Words are still sexy

Words are disappearing fast in ‘adland’. The world is getting smaller and now a brand can be represented from Birmingham to Bombay by means of a simple swoosh. Britain has led the way creatively for years in advertising as much as in music and fashion, but homegrown campaigns for homegrown audiences are failing to use the most powerful (and cheapest) tool in the box. The cost of producing a piece of copy that arouses the buying instinct is infinitely lower than that of a two week shoot in Tobago but trying to find a stand-alone lyrical ad is as tough as finding an account director under thirty who can spell ‘expenses’.

There are of course exceptions; the iconic Guinness ads, M&S food porn and more recently Trident Gum’s banned “Mastication” campaign – but even here the words, honed as they are, still play the role of understudy to the high maintenance lead of visual imagery in two out of three. It seems that confidence has been lost in the strength of written persuasion alone.

Even outside creative disciplines the use of language to sell ideas is declining. Investment in media exposure rather than creative impact (quantity over quality) seems to be in the ascendant and selling simple strategies to clients has become a minefield of overcomplicated science
and technology. Planning departments have been replaced by ‘Intelligence Units’ and advertising agencies are hiring econometricians (you heard
it here first). The endgame is a display of PowerPoint plausibility gilded with equations which bamboozle the audience (clients) into submission. Again, the cost seems disproportionate to the goal when a well-informed and eloquent professional could bring you round to their way of thinking with wit, humour and a handful of killer facts.

Words can surprise and seduce. From SMS text to Harry Potter we still crave them. Whether your inspiration comes from Winston Churchill or Kanye West it’s the language that gets you. The legal profession reveres the barrister who can trounce the impact of hard evidence with a skillful summing up. Book publishers and women’s weekly magazines are laughing all the way to the bank. The written word is here to stay and it’s time there was a re-awakening in the advertising industry of how to use it.

And if this piece of Soapbox literature has not managed to persuade, then consider this: A recent survey for Penguin books revealed that 85% of women would be more attracted to a man if he could talk about literature. Words are sexy and sex still sells.