It sometimes escapes copy writers and designers that a big part of marketing is telling people what to think.
That was something P.T. Barnum knew and knew well.
Knowing that, the trick is then deciding WHAT you want them to think and working out how to say it so it will be accepted or believed.
This isn’t always difficult. Here’s a simple, obvious example that is regularly violated.
Many websites have galleries of images, showing off the company’s work. How often I’ve seen it that they have no captions or explanations. Pictures of kitchens. What am I looking at? What are the counter tops made of? Is this especially good work? Expensive, cheap or in between? Which style fits with what kind of decor or house?
Tell them what to think.
(This, by the way, is the entire story behind the dominance of oddball, hideous and boring work in Modern Art. A few Opinion Leaders tell everyone else what to think about some disgusting piece of idiocy. “A masterpiece!” says the Art Professor. And so a cow’s skull under glass sells for $250,000.)
Tell Them What to Think
