The Messaging Times

I found a really incredible video montage today on Renee Blodget’s blog, Down the Avenue. It shows how Apple communicates, in no uncertain terms, how awesome they are.

In the Apple Keynote presentation, the following words are echoed over and over again: Great, Incredible, Really cool, Awesome, Just amazing, Wonderful, Really nice, Really easy, Outstanding, Better and better, Smarter and smarter, Priceless, Unbelievable, Beautiful.

The words we use are important. They influence the perception that others have about us. If we don’t tell our audience how wonderful our products and service are, there is less of a chance that they will remember that our products and services are wonderful. If we use positive words enough when communicating with our audience, people will associate our brand with them over time.

Of course, over time, words alone won’t convince people that a mediocre product or service is remarkable. But they can make good products seem great to people who hear the message enough.

How incredible are you?

In a world where speed counts and efficiency matters, content is presented faster and in smaller chunks. There is just too much information vying for attention on our screens, inboxes and yes, even the New York Times bestseller list. Seth Godin penned a rant about the consequences of clutter that struck a chord with me.

“…Commercials used to be a minute long, sometimes two. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of running two per minute, then four. Now there are radio ads that are less than three seconds long. It’s not an accident that things are moving faster and getting smaller. There’s just too much to choose from…” continue reading

A few years ago, I offered some advice on how to adapt content for skimming eyes on smaller spaces and how to distract your audience from your message. Both posts discuss the changing attention landscape and need for brevity.

Today, less is used more. But is less better? Is faster better?