When was the last time you read a novel? A big, chunky, doorstep of a novel? Hundreds and hundreds of pages of densely packed text, which kept you enthralled for hours at a time?

OK, maybe that was a bit ambitious.

How about a really long article – I’m thinking New Yorker-length, or perhaps Standpoint? One where the journalist takes several thousand words to give a vast, panoramic overview of the topic, scrupulously presents both sides of the argument, and reaches a balanced, thoughtful conclusion?

OK. Ambitious again.

How about a full-page article in a Sunday newspaper? A broadsheet, I mean, not one of the tabs, with their half-page photos and big, brassy headlines that squeeze the column inches.

OK. Let’s stop there, and I’ll just take a shortcut.

To the point.

Short and tweet

Getting your message across in as few words as possible has always been the guiding principle of marketing copy. But in the internet era, the approach is even more relevant.

You don’t have the luxury of rambling. Not that you ever did, mind you. It’s just that now, people are only ever a click (or a swipe) away from another screen, message, tweet, page, app, clip or game.

The way we consume information is changing. Even the way we talk about it is changing – who ‘consumed’ information in the 70s, 80s or even the early 90s?

We’re voracious info-animals, and we can’t get enough of it. Trouble is, we don’t do detail anymore. Or length.

Just last week, I caught up with a friend of mine whom I haven’t spoken to for long while. He was always a big reader, and had at least two books on the go at any one time.

So what was he reading?

“Er, nothing – I mean nothing big. Not at the moment,” he said falteringly. “In fact, I haven’t actually read a book – I mean a book book, not an e-book – for over two years.”

The long and the short of it

It’s something that Nicholas Carr knows only too well. He’s a technology writer and author of the boat-rocking article in The Atlantic magazine in summer 2008, Is Google making us stupid?

His thesis is that the sheer volume of information available to us is changing the way we read, as is the number of devices we have it served up to us on. He’s noticed that he’s no longer able to do ‘deep reading’ in the same way he used to, as his brain is remapped to skim, skip and hyperlink.

I know exactly how he feels.

And that’s partly why I printed out his article (seven A4 pages, by the way – breaking out in a sweat yet?) to read offline. I just knew that I’d flit about if I read it online, and its subject matter made me want to really concentrate on what I was reading.

Cut it down, spice it up

And my point is? The point I’ve spent all these paragraphs building up to?

Brevity is king.

(If you’ve made it this far, congratulations, by the way. )

It’s not that people don’t want detail – they do. It’s just that you need to serve it up in bite-sized chunks, so they can digest it.

We don’t do long anymore. Short is the new long – and here’s what to do to fit in with the fashion:

• Get organised. Don’t just throw your facts in a pile, like some Swedish self-assembly bed. Instead, put them together so they make sense, they’re ordered logically and are easy to understand.
• Reach for the red pen. No, you don’t need 500 words. Yes, you can cut it down. No, you don’t need to say everything. Yes, you do need to select. No, you probably don’t need that last point. Yes, it was a mistake having 12 bullets.
• Chunk it, like good old Dan Brown did in his blockbuster The Da Vinci Code (short chapters, cliffhanger at the end of each). Small sections work better, as people don’t feel so intimidated by them. Keep them turning those pages.
• Summarise your key points in a box: the quick, two-second elevator pitch that makes people want to find out more.
• Write for both types of reader – the skimmer and the deep-reader. OK, the latter are in short supply these days, but they’re still around. So give a quick summary, list the highlights, and let them choose whether they want to plunge into the deep waters of detail. Don’t just chuck ‘em in (they probably can’t swim).
• Minimise temptation. Don’t have too many hyperlinks in your body copy – you’re just making it easier for people to go elsewhere. Instead, put them at the end (just look below).
• Know the end point before you begin, so you can lead the reader quickly and effectively to their destination. Want them to sign up? To purchase? To fill in a form? To call for more information? This way please…

The internet may be changing how we think, but we still want information. It’s just a matter of how it’s packaged that’s changed. We may not be chunky-novel readers any more, but we still want a good story.

As long as it’s a short story.

Find out more:

• Deep throat. Is Google making us stupid? by Nicholas Carr at The Atlantic magazine (seven pages if you print it out).
• Mind control. Carr drives his point home in The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember at Amazon.co.uk (384 pages, if you can cope with it).
• Digital deluge. Historian Lisa Jardine on information overload on BBC Radio 4′s Point of View (go on – it’ s only 10 minutes).

Related posts:

1. What’s the point of social networking?
2. Just what you wanted for Christmas
3. I just know they’ll love it
4. Don’t know what your clients want? Ask them.
5. Want more? Ask for less.

