I am a maximalist with everything but words. Give me a keyboard, and I’ll fight to keep them, like fresh water, redwoods, and Pokemon cards. The fewer we waste, the better we are. There's just one problem: Most brands love words. More specifically, they love adjectives, adverbs, and redundancies; they love a word pile.
Here’s an example of not word piling: This coffee raises you from the dead.
It’s a decent opener but it’s guilty of brevity. There are no extra words reassuring the audience it’s good, amazing, unusual, fantastic coffee. Cue the worst possible solution, the word pile:
This unique and delicious coffee raises you from the dead and wakes you up.
Nothing new is being said in this version. Instead, the extras just raise alarm bells. Consumer goods are constantly making introductions, and this one lacks confidence. Words like unique and delicious state the obvious, promise the bare minimum, and tell instead of show.
So, why does this happen to the best of us?
- We’re "dummy-proofing" our messaging. Some brands worry their audiences won't connect or understand the words, so they write in backups, redundancies, and alternatives. If one customer doesn't want coffee maybe they'll want unique, delicious, or miracle coffee?
- We’re underestimating our target audience. This is especially common when the message is conceptual. Brands fear misunderstandings. What if metaphor doesn’t land? Maybe, in addition to raising us up, it can also just wake us up like regular coffee?
- We’re forgetting to stick to the idea. Sell the brand. Not the category. We don't have to tell people how coffee works. We have to differentiate how or why this coffee is special.
Alright, but what can we do to save it? The answer is strategy, research, and doubling down on creativity. The word pile enthusiast has to be converted, and the brand is the perfect way to do it.
- Find the focus with strategy. It identifies what's important to say and what isn't. Our hypothetical coffee brand doesn't focus on taste, sourcing, or extreme caffeine content like Bustelo, Trade, or Death Wish Coffee, respectively. Therefore, any words about these traits are automatically off-strategy. Word piling invites discussions that aren’t needed.
- Confirm instincts with research. We know brevity is better, but research can prove it. Concise messaging holds our attention, improves recall, and converts. "We bring life to the walking dead” is a metaphor that slays its wordier cousins. Our job is to link the supporting research with the writing that lives up to it.
- Pitch the whole story. The fewer words we say now, the more we can say later. Most writers would kill (pun intended) to write a hundred headlines for a necromancer-themed coffee brand. If the client is offering word piles, take the best pieces and stitch them together somewhere else.
In summary, beware the word pile. Do everything you can to kill them. Rely on strategy, experience, and future opportunities to keep them at bay. If we don’t, our hypothetical coffee brand won’t be raising the dead, because the copy will be too busy burying them.
Clayton Notestine is a writer and verbal designer at Matchstic. You can find him in the beautiful state of Maine, on LinkedIn, and writing for his blog The Verbiage.
I am a maximalist with everything but words. Give me a keyboard, and I’ll fight to keep them, like fresh water, redwoods, and Pokemon cards. The fewer we waste, the better we are. There's just one problem: Most brands love words. More specifically, they love adjectives, adverbs, and redundancies; they love a word pile.
Here’s an example of not word piling: This coffee raises you from the dead.
It’s a decent opener but it’s guilty of brevity. There are no extra words reassuring the audience it’s good, amazing, unusual, fantastic coffee. Cue the worst possible solution, the word pile:
This unique and delicious coffee raises you from the dead and wakes you up.
Nothing new is being said in this version. Instead, the extras just raise alarm bells. Consumer goods are constantly making introductions, and this one lacks confidence. Words like unique and delicious state the obvious, promise the bare minimum, and tell instead of show.
So, why does this happen to the best of us?
- We’re "dummy-proofing" our messaging. Some brands worry their audiences won't connect or understand the words, so they write in backups, redundancies, and alternatives. If one customer doesn't want coffee maybe they'll want unique, delicious, or miracle coffee?
- We’re underestimating our target audience. This is especially common when the message is conceptual. Brands fear misunderstandings. What if metaphor doesn’t land? Maybe, in addition to raising us up, it can also just wake us up like regular coffee?
- We’re forgetting to stick to the idea. Sell the brand. Not the category. We don't have to tell people how coffee works. We have to differentiate how or why this coffee is special.
Alright, but what can we do to save it? The answer is strategy, research, and doubling down on creativity. The word pile enthusiast has to be converted, and the brand is the perfect way to do it.
- Find the focus with strategy. It identifies what's important to say and what isn't. Our hypothetical coffee brand doesn't focus on taste, sourcing, or extreme caffeine content like Bustelo, Trade, or Death Wish Coffee, respectively. Therefore, any words about these traits are automatically off-strategy. Word piling invites discussions that aren’t needed.
- Confirm instincts with research. We know brevity is better, but research can prove it. Concise messaging holds our attention, improves recall, and converts. "We bring life to the walking dead” is a metaphor that slays its wordier cousins. Our job is to link the supporting research with the writing that lives up to it.
- Pitch the whole story. The fewer words we say now, the more we can say later. Most writers would kill (pun intended) to write a hundred headlines for a necromancer-themed coffee brand. If the client is offering word piles, take the best pieces and stitch them together somewhere else.
In summary, beware the word pile. Do everything you can to kill them. Rely on strategy, experience, and future opportunities to keep them at bay. If we don’t, our hypothetical coffee brand won’t be raising the dead, because the copy will be too busy burying them.
Clayton Notestine is a writer and verbal designer at Matchstic. You can find him in the beautiful state of Maine, on LinkedIn, and writing for his blog The Verbiage.
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