Clarity, Transparency & Simplicity

I hate being deceived. I think we all do. Yet, we tolerate intentionally deceptive, misleading, and inaccurate language in documents ranging from legislation to loan agreements. This is often also true of marketing communications and advertising, where cleverness substitutes for imparting useful information, and entertainment directs our attention away from troublesome shortcomings of the product or service. That’s not to say that you can’t be clever and communicate real, differentiating value at the same time — just look at the oft-cited Mac vs. PC ads. The growth of online social networks, and the enhanced power of consumer-to-consumer, one-to-many communication may yet lead us toward more responsible, clear, useful and simple advertising. Those companies that realize this and respond first may have an advantage.

Thanks to Valeria Maltoni for bringing this item to my attention via her site, Conversation Agent.

This was posted by Steve Calkins on Sunday, May 20th, 2012 and is filed under Blog, Creative Team Blog, Misc, Strategy Team Blog, it contains the following tags communication, Conversation Agent, language, marketing, plain speaking, TED
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