The power of words
People don't feel like reading? And that's why ads should do without text? Two huge misconceptions.
Today, let’s take a look at a particularly strange exhibit in the gallery of tragic advertising blunders: the belief that people are now all too lazy to read, and that it’s therefore pointless to focus on copywriting in advertisements. To me, this assumption seems so preposterous that I can’t help but offer a critical commentary on it. I find myself wondering, for example: How do those who believe this explain, say, Amazon’s rise to become a veritable global powerhouse? After all, this is a company that, not too long ago, started out as an online bookstore (!).
Seriously, dear readers—don’t listen to the self-proclaimed trend analysts who try to tell you things like that. The fact is: People are reading more than ever. There are billions of websites online; and although obviously only a tiny percentage of them are actually «read,» it is precisely those that are extremely successful. Just take all the news sites, blogs, and the digital presence of large companies…
We read, we write
Yes: Not only do we humans still read (just think of all the growing social media channels), but we even write (!). Millions, if not billions, of people post not only pictures but also captions—both short and long—as well as statements and articles. Many of these are read, liked, shared, and commented on, even though they’re probably longer than the text in an average ad. Which brings us right to the heart of the matter: advertising and text. Sure, I’d hardly read a full A4 page of advertising for a new brand of gum. But I’d be interested in studying a page of advertising copy if I were thinking about a new car, a new sound system, a new house, a loan, a computer, or insurance… Do you see where I’m going with this?
Nothing held back
It’s a mistake to withhold important information from people in advertising just because someone on the client’s side thinks no one wants to read anymore. Advertising legend Helmut Krone, the art director behind one of the most successful advertising campaigns of all time (he created the ads for the VW Beetle), once put it very aptly: «I believe people are thirsty for information. But they get it all too rarely from advertising. […] People want to know this or that. Advertising should therefore simply give them the information they need.» I agree with that wholeheartedly. Yes, I’d even go a step further: You owe (!) your customers that information. People want (!) to know. Okay, you might say that Helmut Krone’s quote is from the 1960s—or perhaps the 1970s—but today everything is completely different, right?
Make the facts interesting
No, it isn’t. Because even back then, the exact same myth was being spread: «Attention! Attention! People don’t read anymore!» To which the San Francisco-based advertising executive Howard Luck Gossage replied with Solomonic wisdom: «People don’t read ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes that’s an ad.» This is probably the wisest thing ever said on the subject. It’s just as true today as it was back then, in the good old days of advertising.
Around the year 2000, BMW launched a spectacular campaign (created by Jung von Matt, if I recall correctly) in which, for the first time in many years, long-form copy was used in automotive advertising. As far as I remember, the campaign was a resounding success. Not only did it result in the sale of a great many high-quality cars, but it also generated media coverage, and BMW received a lot of additional publicity—simply because the ads used informative, long-form copy. Just imagine that!
I think David Ogilvy would probably have either laughed himself silly or shed bitter tears over the fact that an ad with a lot of text attracted such a great deal of attention in advertising circles. After all, that was exactly what he had always recommended; Ogilvy was a strong advocate of using text. His motto was: «Just the facts, but make it interesting.»
What has changed?
This raises the question of what has supposedly changed since the days of «David the Great.» Supposedly, we humans in 2021 have a shorter attention span; even some renowned marketing experts share this view. Science, however, refutes this: Our attention span—that is, the amount of time we can focus on a specific topic—hasn’t changed in a million years. What has changed, on the other hand, is the number of media channels available to which we devote our attention. Which, of course, is a real problem for advertisers. But do we actually have less time? I don’t think so. Twenty-four hours today are just as much twenty-four hours as they were a hundred years ago, right? If anything, we have more (!) free time available today than we did a hundred years ago. We may just be spending our time differently, but we’re still spending our free time on the things that interest us. And most of us still read. We read what interests us—in the media that interest us. So the challenge is simply to be interesting in a way that’s relevant to today’s world. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that every ad should use long texts. There are so many great ads that need very little or no text at all, and I myself have often used primarily visual ads with very little text to great effect. But I’ve also successfully achieved my goals with ads featuring long texts, long sales letters, or emails. So generally shying away from text, as if it were a weakness or a flaw in advertising that must be avoided like the plague, is certainly the dumbest and most expensive mistake in advertising. It’s also the most common one, I believe.
Confucius himself once said …
Confucius is quoted as saying, «A picture is worth more than a thousand words.» Aside from the fact that the original quote was obviously mistranslated (the original quote actually reads, «A picture is worth more than a thousand pieces of gold»), we should take note of the fact that this quote has survived for 2,500 years not as an image, but in the form of words (!).
Here’s another example: If you take away the words from the Volvo ad (1), what’s left? Exactly: just junk. Here’s another example: a text ad for Timberland (2) that’s truly worth reading. It was written by Tim Delaney. Can you tell me how anyone could resist an ad with a headline like that?
Or another ad by Howard Luck Gossage (3) that’s packed with text. Are you really going to claim that this headline doesn’t make you want to read the ad? Come on now…
Finally, here’s an ad that just about everyone in Switzerland is familiar with (4). Can you think of any image that would make this masterpiece look even better? Exactly. In conclusion: We’re still capable of reading. And we do read when something interests us. That’s why large ads will never be able to do without big words entirely.
* Thomas M. Braun He is a marketing and communications consultant and gives lectures and seminars on these topics. Previously, he was the head of marketing at a leading global packaging company and owned his own advertising agency with an international client portfolio.
