Strings

Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal about something or the other, made a point this morning that I liked.

"Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity" she said. She further wrote that "when normal people don't know what words mean, they don't say to themselves 'I may not understand, but [I trust them]' . . . . They think "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me."

Which gets me to promotional disclaimers. Over the years, I've had to put disclaimers, conditions, exclusions and all kind of things in ads for special promotions and offers that were so long and baffling that I found myself wondering why the hell anybody would take us up on our offer or enter our contest.

What's wrong with just "Buy one, get one free," or "two nights for the price of one" and the like? It just seems to me that when you put all the this and that and the other thing in the mice type or somebodytalksreallyreallyfast at the end of the spot, it just tells the audience to watch out. It seems to be sending a message that there are potentially so many strings attached that if you've got the good sense God gave a goat, you'll take a pass.


This blog post is intended for the private use of our audience and no endorsement is implied, inferred, understood or misunderstood. Juggling in the Dark takes no responsibility for the actions of our audience that may result from them, their family, their assigns, heirs, neighbors or college fraternity brothers or sorority sisters doing anything in particular as a result of this post, lack thereof or implied, inferred or misunderstood information that may or may not be contained herein. Limit one per customer, not available in stores and employees of Nasuti + Hinkle, Inc. are not eligible.