Marketing Quote 8: I didn’t know what it meant myself
Jul 14th, 2008 by MAT.
I once used the word “obsolete” in a headline, only to discover that 43% of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline I used the word “ineffable,” only to discover that I didn’t know what it meant myself.
~ David Ogilvy
Amateur copywriters might make the mistakes of using big words to impress their clients. And, wonders of wonders, the clients were duly impressed to pass the copy with flying colours. What hurts is the results. When their target audience cannot understand one word here and one word there, the likelihood that they give up reading the rest of the copy is strongly. Why lose the entire forest because of one tree? To me, talk simply and write simply to get the message across is the best.
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“Keep it Simple” is good advice for many aspects of business. Writing and speaking are two of those. Many times I have seen people fail to get their point across because they “clutter” their speech or writing with words that are unnecessary. You make a very good point.
Thanks, Ron. I used to make that mistakes until I saw how effective simplicity can be.