Advertising jargon has become a smokescreen for people who don’t know what they’re doing
The best people in any industry can describe their job in language anyone could understand. So why is the language of advertising so hellbent on excluding people?
Dave Trott examines.
A few years back I was giving a talk in Berlin to a group of business people.
Being Germans, they were taking thorough notes.
Afterwards one of them approached me and opened his pad.
He said: “Excuse me, you mentioned a demographic that we are not familiar with.
Can you tell me please what is this: “punters”?”
I then had an awkward five minutes explaining that it was just cockney slang.
In my speech, I’d been guilty of using sloppy language.
Germans use language very precisely and I don’t.
I wasn’t using language to communicate, I was using what was comfortable.
Consequently I knew what I meant, but my audience didn’t.
That’s sloppy language. That’s not the way to communicate.
But that’s exactly what we do in our business, when we use jargon.
We don’t speak to communicate, we speak to make ourselves feel comfortable.
We think we’re being impressive, but actually it’s just sloppy language.
We can either use language to invite people into a conversion, or we can use language to keep people out.
And that’s what jargon is designed to do, keep people out.
To make it seem that our job is only for the trained and the educated.
But if advertising is about anything, it should be about communicating with ordinary people.
So why is the sort of language we use the exact opposite?
It’s designed to give us the status of doctors, scientists, lawyers, pilots, engineers. Well, those professions may need technical language, but we don’t.
In truth, our jargon is designed just to make us feel good, not for communication.
The best definition of communication is as follows: “It’s not enough to take responsibility for speaking correctly – we must take responsibility for being heard correctly.”
So the start point should be using easily understood language.
But we don’t do that.
We don’t do that, because our language is designed to obfuscate, to confuse.
To make people think we know something they don’t. To make our job seem as technical as doctors, scientists, lawyers, pilots, engineers.
So we disguise what we are saying with complicated words and expressions that only the cognoscenti will understand.
Language that says: “If you understand this you can be in the club. If you don’t you can’t.”
So we use language to exclude people.
Albert Einstein said: “If you can’t explain it to an eleven-year-old then you haven’t really understood it.”
Most people in advertising couldn’t explain their jobs in language an eleven-year-old would understand.
So, according to Einstein, they don’t understand what they’re doing.
And they use language to disguise that fact.
If we had to use ordinary language, it would soon become clear who did and didn’t know what they were doing.
The best people would be people who could describe their job in language anyone could understand.
But that’s not who we’re employing nowadays.
We’re employing people whose skill is solely in covering up the fact that they don’t understand what they’re doing.
They may not know much about advertising, but they are proficient in sloppy language.
Dave Trott is a consultant, author and former ad agency creative director. This article was first published on his blog.
Spot on the button. Add such stupid words as “disruptors” and “influencers”: too. Made up words to make it sound important or something only ad folk understand.
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Why is this written in the style of one of those obnoxious LinkedIn posts? Not every
Line
Needs another.
Line.
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Valid point but can’t help but feel all the article does is reinforce the initial argument using different language along the way. Some more examples than a German not being familiar with Australian slang would have made for a more complex argument
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Rather Trott’s style than thick slabs of text.
Rather Trott’s views of adland bullshit and the results.
“We’re employing people whose skill is solely in covering up the fact that they don’t understand what they’re doing.”
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Thick slabs of text also not a great way to construct good quality prose. Would suggest both ends of the spectrum are imperfect and it would be better if we returned to proper ways of constructing pieces using properly constructed sentences and paragraphs. Is that fair?
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This is how Dave Trott has written for years. Multiple books and a long standing blog. I agree, it’s not my favourite style. Unlike the LinkedIn posts like this, Dave normally has real substance.
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I love that people are discussing style over substance.
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He could have gone further and pointed out the ridiculous titles agencies have adopted.
His piece is spot on.
Big data
Native advertising
etc etc
Bull twang
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Funny James
Im pretty sure the entire advertising business is built on style over substance
Andrew
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I have no idea what he’s talking about.
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John, only skilled writers hold your interest with long or short sentences and long or short paragraphs.With one or two spaces (LinkedIn-style) between paragraphs.
.
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Trott’s style.
Lengthy anecdote (one that usually positions him as some kind of deep thinker – always good to quote a philosopher from Ancient Greece), followed by tenuous link to some anti-digital rant. Sometimes he hits the mark. Sometimes he comes across as a little lost.
And of course all laid out in single sentences.
For maximum effect.
I find it all a bit tedious, but he has a lot of fans.
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The style is so jarring it impedes on its substance. I can only imagine that anyone that incessantly writes in staccato sentences (and audiences that are fond of them), can’t sustain a thought that stretches out over more than one line and have minds that must operate like a tommy gun: full of short, sharp, painful rat ta tat tat barrages best avoided.
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Hi “m”,
As a staccato sentence writer myself, I’d argue that it’s a matter of using the right tool at the right time.
As a journalist, for instance, we’re taught that you should aim to convey no more than one idea per sentence. I suspect that copywriters go through a similar training path.
While I might make a terrible novelist, I’d argue that when it comes to clarity of thought, staccato works. And perhaps that’s why I enjoy Dave Trott’s writing so much.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella