“Here’s a wacky idea: consumers are intelligent,
reasonable people”
Many of our clients sell to highly qualified professional people. Doctors, nurses, business managers, vets. We ourselves sell, in the main, to bright, articulate marketing professionals.
The language we all use is, as you’d expect, thoughtful, reasoned, measured. There’s not much hype and a deal of respect. The same must be true of every sensible brand or agency, when addressing intelligent adults.
So why does it fall apart when the consumer is the audience?
“Exciting new toilet cleaner fragrances!”
“Reply now! Offer must end Friday!”
“Spring Cost Crash! Prices can’t get any blooming better!”
It’s as if we switch to a kind of strident baby-talk when writing for the folks in the street. As if consumers aren’t due the same courtesies as the vets and managers we want to reach in business-to-business communication.
Sure, it’s true that most consumers aren’t doctors or marketing professionals. But it’s also true that they’re not semi-literate fools either. And, come on, nobody but nobody finds toilet cleaner exciting.
So how about this: let’s all take a reality check before committing any more of those awful tabloid lines to paper. Let’s stop and think about what our reader might already know and what he or she would be prepared to believe.
Half price? There won’t be many people who don’t know (or believe) that full price is probably a fiction. Prices can’t get lower? Of course they can if you don’t shift the stuff you’re selling. Let’s work on the basis that consumers are intelligent, reasonable beings who will take us seriously if we do the same to them.
Instead of using exclamation marks and exaggeration, let’s use common sense and an understanding of the reader’s agenda. In fact, let’s treat consumers with the respect they deserve.
