#33 Are Your Numbers Fake and Boring? Or Are They Sexy?

Issue #33 - Wednesday, November 28, 2018

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2018/11/33-are-your-numbers-fake-and-boring-or.html

Posted by Denny Hatch

Are Your Numbers Fake and Boring? 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 15^th 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 60^th 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 4^th 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

• “Neatness rejects involvement.”  
 —Lew Smith, EVP, Wunderman Agency.

• “Specifics sell. Generalities do not.”
—Andrew J. Byrne, Freelancer.

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Word Count: 1164

At age 15, Denny Hatch—as a lowly apprentice—wrote his first news release for a Connecticut summer theater. To his astonishment it ran verbatim in The Middletown Press. He was instantly hooked on writing. After a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1958-60), Denny had nine jobs in his first 12 years in business. He was fired from five of them and went on to save two businesses and start three others. One of his businesses—WHO’S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service founded in 1984—revolutionized the science of how to measure the success of competitors’ direct mail. In the past 55 years he has been a book club director, magazine publisher, advertising copywriter/designer, editor, journalist and marketing consultant. He is the author of four published novels and seven books on business and marketing.

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