Before describing a product or service for its manufacturer or retailer, or even a public body, a writer needs raw information about it. It doesn’t take long to spot what the information is saying openly, and what it is not.

A pair of pink headphones, for instance. No-one is saying that they are not expected to appeal to men, except perhaps for them to buy as a gift for someone; they don’t have to. Similarly, a beach resort hotel in the tropics where everything seems to be for couples to enjoy is not advertising itself as being for honeymooners only. It doesn’t need to so long as families with young children get the message that it is probably not the best holiday destination for them. In most cases it would be counter-productive, if not illegal, to indicate explicitly who should not purchase the product, so let it be conveyed obliquely.

Keep the hinting in, improve it, and enjoy the challenge.

Like politics and sex, the world of PR, advertising and sales is permeated by ambiguity and innuendo.  We don’t call it that, of course.  We prefer to use terms like ‘language that people will understand.’ [Read more →]

We copywriters take great care in finding the right words to describe a product online. That’s good, but we also have to check what we have written to try and see it through the customer’s eyes.  After all, it’s their perspective that matters.

On a review website recently I found a complaint by a customer which showed why this is important.  She had ordered online a cushion for a small boy, the cushion being in the shape of a plane.  When she received the item she found that it was a plain sort of cushion with the outline of a plane appliqued onto it.  Not at all the same thing!

No dount there is room for such confusion when your entry does not include a picture of the product.  Whatever the case, we have to give that final read-through of what we have written.  How is the customer going to perceive the product as you have meant her to, let alone wish to buy it?  Are all the right facts in there?   Adjust if necessary.