OK, OK – I know you’re busy so I’ll keep this brief.

Let me guess – we’re hurtling towards Christmas and you still haven’t got a present for Auntie Beryl? Been there.

If you’re considering an e-reader, by the way, perhaps you might think about why I’m not buying one (maybe Beryl will agree with me):

• When I’ve finished reading a book I love, I can’t give it to a friend.
• When I’m on a plane, I’ll have to turn off my e-reader for climb and descent (when I’m invariably reading).
• I lost my super-duper smartphone (or had it stolen) on the Tube three weeks ago, and I don’t want to re-Kindle the memory.

Scrooge – me? Perish the thought.

But back to you. Three quick presents for your marketing Christmas stocking.

1. Gladwell tidings

If you enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s 2004 TED talk on spaghetti sauce, you’re in for a treat. It took seven years, but he’s back for seconds.

This time, he’s in a more sombre mood, but his message, as ever, has a direct link with sales, marketing, copywriting – and just about any other activity you undertake.

It’s all about unintended consequence. And how we can devote enormous amounts of time, money and effort to projects that are doomed – if only we had eyes to see.

With over 400,000 views in just two months, The strange tale of the Norden bombsight is well on the way to Spaghetti Sauce’s 2m in seven years. As ever, it’s intelligent, entertaining and enlightening.

(If you’re reading in email, click here.)

2. Less is…well you know what it is.

Last week, my favourite magazine didn’t arrive on the usual day of the week.

Now the older I get, the more a creature of habit I become. I like things to happen when they’re supposed to – and I tailor my behaviour accordingly.

It’s all a case of managing expectations. In this instance, my own.

So I read at a certain pace, knowing that I don’t want to finish too early or too late. As a tidy-desk person, I don’t like two magazines at once, so they mustn’t overlap.

But when the new issue didn’t arrive, I had to go back to the old one and make a second pass.

And you know what? I discovered really interesting articles and wondered how I’d missed them first time around.

How did that happen?

Like this: I had a limited amount of time on the first pass (which I thought was the only pass) so I meted it out sparingly. But when the new magazine didn’t arrive, I suddenly had more. So not-so-interesting articles became interesting. And in one case, absolutely fascinating.

And the lesson for all of us on Planet Marketing?

Scarcity increases value. From paintings to wine, from stamps to antiques, it works every time.

The same principle holds true when it comes to communication.

If you write a blog post every day, instead of every week, each one is worth just a little bit less. Even if you’ve poured everything you’ve got into it, the perception is that quantity is inversely related to quality.

More means less, in other words.

So space out your posts, rein in your tweets, and make that newsletter a little less regular. People will attach more value it.

3. Beyond saying

Which leads me on to my last stocking-filler: a neat illustration of the power or brand, crossed with the sound of silence.

Amidst the celeb chatter on Twitter, there’s one star who remains resolutely mute. And yet she has an enormous following, thanks to her huge global appeal.

It’s Beyonce, of course. Not at tweet in sight, but over 2 million followers.

Next time you wonder about the power of brand, remember Beyonce.

Merry Christmas.

Find out more:

• Buon appetito. Malcolm Gladwell’s 2004 TED talk on spaghetti sauce (and other tasty topics).
• Silent treatment. 2 million and counting: Beyonce does her stuff (or rather, she doesn’t).

I’m getting a new iPod Nano, it seems.

At first, I thought it was a hoax – yet another spam email that Outlook had failed to spot.

But no. This time, it was the real Mac-Coy.

The stories in the papers made me chuckle. Apple iPod Nano recall of earliest model: If you find yours, get a new one free, said the man from the Daily Mail. Apple recalls 1st-generation iPod nano — remember those? said the LA Times.

Well, yes, actually – I do remember those. And I can find mine. For the simple reason that six years on, I’m still using it virtually every day.

And guess what? It hasn’t exploded yet.

But that’s not the point.

It still might go pop, and that’s enough to send Apple’s PR people into overdrive. So I’ve registered for a free replacement, and before you know it (and in time for Christmas, I hope) I’ll have a brand-new one, with video, FM radio, and the ever-useful pedometer.

Be still, my beating iPod.

So it’s bad news turned into good news, as millions of people get an Apple windfall.

You just couldn’t buy that sort of publicity. It’s a bad news story, followed by quick decisive action, and a happy ending.

Yes, yes, it’s an expensive campaign, and one they’d rather not have. But they are where they are, and their response has been an object lesson in how to handle bad news.

They hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons, and have come up smelling of roses.

Extra sh*t with wings

Not everybody handles bad news quite so well.

Starbucks’ stores in New York were recently in the news. Rumour had it that they were tiring of lingering latte-sippers who used their free WiFi and hogged the toilets. Not to mention people who just dropped in for a little light relief, without purchasing a drink.

So they were shutting their toilets in all 190 of their stores. Avoid the venti (the largest cup size) said Canada’s Globe and Mail. Just a ‘wee’ change, said the New York Post, lapsing into Britspeak, and continuing in that vein with ‘Bucks shuts loos, a subhead worthy of an English redtop.

Bad news, then. So how do you turn it into good news?

Not easily.

Because some bad news simply can’t be flipped, and the best you can do is trot out a denial. Which is exactly what Starbucks did, issuing a statement making it clear that they weren’t closing the toilets.

The reports, they said were ‘completely false’. In larger stores with two restrooms (how euphemistic that sounds to UK ears) they were converting one into a storeroom.

But the damage was done. And worse, it came just days before World Toilet Day, when glitzy celebs help highlight the fact that most people in the world don’t have decent sanitation.

Some bad news you just can’t flush out of the system.

Flying high

The thing about bad news is that there’s just no way of telling how the cards will fall. Sometimes, bad news has the strangest of outcomes.

When a Ryanair plane slid off the runway in Glasgow, bookings went up. When one of their planes landed at the wrong airport in Northern Ireland, bookings went up.

Why? Because people saw the Ryanair logo, and thought I must book a flight. Bizarre, but true.

The key thing here, however, was that nobody got hurt.

When an Air Florida plane crashed in the Potomac in Washington in 1982, killing all but four passengers, it spelled the end for the airline. Just as the Lockerbie crash of 1988 did for Pan Am, which closed its doors and cross-checked for the last time in the early 1990s.

Some bad news you can never recover from.

My bad

Like the wise man said, stuff happens. What matters is what you do next. So how do you deal with it in the context of your everyday marketing?

Well for a start you could:

• Act immediately – don’t wait for it to blow over (it won’t).
• Tell the story before somebody else does. If you get in there first, you set the context, frame the story and limit the damage. And a proactive approach looks more honest – because it is.
• Devise a crisis-management plan well in advance, so you’ve got a clear course of action and a checklist drawn up long before the heat of battle.
• Don’t deny it – even if you think you can get away with it. Sooner or later, the details will come out, and do much more damage.
• Look for positive angles and outcomes. There’s almost always a way of turning a negative story around.

And lastly, do more than anybody could reasonably expect from you to fix the problem. Make your response the story, not the original problem.

In other words, do an Apple.

Find out more:

• Nano-second. New for old, but only if you can find it:  Apple issues ‘fire risk’ recall for old iPod Nanos at the Daily Mail.
• Lavatory humour: Starbucks closes its public bathrooms: The best wisecracks at The Week.
• Backwash: Starbucks denies toilet closure in statement to the Starbucks Gossip blog (tagline: ‘monitoring America’s favorite drug dealer’. Ouch.)

Related posts:

1. Tune in or they’ll turn off
2. Turn away customers and get more business
3. Good lessons from bad service
4. A rest is as good as a change

As the super-injunction row rumbles on here in the UK, you could be forgiven for wondering why the celebs even bother. When an English court orders Calif0rnia-based Twitter to hand over the personal details of the injunction-busters, there’s a definite whiff of desperation.

So why do it?

Simple. They’re trying to control the message – and thus their image. Just not very successfully.

But celebs – whose entire existence is often nothing more than smoke, mirrors and spin – know only too well that if they’re not in control of the message, somebody else is.

That’s why they hire PR gurus to frame, explain and present their story in a way that shows them in the best light.

Because when you’re a star, only the best will do, dahling.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

But it’s not just D-listers who manage the message – everybody does it. It’s what marketing is all about.

It’s just that most marketers (not marketeers, by the way – that conjures up images of WW2 profiteers) do it with a bit more style and grace than the celebs.

Think of a car. The safest, most family-friendly, eco-friendly, steady-Eddie car you can think of. Here’s a hint: even in brilliant sunshine, the headlights are burning bright.

Just in case.

Chances are you thought of a Swedish car. S for Swedish. S for safe.

And V for Volvo.

Even the name is pretty boring: it’s the first-person singular present indicative tense of ‘volvere’, the verb ‘to roll’ in Latin (yes, I’m showing off – but those four compulsory years of Latin at school most have some compensation).

So boring, then.

But not if you look at the latest S60 advert, now splashed across billboards, bus shelters and glossy mags.

