An Idea A Day

COMMUNICATION USE LANGUAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN UNDERSTAND Andy Maslen

IF YOU WANTED your four-year-old to wait for you before crossing the road, would you call out, “Darling, do you think, were I to recommend that you refrained from a headlong incursion into the thoroughfare, that you might attend me at the curbside?” I thought not.

Using an appropriate register for your reader is a pretty obvious way of making sure they can understand you. So why do so many organizations make it so hard for the target reader of a piece of copy even to figure it out? It’s back to our old friend reader-centricity, I’m afraid (or rather, the lack of it).

The idea ...