Can I have a small word?

I've been meaning to write this post for months. In fact, ever since I first read about it last August. And once again, I have The Writer to thank, a specialist writing agency in London.

Here's what they had to say.

Long words make you sound thick. Fact.

We’re always banging on in workshops about picking simple words whenever you can. Occasionally, though, someone will pipe up, ‘But I like using long words. They make me look clever, don’t they?’ No, they don’t. And you don’t just have to take our word for it. It’s been scientifically proven – by psychologist Daniel M Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, no less.

A couple of years ago Oppenheimer designed several experiments to test how people reacted to various styles of writing – some straightforward, some complicated. He was particularly interested in trying to find out which writers sounded the cleverest.

And guess what? The writers of clear and simple words were judged as smart, whereas those who used needlessly long words came across as less intelligent and less confident.

His conclusion is emphatic: ‘Write clearly and simply if you can, and you’ll be more likely to be thought of as intelligent.’

If you fancy reading the study yourself, it’s here. It’s rather splendidly called Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.

A brilliant insight, if you ask me. And I'd expect nothing less than that from The Writer, who seem to take as much time over the long words as they do the fine details.

To show exactly what I mean, here's the email signature from their newsletter (double-click on it to see a larger version).

So many people struggle to describe what makes their business or brand different, but here it is, laid out for all to read in something as basic as an email signature.

No multi-million dollar advertising campaign, exhaustive packaging redesign, or public relations crusade required.

Just a few small words say it all.

Nature or nurture? (*conditions apply)

One of the eternal struggles in our society is the tug of war between nature and nurture. It's the fundamental question of human behaviour, and the extent to which we are the product of our innate qualities from birth or our personal experiences as we develop.

It's a hotly debated topic – and one that is yet to be conclusively argued one way or the other – but there can be no doubt that our behaviour is shaped over time by the world around us.

You only need to take a quick flick through Jane Fulton Suri's book Thoughtless Acts to see all those intuitive ways we adapt, exploit, and react to things in our environment; things we do without really thinking – the result of her work as a partner at groundbreaking design and innovation firm, IDEO.

And so it is that we act instinctively (nature) or we are conditioned over time (nurture) to respond to our environment in intuitive ways.

One of the ways in which we have been more aggressively conditioned is the concept of fine print, a perennial bane of the modern world that allows businesses to make grand offers in ways that attract you, while at the same time limiting these offers in ways that suit them. We're used to having to read the fine print wherever we see the ubiquitous *conditions apply, and to ignore them is often perilous to say the least.

But last week, the tables were turned when Grill'd, the burger chain, seemingly forgot to include the fine print on this ad promoting 2-for-1 burgers for university students.

As it turns out, what they had intended to include was a disclaimer that limited the offer to the readership of the Uni Times publication in which it appeared. However, it wasn't long before consumers took advantage of the great deal on offer and starting making their way to their local Grill'd.

And that's when the real problems started.

Grill'd realised their error and naively tried to pass it off as a simple oversight. They wrote on their blog that they hoped all of our customers can appreciate the good faith in which the offer was released. But as you can read for yourself in the comments that follow, their customers held them fully accountable.

As it turned out, Nando's then dived in to exploit their competitor's error of judgment by offering to accept the vouchers at their own restaurants.

And only then did Grill'd apologise (finally! – with a message from the founder on their homepage), and agree to accept the 2-for-1 vouchers.

Ultimately, Grill'd failed in their bid to have customers overlook their error. Not simply because they refused to take responsibility and apologise, but more so as a result of the years of conditioning by corporations that have nurtured us to read the fine print.

*Because when any society is exposed to such a sustained effort to nurture our response in a particular way, it isn't too long before it switches from nurture to become second nature.

From the boat to the boardroom

At 5.30am, the river is pretty still.

The light is dull, the breeze is faint and all is quiet. All except for the whispered strokes of oars as they nudge the hull with a delicate force. Pools spin about the boat as the blades dip in and out of the inky water.

Rowing is a particularly English sport. And I found myself as a cox in my first few years at a particularly English university, Oxford. In the breaks between curiously-named terms – Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity – boat crews would descend upon the rowing havens of Wallingford, Henley and Abingdon to train on the river in the early hours. Not much was ever said as people shuffled about the bank outside the boathouse and then gently floated the boat into the water. As cox, it was always up to me to break the eerie silence. After a couple of quick feathers at the bow to line up the boat, I'd call for oars to come square and away we'd go, off into the misty morning.

The warm-up was always my favourite time on the water. No pressure, just a few looseners, and certainly no traffic to make me too conscious of the stream. Now and then, I'd feel a cold splash on the hand, a brief reminder that I was floating on water not gliding on ice. Otherwise, this was a time simply to collect your thoughts.

As we would reach the final bend in the river before the first of several locks, we'd glide to a halt, blades tapping along the water's surface. A gentle turn as one side applied pressure over the other, and the boat would gracefully come to a rest in the shallows near the opposite bank. At which point we all knew that the next hour or so wasn't going to be quite so easy.

Up and down, we would row relentlessly at a range of speeds and tempos and styles. Quick hands, fast at the catch, driving through the water, clean finish. All the while, I would be calling the strokes, watching for technique, and steering a smooth course as the blades swum through the water.

One morning, I remember we were practising in short bursts. We had been rowing a little unevenly, and I found myself calling "Come on!" on more than one occasion. Nothing I said seemed to make much difference, and eventually we finished the session and headed back to the boathouse.

Once on the bank, one of the more experienced crew members let me have right between the eyes – and with both barrels. You can imagine the scene in your own mind: a bulky, 6"5' rower in the peak of fitness laying down the law to a slightly scrawny, 5"6" cox. The point he was trying to make – in between various expletives and vigorous gestures – was that calling "Come on!" in a boat ever again was (1) very likely to land me in the water, and (2) a complete waste of breath as it didn't mean anything or bear any relation to what was happening in the boat at the time.

Which brings me to my point.

Too many businesses rely on meaningless calls to action – "sell more", or "churn less" – without actually understanding what is happening in the business at the time. And more often than not, marketing is guilty of the same generic battle cry, without actually being able to tie the promise that the brand makes to the reality the business delivers.

Coffee that relies upon the cliches of the category – aroma, coffee beans and a good old mug.

Universities that trade off pictures of smiling students on campus as their stock in trade.

And, professional services companies who fill their brochures with thirtysomethings in suits, shaking hands, walking up stairs, and generally looking serious but savvy – and all with the benefit of a soft focus.

Not only are all these examples tired, boring and lazy, but they do nothing to promote what is exciting or unique about the brand in question. They simply gloss over the details, yell "Come on!" at anyone who will listen, and hope someone equally myopic will give them a go. No wonder people often remark on how marketing is "hardly rocket science" – at this level, it's not even basic arithmetic.

I was lucky, I learned my lesson, and I managed to stay dry through my brief career as a cox.

However, many marketers don't have the benefit of strong and experienced leaders to pull them aside when needed. As a result, many find themselves struggling to steer the ship – in fact, they're too busy fighting the battle to sink or swim.