In my work, I often get asked, "What is it, in a nutshell?"
They mean, "What's the gist of all these elements?" But in my experience, people won't turn their heads for a summary alone.
For example, copy like "Price is XX. Target users are XX. This product was born. Please look forward to △△ in the future" doesn't grab people's attention. (It's not interesting, right?)
Anyone can string together specs to create a summary.
What matters is what those specs ultimately point to.
These days, commercials often end with "See more online."
But when you go to the website, you find an incredibly long text... People won't read that. You need that one clever line to get them to read to the end. Something straightforward like "The secret is revealed at the end!" works.
What matters isn't the summary itself, but that one line that makes people want to read on. Just having that changes the reader's motivation, I think.
When I first started writing copy, I fell into the trap of summarizing long texts and stopping there. If a service's full details span 2000 characters, breaking it into bullet points or forcing it into 300 characters is useful training.
Once you've extracted the crucial information through such techniques, you need to place it at the core of your copy and create mechanisms to get readers to explore the full service. By crafting that one line that makes them want to know more, you build compelling copy that won't get skimmed over.
Imagine you're having lunch with a colleague and talking about a movie you saw over the weekend.
No one would say something like, "The title was ◯◯, starring △△, directed by ××, it started with ~~, and the ending was ~~," in bullet-point style. But if you say, "I saw this movie over the weekend that totally made me want to fall in love!", it makes you want to ask, "What kind of movie was it?"
Simply being conscious of this kind of engaging storytelling changes how you use words in business too. You'll be able to craft phrases that paint a picture for the reader, and that alone makes people want to keep reading.
Business is about moving people.
You need to make them fall in love with your product. Make them like your company. Make them want to work with you.
To achieve that, I believe the fundamental principle of business is to first fall in love with the product or company yourself, then think deeply about how to communicate that so others can share that same feeling of love.
4th CR Planning Bureau (on assignment to Dentsu Inc. Isobar)
Copywriter.
Joined the company in 2007. Major awards include: TCC Newcomer Award, Silver Prize at the Sendenkaigi Awards, ACC Bronze Award, Excellence Award at the Transportation Advertising Grand Prix, Excellence Award at the Nippon Cultural Broadcasting Radio CM Contest, and D&AD Wood Pencil.
Author of "How to Find That One Phrase" (Jitsumu Kyōiku Shuppan).