Firebrand

You have to consider the wording of your advertising of copy very carefully because it has a great impact on your brand. Just as with everytouch point of your brand, you need to approach it from the perspective of your customers, particularly your target market. A message using the proper language directed at your target audience can be recieved, where otherwise it would be ignored. In the long term, it has a marked impact on a customer relationship particularly on how they percieve the personality and consistency of the brand.

The most obvious example is talking with children. Say Fisher Price came to me to design a new Power Wheels ridable car, and I found out that kids wanted better wheels and a larger battery for more play time per charge and designed it. If I was marketing to the parents who might buy it for their kids I would say: “The Power Wheels’ Kawasaki mini rider has a new 6V Lithium Ion battery for less charging, and full rubber tires to roll over anything.” (24 words) Not very effective for a the child though. More effective copy in children centric media would be “Roll over anything with the Kawasaki Power Wheel’s awesome wheels! And  the rider keeps rolling all afternoon!” (16 words) Both convey the same information.

Here are the differences-

• Maturity of language: “Tires”, “charging”, and voltages doesn’t have meaning for the children. It should be noted that overly sophisticated vocabulary should be avoided in any situation; few appreciate it.
• Need state: Parent’s need stats is to compare, while a kid’s just want to have more fun.
• Length of Meme: Kids would prefer shorter sentences, and will be taken with the sentence that speaks to them ignoring the rest. Car buyers want more structure with a linked sentence, that are quicker to the point.
• Tone: The tone of the car buyer line is calm and fact’s based. The wording of the kids one is agressive and gets the kids imagining the moment of play with phases like “rolling” and “awesome.”
• Personality: I want the car buyer line to feel like it is being said by a impartial reviewer. On the kids side, I would like it to come from a 10 year old boy because the target market of 6-8 year old boys look up to their older peers.

Question of the Post: Is the same wording and tone always effective for the same target market?

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

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