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“Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.” - Howard Gossage
Have you ever wondered why a lot of modern ads all seem to meld together into a bland blob? One of the big reasons is that they genuinely just aren’t saying anything anymore.
Headlines are more than just ‘headlines’. They’re ideas. And at some point many years ago, we decided to start cutting them off at the knees. I’m not quite sure who decided they were the grand arbiter of advertising language, but rules like “Headlines should only ever be 6 words” and “Someone needs to be able to read it while travelling 100km/h on the freeway” and “Shorter headlines always perform better” started emerging, and slowly over time, we started seeing brands condensing their messaging to short, empty, corporate platitudes. Luxury evolved. *Insert word* your way. Attempting to be as lofty as possible in as few words and effectively spending millions of dollars to say nothing in the process.
Nowhere do you see this more than automotive ads, once one of the great bastions of advertising, it’s now probably one of the most boring categories in the market.
Ooft. Nobody buys a Porsche to ‘change their look’ or ‘keep their essence’, they buy it to feel alive or because they’ve always dreamed of owning one. (What the hell does keep your essence mean, anyway?) Still today, as they did decades ago. So why aren’t we saying it anymore?
“The headline is too long.”
Again, a headline is not just a headline. It’s an idea. An invitation. A provocation.
Now, yes, there are considerations to be made when it comes to media placement and I’m not saying that every headline should be long, what I am saying is that if rules are becoming roadblocks to ideas then you should first remove them and let the ideas come to life. Sometimes what starts as a long idea can be sharpened, but we just aren’t letting them come to life as we used to.
The thing is, ‘word count’ is subjective. The story these ads tell is still incredibly deep for the amount of words they utilise. There is still brevity in a long headline. And a long headline that connects is always better than a short one that doesn’t.
There’s like 100 of these bangers from Chivas back in the day. Just endless provocations on a single product. An entire world of intrigue built around what is, if we’re honest, a run of the mill whisky.
This is also not a ‘Oh, how I yearn for the olden days of advertising’ post. The world is different now. We don’t have the luxury to just run a print ad and be done with it. I get it. I’m just showing you how brands were/are built. On provocation and intrigue and insight. Because attention should always be earned, not assumed. This is still the job to be done.
Here are some modern examples.
These are all long headlines by modern standards. But they have something far more interesting to say than ‘Experience Amazing’ or ‘Evolution, redefined.’ and all of the other soulless pieces of language we get served on a daily basis. Sure, some people may not stop to read them, but the ones that do will actually take something away from it. They talk to people, not at them. And that’s really the key thing to remember. Not everyone is going to look at our ads. No one cares. It is our job to make them care.
The other argument that often gets in the way is ‘dwell time’. When a campaign goes viral or is shared online, you can guarantee that there’ll be someone in the comments tearing it down because ‘no one is going to read that while driving’. Even though the image is an OOH with heavy foot traffic, often somewhere where vehicle traffic backs up, and despite all of that they are viewing the ad right now ON THEIR PHONE. Everything is social now. Everything. Great TV ads, activations, and yes, billboards, are social. If they’re good enough, that is. If they say something worth sharing - then they can live beyond their physical media placement.
Everything is so social now that you can even take social humour and chuck it on a billboard.
I’ll conclude by again reiterating that this is not to say that all headlines should be long or that long headlines are ‘better’. We do an incredible job at overcomplicating what we do and making it unnecessarily difficult. At its core, what we need to do is find something interesting to say and make it entertaining. And sometimes placing arbitrary rules on what we’re allowed to say when we actually have something interesting to say is, well, a bit daft.
Brands need to be able to find their voice and speak to people in whatever way resonates before we start banning and lecturing on what we’re allowed to say and how we’re allowed to say it.
And sometimes, having something a little longer to say is what makes people spend a little longer paying attention to us.
Long live the long headline.
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