Bad Typography 04/28/2010
 
In the current issue of Communication Arts, a graphic designer suggests that typography offers an inexpensive way to give a message more punch. Fair enough. I wish he had stopped there, and not shared any examples.

He shows a series of posters for a ski resort, with dramatic photos of snowboarders upside-down in mid-leap. The headlines, all caps, appear upside-down at the bottom of the page. This, he alleges, conveys "…the subliminal message that there are no limits at the resort."

Quite a feat, considering there's no such thing as subliminal advertising techniques that have any effect. But let's be fair; maybe he meant they convey that impression. Fine. Exactly how does he know that anyone besides him is getting the no-limits message from his upside-down type? Saying “this is what happens” doesn’t make it so.

Oh, and by the way, setting a line of type in all caps reduces readership. So does putting it upside down. I know this from testing, not speculation. It's a lesser sin for short headlines, which these are. But ... subliminal? Please.

Next he shows a shopping bag for a lingerie store. On the bag is an admittedly cool illustration of a bra, with copy set in calligraphy of varying sizes swirling about to form the cups. He says it tells "…an evocative story in an engaging manner." Evocative the story may be. I wouldn't know. I was unwilling to rotate the bag (or myself) to read the message.

It doesn't matter how cool the type looks if no one can read it. If you turn it, swirl it, reverse it, set it in caps, use goofy fonts, erratically change fonts or sizes or shape it into a bra, no one will read it. It's too much work — and no one cares enough about what an advertiser has to say to work for it.

Do not think that by making text challenging to read you will motivate people to dig in and decipher it. That would be like saying diners will be more motivated to eat a meal if you make it smell bad.

Right after I fired him, one designer hurled this accusation at me: "You refuse to admit that design is the most important part of advertising."

Guilty as charged.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
Yesterday I was a guest presenter in a webinar sponsored by DirectMarketingIQ. I thought I’d share two questions from participants, along with my answers.

Q: I've heard that a different headline would pull up to six times more than another. Is this true?

A: A headline change can certainly do that. Headlines (and, in a sales letter, the P.S.) are read first, so that's where you'll see a good deal of impact. Even changing a single word in the headline can make a significant difference. Decades ago, the legendary John Caples increased response 20 percent by changing "How to repair cars" to "How to fix cars." Sometimes surprisingly mundane changes work wonders. An educational institute for bankers once asked us how to get more branch managers to respond to their newspaper ad. We suggested simply adding the words "BRANCH MANAGERS" in large type at the top of the ad, leaving everything else, including the headline, unchanged. Replies shot up. 

Q: Should we tell the client how they may feel about a collectible product? For example tell the customer this product will take your breath away or instead say this product is breathtaking.

A: "Breathtaking" merely describes the product, whereas "take your breath away" describes the effect on the reader, so it makes sense that the latter might pull better. BUT: what seems to make sense often fails in real life. It makes sense that a product priced at $24 would outsell the same one priced at $29, but the opposite is often true. So, rather than try to reason which wording will sell more, you can know by doing a split-copy test. (I assume you're dealing with a headline. If the wording is buried in copy, I would stress over other things first.) That said, I can't help observing that neither term is particularly convincing. Can a collectible really take one's breath away? There may be a more believable, more compelling claim as to the effect your product will have on its proud new owner. 

—Steve Cuno
 
 
Nike has a new spot with Tiger Woods. He stands there as the real, disembodied voice of his late father appears to chastise him. I’m not sure what the commercial will accomplish, nor can I fathom Nike’s objective. Click here to watch the commercial. Thoughts?
 
—Steve Cuno
 
 
I will not market products that don't work. (At least, not knowingly. I have been duped—more on that in a moment.) That has meant saying NO to, and sometimes angering, prospective clients who were ready to spend.

Products that I have declined include: 

• Multi-level marketing schemes (also known as network marketing). To be clear, some are legit. But generally in MLM, the product is secondary; what's really for sale is the unattainable dream of quickly building a downline, getting rich quick, and quitting your day job after just a few months. The only people who get rich in these schemes are those who enroll in them early. Later enrollees are their prey.

• Alternative medicines and alleged nutritional products. Most are flimflam. If you don't believe me, read their disclaimers. Those that aren't flimflam can interfere with other medications and have side effects, so they should be used only under the supervision of a real doctor. (Note: a real doctor. Not a chiropractor, naturopath, acupuncturist, aura manipulator, psychic healer, etc.) Never mind the so-called clinical studies. If I wanted, I could produce a clinical study showing that listening to Prokofiev instead of Mozart will make you live longer. (Come to think of it, though that's not true, it should be.)

• Purported stock market prediction products/systems. They don't work. All they do is encourage people, many of whom can't afford to lose, to risk foolishly.

• Weight-loss hypnotherapy. There is still only one proven weight-loss method: eat less, eat smarter, and exercise more. Trouble is, there's not much money in that plan. No valid test has shown hypnosis to be of any effect.

• Astrology. It's bunk.

• A lobbying group that would scare the daylights out of anyone who thinks highly of the First Amendment.

