In a confused article in the BBC News Magazine Lucy Kellaway, of the Financial Times, sets out the prospect that Apple is trouncing Microsoft by the language used in their writing.
Apple's Apps Store
This would be interesting, if she did not make her comparison between two pieces of writing aimed at vastly different audiences. The first, aimed at developers for Apple’s Apps Store she claims is ‘direct, comic and elegantly threatening’, while Microsoft’s, describing its latest browser, leaves her ‘bored and restless, irritated and alienated.
This is lazy journalism in an article, which is titled ‘Why using Simple Language Should Be Lucrative’. Her contention seems to be, and this is where the confusion sets in, that plain, engaging, language should lead to greater sales using some ‘hidden hand of capitalism’ and yet this is patently not true in a world where Microsoft dwarfs Apple.
She likes the look of Apple’s iPad and longs for one, but feels guilty about it, even though it is ‘sleek and gorgeous’. Her words, the very type she is denigrating.
Apples are More Expensive
A little reality check is required. Microsoft outsells Apple because its products are generally cheaper than Apple’s. That Apple’s are better designed and more aesthetically pleasing there can be no doubt, but those that once claimed that Apple’s products were technologically superior to their rivals are often having to think again.
Where, in this world, does the marketing language play more than a very minor part? Admittedly, all advertising should be written crisply and a little wit doesn’t go amiss, but the buying public are not easily seduced. If they were, every print advertisement would generate millions in sales and advertising copywriters wouldn’t have to work so hard for their money.
New Jobs
But Kellaway doesn’t just have the technology giants in her sights, she turns her gaze to a bank which is looking to hire a customer manager but falls into the trap of using over-flowery language. There are flaws in this critique too. It is generally accepted that overblown job descriptions such as waste disposal operative for a garbage man are a source of amusement, but it must also be accepted that as businesses evolve and new job opportunities appear, defining their actual role is difficult.
She ends her piece with the assertion that ‘words are finished’ and customers now watch videos on their iPads and iPhones. This is just plain silly. Any sane thinking person will know that images may catch the attention of the potential customer, but it is the words that do the selling. That these two have to be effectively mixed is the basis of good advertising.
Kellaway may want to bear this in mind before she rattles off another piece of verbiage, clear writing is good, clear thinking is better.
Gurmeet Mattu - Gurmeet Mattu was born and lives in Glasgow, Scotland, but is of Indian (Sikh) descent. He trained as a journalist at the Polytechnic of ...
