Issue #33 - Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Posted by Denny Hatch
Or Are They Sexy?
Do You Believe These Numbers?
My opinion:
rounded-off numbers are boring, contrived and basically dishonest.
TIME publishes the 100 World’s Most Influential People. How many
not-so-influential people were shoehorned into the list to make it an even 100?
Or… who was left out? Why not THE TIME 97 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE? Or 103?
Same nonsense every year with the FORTUNE 500 companies and the Forbes
400 richest people.
Sloppy Copy by a Lazy Brit Copywriter
On November 15th
Peggy and I were in London and decided to attend Evensong at Christopher Wren’s
magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral.
It turned out to be a very special evening—the 60th
Anniversary of the Dedication of the American Memorial Chapel, which is
directly behind the main altar.
In attendance were the American Ambassador, The Hon. Woody Johnson, and Her Royal
Highness the Duchess of Gloucester. The Introit was the African-American
spiritual Steal Away to Jesus and the
opening hymn was The Battle Hymn of the
Republic.
For this honorably discharged U.S. Army veteran, (1958-1960) I felt the
same rush of pride as I did 60 years ago on the Ft. Dix and Ft. Jay parade ground marching to Sousa’s Stars & Stripes Forever and the
snapping of American flags in the wind.
In the American Memorial Chapel the
Inscription reads:
THIS CHAPEL COMMEMORATES
THE COMMON SACRIFICES OF THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN PEOPLE DURING THE SECOND
WORLD WAR AND ESPECIALLY THOSE AMERICAN SERVICE MEN WHOSE NAMES ARE RECORDED IN
ITS ROLL OF HONOUR THIS TABLET WAS UNVEILED BY H.M. QUEEN ELIZABETH II ON 26
NOVEMBER, 1958 IN THE PRESENCE OF RICHARD M. NIXON THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES.
From the program booklet
of the service was this paragraph of truly sloppy copy that irritated
me then and irritates me now:
The Roll of Honour, containing the names of twenty
eight thousand servicemen who died, was presented
for safe keeping by General Dwight D. Eisenhower at
a special service held on 4th July 1951.
A page of this
book is turned every day.
Long Odds
The odds of precisely 28,000
servicemen dying are a thousand to one.
It
was more like 27,624 or 28,092.
Clearly
this untrained copywriter at St. Paul’s was too lazy to research
the precise number. It’s always easier to round the number off to the nearest
thousand.
What
the copy is saying: “Somewhere around 28,000 Americans died. That’s a big bunch
of dead Yanks.”
Sorry,
Brits. We Americans believe every single tragic young life snuffed out by war
is precious and deserves recognition. Their loved ones and fellow Americans want
to know that each hero is being remembered individually and honored. Do you know precisely how many names are in the book: Do you care?
For Example…
Spend a moment to Google Maya
Lin’s wrenching Vietnam Memorial. You’ll learn instantly 51,318 names are
carved in the marble.
The
American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy contains 9,387 American
military dead.
Our
apartment in Philly overlooks Washington Square Park where more Revolutionary War soldiers are buried than anywhere else in the country. Sadly no count and no
roster of names exist.
But
they are revered. In the center of the park is a bronze statue of George Washington and an
eternal flame. It is a tourist Mecca.
Same Principle in the Commercial
World
People have a strange attraction to
numbers. From the Ten Commandments to the “Seven out of ten people who...” to
the “19 reasons why” to the “16 people who believe that...” Not only do people
read the headline and then start reading the copy, but—more amazingly—they feel
they have to read down to the last number mentioned.”
—Murray
Raphel, Retail Consultant
I subscribe to the digital
edition of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and
one or two of their newsletters such as:
According to editor Gerard
Baker (and his successor Matt Murray), every day of the week brings exactly 10 new
items to make up his 10-Point column.
Wouldn’t
this newsletter be more compelling—more
real—if Murray came up with 3-Points one day and the following day featured
13- Points?
“Neatness rejects involvement,” said my great
mentor Lew Smith.
By omitting some stories and padding other
stories, quite simply Matt Murray is creating Donald Trump’s plague: FAKE NEWS!
One
Monday (08-06-18) the Journal’s 10-POINT
blog was “edited and curated” by Jessica Menton.
By my
count it contained 18 items.
She was
forced to call it “The Top Ten.”
Ten is
neat. 18 is messy.
Journalists—print,
broadcast and digital—are precise.
Alas,
it’s sad sack editors—desperate to be tidy—that turn these reportorial masters
into chumps.
Herschell Gordon Lewis on
Verisimilitude
and Numbers
Verisimilitude is the appearance of truth.
Raw
truth has weeds in it; verisimilitude is an unblemished garden.
Truth: “Although the
survey shows that readers spend more time with Fortune, and Forbes
attracts greater advertising response, this magazine has shown a greater
percentage of circulation growth.”
Verisimilitude: “The marketplace knows what’s best! We
outstrip both Fortune and Forbes in rate of circulation growth.”
Verisimilitude is also a brake on claims. I call this The Ballooning Number Rule:
The farther a number rises beyond the
typical
reader’s personal experiential
background, the
less emotion the number generates.
So referring to the national debt in trillions of
dollars has less impact than “You
owe...”
Computer
monitor manufacturers whose copy talks about 16 million colors may be truthful,
but they’re outside the verisimilitude loop.
One
more point about verisimilitude: It thrives on specificity. Example: Instead of:
“We’ve been in business a long time...”
A
verisimilitude-conscious writer would say:
“My father opened his first store at
30th and Main
thirty-two years ago...”
And…
I
have an insurance client whose business began in 1784—“five years before George
Washington became president.”
In my opinion this is considerably stronger than
“That’s well over 200 years ago.”
Think through the use of
numbers.
This watch is accurate
within five seconds per month
— or —
Accurate within sixty seconds per year
“Five
seconds per month” wins, because it seems to be less time.
“Accurate
within ten minutes over a ten-year span” would be a miracle of accuracy ... but
the reader thinks, “Uh-oh, I’ll be ten minutes late and miss my plane.”
Which phrase will sell
more for you?
“Two percent a
month”
— or —
“Twenty-four percent a year”
If
you’re writing about what someone pays, it’s two percent a month; if you’re
writing about what someone gets, it’s twenty-four percent a year.
Takeaways to Consider
•
People have a strange attraction to numbers. From the Ten Commandments to the
“Seven out of ten people who...” to the “19 reasons why” to the “16 people who
believe that...” Not only do people read the headline and then start reading
the copy, but—more amazingly—they feel they have to read down to the last
number mentioned.”
—Murray Raphel, Retail Consultant
—Murray Raphel, Retail Consultant
• “Neatness rejects
involvement.”
—Lew Smith, EVP, Wunderman Agency.
—Lew Smith, EVP, Wunderman Agency.
• “Specifics sell. Generalities do
not.”
—Andrew J. Byrne, Freelancer.
—Andrew J. Byrne, Freelancer.
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Word Count: 1164
Hi Denny, thank you again for posting this article. Sorry, I'm reading your past articles one by one and started only last week. I'm learning a lot.
ReplyDeleteBest, Paul
I believe quoting numbers in multiple of ten, be it 20, 50, 100 and so on gives a sense of completeness and the curiosity wears off. You see them everywhere; banknotes, anniversaries and so in.
ReplyDeleteAn incomplete number, has a curiosity element in it and tends to stand out more. It's almost like unfinished business.