It’s often said ‘don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story’.
Film posters often say things like ‘totally amazing’ cutting off the true quote ‘totally amazing for 5 minutes then utter crap’.
People also say ‘make it look as good as you can’ or ‘polish it up a bit’.
On the tube I read an advert for a broadsheet leading newspaper that said ‘our manifesto, the best….’ then underneath ‘we’ve correctly predicted every General Election and referendum this decade’.
So that’s 2 elections and 2 referendums. Each referendum was ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so 50/50, just toss a coin you don’t need the newspaper. Then the General Election are fairly similar it’s either one or other who win, Labour or Tory.
One can assume their predictions we’re poor, for these easily called results, in the previous decade, otherwise they would have said ‘we predicted every election for 20 years’. Slightly more impressive.
The thing is all that marketing splosh and gloss is wasted.
Better to be brutally honest about what they are good at not trying gain readers with wishy washy statements that few will fall for.
Tell ’em as it is, because if we’re good why would we need to deceive people? If we’re not good, then get better, people always work out deceit and remember it long after.
If we are great at what we do and honest about it, what will happen is our fans will also tell others and become our evangelistic advocates.
Better than any tube ad we could place.
Be honest, be good. Simple.
Philip Dodson 