For those who have taken courses in creative writing, you may be surprised as to how relevant those skills are for advertising. In today’s digital age, the most important characteristic of effective advertising is simple, yet engaging content.
Starting in the 20th century, writers started to value simple text over unnecessarily complicated detail. Their goal wasn’t to impress with over-bloated language, but rather to get a powerful message across as simply as possible.
A recent LinkedIn article applies George Orwell’s rules for writing to digital advertising. According to the article, Orwell’s teachings are even more important today because of the shortening of attention span:
“In the 1940s life was far simpler than it is in 2014. People had far fewer distractions back then. Yet Orwell, and many of his contemporaries, recognized the need for the written word to be as simple as possible in order to hold people’s attention. On that basis alone, I would argue that simplicity is even more important today when people are constantly bombarded with distracting content.”
When someone goes online, they instantly check Facebook, Twitter, and their email inbox. If they see an advertisement that’s too wordy, they’ll just skip right over it. There are too many other distractions for someone to be patient enough to read an advertisement.
And that’s why your text needs to be simple, terse, and concise. You need to get your message across in as few words as possible. When consumers see your advertisement, they won’t have to stop and read it. They’ll be able to process it and think about it at the same time.
Oftentimes, effective advertising is nothing more than good writing. Before writing a new ad, think about the text’s simplicity and see if you can cut unnecessary words out.
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