you’ as opposed to ‘we’ or ‘us’. There should be at least twice as many mentions of the customer as of the company.

Marketing may be a one-way communication, but as with any other conversation, acknowledging the other person’s point of view is more likely to get positive results.