Wisdom from beyond the grave, and a book I must get

You may have noticed that pretty regularly I comment on the crass language used by people who email me in the wasted hope of selling things I don’t need or are attempts to rip me off.

Yesterday in facebook I remarked on something I had received, headed: “Introducing the worlds most dynamic and revolutionary jobs website”.

I thought that even in a world of fatuous overclaim this stood out. Anyhow, this provoked a number of comments – and a good one from Jared Lazaro included a quotation from George Orwell

Jared wrote: “Does NO ONE understand that this sort of drivel makes them look idiotic?!?”

Then he quoted George Orwell:

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

Few of those labouring in the weed-clogged marketing vineyard have read Orwell but for years in seminars I have adapted his advice from an essay called Politics and the English Language.



Sounds like a book we should all read.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

2 Comments

  1. Karson

    I have recently began reading your blog and I get a great kick at you tearing these advertizements apart. I actually ended up here on through searching for a copy of Claude Hopkins book which is great but in saying this, I was searching to better myself at advertizing. I would enjoy some content towards how a advertizement is done well sometimes. I might throw some of my copy-writing at you and see how you tear it apart lol. Keep up the good stuff.
    Thanks,
    Karson

    Reply
  2. Drayton

    There's a list of good books on my website http://www.draytonbird.com, Karson. Even mine aren't bad. Or anyhow they're rated 5 star

    Reply

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