• Subliminal self-improvement CDs. You know, the kind you play while you're asleep. Bogus.

I am sorry to say that, a few times, I have been duped into selling products which I later learned didn't work. Here are a few:

• Stock market prediction software. I took on this client before I knew better. They were great people, most of whom I think believed their product worked. Though, looking back, it is curious that no one in the company used the software to get rich—except by selling it.

• An antioxidant product. Never mind what you've read to the contrary. Antioxidants don't do anything but cost you money. I didn't know that at the time.

• A high-tech device. Devices of this type work. But, three years after the account moved to another agency, I learned that the engineers of this one had lied to me about their patented chip's advantages. Evaluating their claims required expertise and high-tech toys unavailable to me, so I believed the PhDs and wrote ads based on what they told me. I'm still mad. (I lack sufficient documentation to fend off a lawsuit, so for now I must be silent on the details.)

Thank goodness there are still plenty of legitimate products for my agency to sell. Otherwise, I'd have to return to my first job at age 16. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with busing tables at Denny's. It just wasn't the long-term career I wanted.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
Published this week in Inside Direct Mail

Insisting that our markets accept responsibility for their buying decisions in no way alleviates us marketers of responsibility for how we use our marketing knowledge. 

The knowledge itself is neutral. Knowing that a P.S. in a sales letter pulls high readership does not make it immoral to put compelling copy points there, nor does knowing the power of limited-time incentive offers make it underhanded to use them. It is in the content of marketing that abuses can and do occur. 

To be sure, much if not the majority of today's direct response marketing is forthright and honorable. But some of it resorts, if not to out-and-out lies, to the classic subterfuge of stating what is technically true in a manner that is designed to mislead. Don't believe me? Consider the number of products that makes fantastic claims in body copy — which the fly type directly contradicts.  (To continue reading, click here.)
 
 
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Intuitive inklings may be good guides when buying a house or a car. But Steve Cuno thinks they can be disastrous when planning a campaign to launch a product or elect a politician.

Cuno, an author living in Sandy, has written Prove It Before You Promote It , which he says helps take the guesswork out of marketing.

The 230-page book, published last year by John Wiley & Sons, is "brilliant," said Alan Rosenspan, a former creative director at advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather.

"The book is engagingly written and includes key summary points in every chapter, which are a great guide for every advertiser," Rosenspan said in an e-mail. (Click here to read the Salt Lake Tribune article.)
 
 
New ad medium — The Toronto Star reports that restroom visitors at high-end restaurants in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver may soon see 20-second videos playing in bathroom mirrors when the sink is activated. AddMirror Canada Ltd. licensed the new technology in Canada.

There's nothing new about restroom ads, though putting them in mirrors is a new twist. I wonder, however, about a possible hitch. Since reliable research shows that most people claim to but don’t wash, viewership may not be as high as AddMirror projects. But who knows. In-mirror video may increase the number of people who wash post-potty. If so, I'm all for the new medium, regardless of its impact on sales.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
USA Today has a new plan to increase space sales to advertisers. In ads targeting corporate marketing decision makers and ad agencies, they're going to feature the tagline, "What America wants."

Geeze, that changes everything. Imagine all the holdouts who, as a result of reading that line, will run ads in USA Today henceforth.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
I just heard a radio spot for a car dealer where the announcer said, "We don't treat you like a number." Come on, writers, think these things through. When was the last time you overhead someone say, "I'd like to buy a car, but I yearn for a dealer that doesn't treat me like a number." Or, when was the last time you overhead someone say, "They don't treat me like a number? I'm going there to buy a car right now!"

—Steve Cuno
 
 
I was troubled when I heard two leaps, each made by a scientist, on NPR over the weekend. 

One scientist cited a 2008 pre-election study in which American voters unconsciously rated Tony Blair as  "more American" than Barack Obama. (How they revealed the alleged unconscious choice wasn't clear from the interview.) The researcher blamed race. Maybe, but there are other possibilities. Here's one: Tony Blair was George Bush's ally; perhaps the results merely revealed loyalty to Bush. The other scientist cited a study in which diners tipped more generously when servers repeated orders back to them verbatim. He concluded that mimicking was causal. Maybe, but again, there are other possibilities. Here's one: perhaps repeating the order increases diners' confidence that the server won't screw up the order, and that leads them to tip better. 

Responsible scientists acknowledge their own fallibility and guard against leaping to conclusions. That's why double and triple blind tests, replication, peer review, and tests that eliminate other possibilities are hallmarks of the scientific process.

Marketers who discipline themselves in the same way are more likely to learn what works. But even marketers with the best intentions are subject to the guile of self-serving conclusions. When sales go up during an ad campaign, the account manager, media planner, creative director, writer and art director will be prone to give the credit to, respectively, strategy, targeting, concept, copy and design. Who knows. Maybe an interior designer will say that the wallpaper he or she picked out for the conference room provided the inspiration for the winning campaign.

So here's an exercise for you. Gas mask sales rose in the months following September, 2001. Outside of strategy, targeting, concept, copy, design and wallpaper ... can you think of any other possible causes?

—Steve Cuno