Protect what makes it work — Kelford Labs Daily

In one of my first jobs in advertising, I fought hard against an exclamation point.

The agency’s copywriters had conceived of a campaign that relied on plays-on-words that demanded subtlety. 

Each ad was focused on the copy—just text on a solid background.

The best one of the set, which was just a tiny bit risqué, ended with a period.

And as one short story writer put it, “No iron spike can pierce a human heart as icily as a period in the right place.”

The effect of the ad leaned hard on the punctuation.

The client, though, insisted it be swapped out for an exclamation point. It wasn’t actionable enough. It wasn’t loud enough. It wasn’t obvious enough.

I didn’t write the campaign, and I had no authority. My job was just to buy the media placements in which to run it. But I knew the period was paramount, and the exclamation point would silence it.

So, I argued. I debated. I complained until I was asked politely, and then firmly, to stop.

Eventually, the period was replaced, the ad ran, and nobody really noticed it.

Maybe it wouldn’t have worked with a period, but it could have. With the exclamation point, it never had a chance.

Mid-century advertising legend Howard Gossage called this “Disimprovement.” Making things worse by trying to make them better.

The lesson that’s stuck with me all these years isn’t that we should have kept arguing. It’s that the ad should never have run.

We didn’t believe in it, so why would anyone else?

As David Ogilvy put it, “Any fool can write a bad advertisement, but it takes a genius to keep his hands off a good one.”

Now, when I see something good my instinct is rarely to ask, “How could this be better?”

Instead, I ask myself, “How could this be ruined? What small change would erode its impact?”

And then I protect whatever it is that makes it work.

So, the question is, what makes your marketing work? And what do you need to protect?

Kelford Inc. helps hands-on entrepreneurs and founders with complex marketing challenges define and articulate their unique value to their very best customers.

We’ll show you the way to always knowing what to say.