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Are You Understanding Writing That You Don't Understand? By Michael AntmanEmail to a Friend 
ARE YOU UNDERSTANDING WRITING THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND? By Michael Antman Everyone has heard the common complaint that America is becoming less literate, but the onus for this alleged circumstance is nearly always placed on the reader (or, rather, non-reader) rather than where it often belongs, on the writer. Many professional writers seem to have lost the ability to write clear, comprehensible copy that instantly communicates its point. That’s an especially worrisome trend when it comes to advertising, which depends on quick communication for its effectiveness. Here’s an illustration: The new American Express advertising campaign features an ad that asks the following interconnected questions: "Are You Wishing Airline Blackouts Only Came from Your Sleeping Mask? Or are You a Cardmember?" Let’s look at this remarkable piece of copy closely. In order to comprehend it, one must first remind oneself that some airline passengers (perhaps 5 percent, based on personal observation) use sleeping masks on long-distance flights. Next, one must accept that sleeping masks can cause, not merely a “blackout,” but, apparently, an “airline blackout,” of one’s vision. Next, one must make the connection between this rather abstract “airline blackout” and the travel-date blackouts imposed by many frequent-flyer and travel-reward programs. Next, one must accept that one form of airline blackout is desirable and the other, the one that American Express presumably never imposes on its card members, is not. And finally, one must make the connection that having this highly theoretical “wish” (which no one has ever actually had) is a sign that one is not an American Express cardmember and that, conversely, becoming an American Express cardmember will mean one will never have this very specific, and yet non-existent, wish ever again. Sure, it’s all more or less comprehensible when it’s explained this way. But good advertising must communicate its message in a matter of mere seconds. At the train station where I saw this billboard, I didn’t see a single commuter glance at this copy for more than a split-second while racing for a train, and if anyone actually did spend any time on the copy, I suspect they would have given up on it long before its point was communicated. Another billboard from American Express is even more tortuous: It reads, “Are You Choosing to Fly on the Airline That Wasn’t Your Choice? Or Are You a Cardmember?" If I strain really, really hard, I can imagine that what the headline writer was hoping to communicate was something along the lines of, "Are You Choosing a Credit Card that Forces You to Choose an Airline You Wouldn't Have Chosen if You'd Chosen a Credit Card that Doesn't Force You to Choose an Airline You Don't Want?" But a headline that makes you to think this hard (I'm afraid it could cause someone to black out, and not in the airline-industry sense) just isn't working. In fact, I’ll send a genuine airline sleeping mask to the first reader of the McSweeney & Antman website or newsletter who e-mails me a convincing explanation of why the original headline is superior to the rather plain but completely comprehensible “Are You Flying on an Airline That Wasn’t Your Choice?” Here’s another example from another major financial-services organization, TIAA-CREF. The headline on one of its magazine ads reads, “Young, Invincible and Poor Is No Way to Go Through Life.” (The copy goes on to state, axiomatically, that “the sooner you start planning for retirement, the better your chances of retiring.”) One hardly knows where to begin with this headline. Evidently, the copywriter was attempting to pay homage to the well-known moment in “Animal House” when the stentorian Dean Wormer admonishes Flounder, “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” But that line, in addition to being wise advice, is memorable, funny, and makes surface sense. “Young, invincible and poor is no way to go through life” makes no sense whatsoever because even an alcohol-addled Animal House reprobate would be smart enough to know that, by definition, one cannot go through life and remain literally young, as attractive as that prospect might seem. On the other hand, there are some people who, if not literally “invincible,” manage to get through life while suffering few if any of the slings and arrows that most of us endure. In other words, a desire to be “invincible,” while unrealistic, is not utterly delusional in the same sense that expecting to remain 25 for the next 50 years is. On the, um, third hand, few people want to go through life constantly scrambling for money and sustenance. So we have, in one remarkable headline, a queasy combination of two qualities that are either impossible or unlikely but in theory attractive, and a third quality that is, to most people, undesirable. Perhaps the copywriter meant to say something like, “You Won’t Remain Young, Invincible and Poor Forever,” which, while obvious and not at all clever, at least makes a relatively clear point. One more example: A testimonial ad for Anatrim, headlined “Anatrim: the Up-to-the-Moment and Most Exciting Lose Flesh Product,” quotes a certain Mike Brown from Chicago as saying, “I had weight problems since a boy. You can’t even fancy how I abhorred being mocked at school. I hated my stoutness and I abhorred myself. After trying this and that I learned about Anatrim. It literally took me out of this horror! Thanks and thanks to you, guys.” A second testimonial in the same ad, from one Silvia D. in Washington, states, “I hate to acknowledge it but I was an awful food addict. I ate all this garbige and just could not stop. This torment left off when I started taking Anatrim! Holy God, my craving for food abated.” Holy God. It’s worth pointing out at this juncture that this “ad” is actually a piece of email spam, composed, likely as not, in an unfinished basement somewhere in southwestern Croatia – which would explain a guy from Chicago supposedly using words such as “fancy” and "stoutness" and “abhorred” -- so it’s hardly worth comparing to the American Express and TIAA-CREF ads, which were prepared by big advertising agencies who received healthy compensation in return. But while the Anatrim “ad” is laughably bad, at least its headline tells you what the product purportedly does – it helps you “lose flesh.” The American Express and TIAA-CREF ads merely make you lose respect for the art of advertising. |
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