Someone quite famous said “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of your market” and, even though I’m not famous, I’ve repeated that more times than I care to count.

And why is that?

Well it’s because so often I talk with business people who are writing an advertisement, a letter, an email, or some instructions which they understand quite clearly but which the intended recipients will have huge trouble understanding.

And all too often this applies in advertising agencies where the creatives, whose every word is regarded as gold, let their creativity get away from them. They come up with a campaign which is very clever but which probably will not be understood by a huge segment of the intended market. And they compound the error by using lots of white space and /or lovely graphics.

And I reckon that’s the case in these three advertisements where, after you’ve puzzled your way through the little bit of copy, you may understand what they are trying to say.

Frankly, if I was was producing the advert for that product I’d scrap the pretty pictures and write some pretty darn convincing copy about the product.

I’d talk about how the fantastic ingredients are produced by bronzed Aussie farmers with the life giving sun gently beating down on the fertile soil of wherever it comes from being watered by gentle drops of rain from the clear southern skies. I’d wax lyrical about how the grain is harvested at the peak of its nutritious perfection, how it contains all these vitamins and minerals that do this’n that for you, then how it is gently toasted at exactly the right temperature to produce an all natural food to which just a soupçon of fine Australian cane sugar is added meaning that it’s so good for you it almost bursts out of the box in its desperate rush to do healthy things for your body and the bodies of your lovely kids.

Or something similar!

I certainly wouldn’t waste my time writing tricky headlines that I hope will win awards. I’d just tell it plain and simple, in the vernacular, as if I was talking to you in language that you can understand to persuade you to buy it!

But then again I’m not one of those very talented creatives in the expensive office of an award-winning advertising agency.

The “how’s things?” call is one of those techniques every businessperson should use. It works beautifully for anybody who is serious about making their business successful. In fact, if you’re not using it you should be. Want to learn more? Buy Winston’s downloadable discussion on the “How’s Things?” call here. “Part of the Winno’s Wise Words series”.