Tiny advertisements

The description of Debian package “toolbar-fancy” is “Fancy toolbar for XEmacs21”. Finnish version of the package description is “Hieno työkalurivi XEmacs21:een”; translated back, it is “A beautiful toolbar for XEmacs21”. Or “fancy”. The point is this: The package description asserts that this is a beautiful toolbar. It asserts that you will find this toolbar fancy. Therefore, you should install this toolbar. It is fancy!

There is actually only one form of advertising that tends to have any effect on me: Advertising that asserts one thing.

I once bought a book because the advertisement stated that the book was “wonderful”. The advertisement didn’t have much else: “wonderful gift idea”. I didn’t buy the book as a gift, but it is a wonderful book.

If you start stacking tons of other clutter in advertising, it starts to stumble. For me, the big sales point was simply that it had only one statement. It could also be a simple group of adjectives… One toy sold itself to me with “Amusing! Funny! Novel!”.

The point is that it has to be one statement — no repetition. No confusing subclauses, no confusing terms. An assertion — not sales pitch: “Amazing new album” is better — a simple statement — rather than “Amazing new album, blows your head right off”, a complex phrase.

Once I saw callunas being sold in, I think, Oulu. The placard outside the flower shop simply said “ihanaa tuuheutta” (“wonderful bushiness”). You can’t argue with that sort of advertising: The plants were indeed bushy and wonderful. I regret not having the money…