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February
15, 2007:
Importance Of How You Say, What You Say II
Interview
with Dr. Frank Luntz, author of Words
That Work
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Mike
Carruthers:
Words
can be tricky business: take the word "accountable"
- it sounds strong, trustworthy and responsible - but in communication
like advertising, research shows that accountable is deadly.
Dr. Frank Luntz:
If you tell me that the company is accountable, it must
mean that they're doing something bad that they have to be accountable
for.
Dr. Frank Luntz,
author of the book Words
That Work…
I don't want
a cell phone company that tells me that they're accountable;
I want them to tell me that they're reliable. Accountability
is one of the most powerful words in the English language but
don't ever use it trying to sell a new product because then
it says that the product doesn't work.
Another interesting
principle of advertising is best illustrated by the ads for
Apple's IPod.
Apple figured
out that every time you put a photograph in an ad, people look
at that picture and decide whether or not they can relate to
the individual. But if you use a silhouette, then everybody
can relate. And so they've got an ad of a young woman - I don't
even know if she's a young woman, she could be 16 or 46 - and
everyone can see themselves in that ad.
How do you get
a table at a restaurant that's all booked up? Dr. Luntz says
it can all be in the words you use.
If you explain
that this is a special date, that this is a meeting with the
boss and you go into some detail about why that table matters,
they're much more likely to give it to you. People want to engage
in other people's lives and when you unveil a little of yourself
you've created a relationship where they are now invested in
helping you.
At somethingyoushouldknow.net
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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