Many thanks
to Heddy’s Miami Ad must-be-smart/maybe ex-English teachers who pointed out
many of the Kamikaze Copy Sins aren’t cited as proper usage in the NY Times Style Book.
I know.
Ad copy (web
copy, brochures, yadda yadda), like much of the best modern literature, isn’t
written in the language of Quirk’s Comprehensive
English Grammar. It starts there – but
like everything else we do, good ad copy is targeted to the Prospect. It’s a sad day for America, but the majority
of people we write for read at fifth grade level. They may have degrees, but I cannot
tell you how many college graduates I’ve taught who needed a good remedial
grammar class (not all of them from Mississippi or the Carolinas).
These people
(our Prospects) may have advanced degrees, write themselves, may know the rules. At least enough to send a memo/email. You’d think.
If you’re read commercial, business or personal emails lately, you know
the majority of people don’t use spell check – let alone proper English.
Ad copy is
many things. Mostly, it’s conversational. One of the reasons I spend so much time on
the Prospect section of the KCWP* is the need to enter into a meaningful dialogue. Not speak at them. Concept, more than anything else, is how we
draw them into the conversation. Once
they enter – once they start reading – it’s our job to keep them there. To become so engaged, they remember what they
read.
Unlike
mystery, romance, fine lit, comic book and graphic novel fans, people don’t
volunteer to read ad copy. We have to
trick them into it. Keep them reading,
almost against their own will.
Any excuse we
give them – language elevated above the Prospect, technically correct but ad-excessive
commas. Long, complexly structured lines
and paragraphs, run-on and compound sentences. Excessive/poorly spaced implied subjects, repeating words too closely
boring verbs too many descriptors - right down the Kamikaze Copy Sins list – is
a direct invitation to stop reading. (Good
thing this isn’t an ad.)
Bank copy used
to sound like lawyers wrote it. Today’s
most effective bank copy is casual, conversational. Insurance companies, legal firms and
investment come-ons are moving the same way.
Why? It won’t work if the Prospect
doesn’t read it, can’t understand it, doesn’t feel it.
Lest you
think I’m a grammarphobe, I invite you join a Sunday morning newspaper read at
Casa Doreen and Bruce. My engineer hubby
and I despair at the state of the English language, the stupidity media shows
laying off proofreaders and editors.
Granted, we’re proudly word nerds.
Own several library dictionaries (my favorite, a Webster’s New International from the 30s). It makes us – and a lot of other people –
wonder how closely they check their facts (don’t get me started on Fox News,
Dan Rather, even CNN).
More
than once, I’ve threatened to leave North Carolina without him over the
language we hear daily. I seen it, thems
policemans is ebbewar, no tense but the present, on and on – from day laborers
and college grads (some with MBAs) alike.
You have to know the rules to break
them.
Tellingly,
most people don’t know when I’m using improper grammar. I’ve written for markets, complex products as intellectually challenging as NYC, Chicago, Boston, banks, insurance, investment high tech luxury medical,
dozens more – B2B** and B2C***. Except
for the occasional stickler who thinks they need complete sentences, even C level
(CEO, CFO, COO, ECD, etc.) clients breeze through my consistently improper copy
and compliment me on a job well done.
How do I get
away with it?
Besides the
fact sentence diagramming is rarely – if ever - taught (unless you count when I
use it to give students a visual read on exactly how complex and clunky their
lines are), the fact is I write targeted, motivational copy. I spend so much time getting into the
Prospect’s heads, hearts and lives, I use language tailored expressly for
them. Not for the client. Not for my CD. Not for my high school English teacher.
I know “…just
lies there” is correct. Why do I
consistently use “…lays there?” It’s
what my Prospect – and just about everyone else – uses. I guarantee using the proper form of the verb
will confuse annoy alienate the reader to point they’ll stop reading.
Eliminating Kamikaze
Copy Sins, as improper as many fixes may be, is how to keep your
Prospect reading. How to move them along
through whatever length copy to your carefully drawn conclusion. I’ve had MBA+ CEOs approve copy with no commas
between lists of items, before ands (which I usually take out anyway, replaced
by another comma - never a foreign-looking semi-colon), between modifiers. Most
don’t even notice.
Why? Read Burr
by Gore Vidal.
Vidal (who
died earlier this Century) was an Ivy League word (and every other kind of)
snob (his memoirs are titled Palimpsest
– Bruce and I had to look it up – you should do the same). His feuds – often about language and style
(not to mention politics, economics, life) with Norman Mailer (Armies of the Night, The Naked and the Dead,
The Executioner’s Song – read him, too) are literary legend.
Yet Vidal's the guy who gave me the courage to try the no comma
trick.
I noticed how
quickly I’d breeze through some of his lists, modifiers, etc. How I’d pause, think, consider my way through
others. The reason? The fast lists had no commas between
items/descriptors.
His writing
is so seemingly correct (in some cases it is - obsessively so), the historical
fiction so accurate, no one I know who reads him for pleasure notices anything
but how well written his work is. (Mailer
has his incorrect grammar tricks, too.
Try to find them. So did On the Road’s Jack Kerouac, but his are
far from seamless.)
The best
writers are readers. Read enough, study
how it’s written, you don’t need a degree in English. I always take my lead from authors, poets – not
Grammarians or other Copywriters.
Authors and poets push the language envelope, live in the language of
their characters, don’t think puns or clichés are worth writing down.
Thank you,
Heddy’s budding Copywriters but I already knew. I wish I could take credit for all the unseemly
grammar I advocate. Alas, I cannot. More to the point, to find my improper grammar,
you had to read it.
The Kamikaze
Copy Sins aren’t about correct/incorrect.
They’re about things that slow your Prospect down, make them stop – or
keep – reading. About communicating in a Language of Concept**** that gets into their gut, says
you’re one of them. Even the most
radical errors and omissions won’t be noticed as long as you know the rules, break
them accordingly.
Memorize the Kamikaze Copy Sins, kiddies. Keep a list of your own. When you're a Creative Director, maybe one day you'll pass them on like Heddy.
*KCWP: Kamikaze
Creative Work Plan
**B2B: Business to
Business
***B2C: Business
to Consumer
****Language of Concept:
tone, vocabulary, style chosen to carry the Concept to the Prospect.
As with all my posts, ©2013, Doreen Dvorin/Kamikaze Creative
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