Words Have No Meaning.

One of the great false assumptions that marketers make is that once you have someone's attention, then you've got them for good. Well I hope most marketers don't think that way, but I can't think of another explanation for this billboard ad I saw at a station today. Just look at all those words.

It starts with a few superfluous humanising sentences about how they used to be bad at explaining things but they're trying much harder now and then goes on to explain how. Thereafter they probably telling me some more of their greatness, but even I (with a blogpost in mind) couldn't be bothered to read further. In fact, I was bored after the first sentence - it was all about them and nothing about what they could do for me.

It's the sort of worthiness that would be ignored in a magazine or newspaper where the next page is crying out for your attention; around a billboard the number of distractions are even greater and yet they want to preach to me - if not in tone, certainly in verbosity.

If you want to transmit information in an ad, then think elevator pitch in a very fast elevator. Know what you want to say and say it quick and clearly. That way you might keep my attention.