All You Need is a Good Idea!: How to Create Marketing Messages that Actually Get Results

Chapter 9. DON'T TALK SO MUCH

Given the limited attention span of most people, there is rarely any benefit to using long-winded headlines or thoughts — with all the normal caveats and exceptions you are certain to come up with, as I myself do at the end of this chapter.

Occasionally it might work to help you stand out from a field of short headlines. Another reason may be if your thought is too complex for it to be reduced to a few words. (Though I would suggest your premise is probably too complex also and should be simplified.)

No matter what you may have heard, longer is not always better. As Mies van der Roh said, in a very different context, "Less is more."

A popular example of this theory is known as the "elevator pitch." You are supposed to polish your marketing/sales pitch down to a sound bite that could be communicated in the amount of time you would theoretically have during an elevator ride to tell someone about your Phufkel. This is not my favorite analogy for many reasons. What floor are you on when you start? How tall is the building? More important, no one talks in elevators.

I know that you are not really supposed to use this pitch only on elevators ("Sorry, I can' t tell you about my Phufkel just yet, we are only in the lobby. Wait till we get into the elevator."). But it is a helpful technique in learning to compress your marketing message.

I prefer to think about it this way: Imagine having to create an idea for an out-of-home billboard seen only by those driving past ...