There’s more to life than being in cruise control, it daringly says. That’s why the Volvo S60 R-Design is here.

Ooh.

Can you feel the wind in your hair and the throb of the V6 (or V8 – as you can tell, I’m not a petrolhead)?

Well yes. But most of the time, people are stopping and starting in suburban traffic, desperately trying to extricate themselves from the rush-hour snarl-up.

And even when they do, they can’t throw caution to the wind, thanks to the ubiquitous speed cameras.

But why let the facts get in the way of a great story?

Dare to be different

If you look at the S60 brochure, there are the obligatory sections on safety, pollution and customisation. And did I mention safety?

But daringly, they confront head-on their boring, staid, no-nonsense Nordic image with a novel approach on the very first page.

Sexy. Volvo. Same sentence.

That’s the spirit. Different. Brave. Clever.

They’re readily acknowledging that people have preconceptions about Volvo cars, much in the same way as Skoda did with its It’s a Skoda. Honest. campaign.

Think you know Volvo? our friends in the north are are saying. Think again.

They’re taking the initiative, setting the frame of the debate, and leading you down a certain path.

Yes, they say all the EU-regulated, better-safe-than-sorry, mother-knows-best things that Volvo always says. But they’re leading with  a mould-breaking, head-turning, hair-on-back-of-neck approach.

They’re controlling their image.

Makeover. Takeover.

So who’s controlling yours? If it’s not you, it’s somebody else. So get out there, do if often, repeat yourself and hammer that message home.

Take a leaf out the celebs’ book (well virtual book, as they probably don’t do much actual reading, let alone writing) and create the image you want for yourself.

Because you know what’ll happen if you don’t.

Find out more:

• Best of both worlds.  The safe and sexy Volvo S60.
• Honest, guv. Skoda’s reverse psychology works marketing wonders (and is quickly subverted by cyberwags – scroll down to the last image in the post).

Related posts:

1. Country branding: lessons we can learn
2. Do you follow the crowd?
3. It’s advertising, Jim – but not as we know it
4. Will the real you please stand up
5. What does your name say about you?

“I think we need more copy,”  lamented a client a while back.

“No problem,” I said. “What is it that’s missing?”

“Nothing,” he said with a slight hint of confusion. “Nothing at all. It’s just that we need more. Because more is better, right?”

No prizes for guessing my response.

The idea that more is better has taken root largely because of all the arachnocentric babble that’s out there. Or put another way, copy written for search-engine spiders.

Now don’t get me wrong.

Search engines are important, and SEO-optimised copy is essential these days. But you can be optimised and concise – because quality trumps quantity every time.

And humanoids – your clients, my clients and clients in every galaxy out there – like quality and conciseness.

Trust me. They just do.

The long and the short of it

So cut it down and make it better. But how?

• Halve it, improve it. Treat this one as a game: anything you can say in page, you can say in half a page. Anything you can say in half a page, you can say in a paragraph. You know that euphoric, out-of-control feeling when get when you’re slashing weeds with a machete? (Or is that just my weird fetish?) Well that’s the adrenaline rush you get when you slash what you write. So get slashing.
• Try keeping everything ‘above the fold’ - a newspaper term that’s now been carried through to computers. Can you say everything you need to before people have to click the scroll bar or hit Page Down? (And remember, more and more people are browsing on mobile devices with smaller screens.)
• Bullet-point it. Why? First, it’s less intimidating when you’re trying to write. Second, it helps you focus. Third, you can always expand it later if you need to.
• Get to the point fast. Imagine you’re at somebody’s front door and they say you have 30 seconds to do your thing.  What would you say in that precious half-minute? Lead with that.
• Don’t be yourself – be them. Your reader, that is. Just because you write it doesn’t mean they’ll read it. Remember how you read? Well guess what? That’s how they read too – skipping, skimming, half-understanding, looking for pegs, stepping-stones and bite-sized chunks.
• Keep it simple. When you’re writing, keep your sentences under control. Avoid too many subordinate clauses, and if you don’t know what they are, then count the number of commas in your sentence. More commas mean more subordinate clauses – which in turn means confusion.
• Put it through the ‘why should they care?’ test. You’d be surprised how much copy is simply padding. Like cotton wool in a box around expensive jewels, it hides what you most want people to see. They don’t even register it in their rush to find the good stuff. So don’t hide the good stuff.

And when you’ve said what you’ve got to say, stop.

(See how satisfying it is? Second only to slashing weeds.)

Related posts:

1. First impressions really do matter
2. Just what you wanted for Christmas