Page 121 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

54 GIVE YOUR READER
SPACE TO THINK

There’s a temptation, when writing for print communications,
to want to cram as much in as possible. After all, the reasoning
goes, we’ve paid to get this mailshot/brochure/white paper printed
and mailed, we’re damn well going to fill up every square inch. The
picture online is more confused, but you still see plenty of emails,
banners, and landing pages that scream for the reader’s attention.

But does this approach work? Long copy does sell, we know that.
So should we stuff the page with words like a Périgord goose being
force-fed corn to turn its liver into foie gras? Well, no. Your reader
needs a little breathing space. Somewhere calm to consider your
argument.

The idea

From Waitrose, a supermarket
Actually, describing Waitrose as merely “a supermarket” is a bit
like describing a Bentley as “a car.” It’s a lovely supermarket. A
super(up)market if you will. (I’m a fan as you can probably tell.) In
our neck of the woods we’re fortunate enough to have their flagship
store. Wander around and the feature of the store that strikes you
is the aisles. Wide? Yes, I suppose that covers it. In fact they’re wide
enough to drive the aforementioned Bentley down them without
knocking over the merchandise.

You feel calm. You feel happy. You feel like browsing along the
shelves and picking up that actually quite reasonably priced jar
of feta-stuffed peppers. You go in looking for a loaf of bread and

112 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS