Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Blown Away By Restroom Hand Dryers

Speak volumes with simple truths

Artists and designers tend to notice beautiful images, and beautiful imagery. That’s understandable — it’s a natural and irrepressible aspect of their being. You wouldn’t want to change that instinct, even if you could.

Writers, by the same token, have their feelers out for words, phrases, whole blocks of text, that for them typify the prosaic music that set their hearts to soaring. We’re all fans of our peers and colleagues, you might say.

Marketing writers are no different, except perhaps in one small way: we’re all on the lookout for that one perfect line.

You know what we mean. Or rather, you know it if you’ve seen it. Maybe it’s used in a marketing context, then again maybe it isn’t. It could be used in marketing, regardless of its actual utility, because it’s pithy, direct, and compelling: the very definition of powerful marketing copy.

Most marketing copy is, in fact, pithy and direct and is aimed to compel. But is it all emblematic of that one perfect line? Oh, if only that were so. Truth is, we’re all trying to create that line, that one line of textual punch that sets the tone and carries the banner for all the related marketing efforts that are to follow on.

And we create some pretty good stuff in the attempt. We’re persuasive and informative, and we’re as witty or as serious or as sophisticated as the occasion demands. Our words team with the designers’ images to deliver a multi-media message from our client, the marketers, to the audience they’re engaging with. And in that sense, all is well.

But in the midst of that conversation we’re not always delivering that one perfect line.

On the one hand, it hurts to admit that. But on the other it leaves us ample room to strive. And it gives due honors to the rarity and majesty of written perfection.

So where can you find that line? Expect to see it in the most unexpected places. Public restrooms, perhaps?

High-speed energy efficient hand dryers are now being used instead of paper towels.

Chances are you've seen that phrase so many times it’s become well-nigh invisible. You can no longer recognize, if indeed you ever did,  the elegant truth and beauty inherent in the words.

Shall we break it down? At first glance, it seems strictly utilitarian — a yawn-worthy public notice. There are layers, though, to this onion, this gem, this orchid. Thinking it over, you come to realize there’s a hint of hubris there: a subtle suggestion that hand dryers are on a march of conquest, supplanting paper towels all across the land.

But no, read it again. All that is claimed is that in some cases, in some places, there are hand driers. It is nothing less than the simple truth.

Inside that truth, however, lurks the suggestion that this place, wherein you’ve been lucky enough to find high-speed air and not paper towels, this is the place to be. Those other places, anachronistic hosts to towels made of pulp, they evidently haven’t received the good news about hand-drying efficiency. You might want to skip those places until they get with it.

Some genius writer or a team of them crafted those words, piled those layers, and they knew what they needed to spell out, and what could go unsaid. They knew what you know about the environment, about efficiency, and about the simple yet oh-so important act of hand-washing. They knew they had limited space and time to harness that knowledge and make a profound statement (and a profoundly subliminal one)...and they delivered.

The one perfect line isn't trivial, and it never addresses a trivial subject. It carries loads of information, subtle and overt. It is the pinnacle of the use of language in sharing ideas and swaying opinions. It is to be celebrated, in awe and yes, even envy, wherever it is found.

The C4:
1. We live in the era of one-liners and sound-bytes. Just about everyone is composing pithy zingers in support of their ideas, their ideals, and their hobby-horses of the moment.
2. Some are more successful than others. Some go viral. Most are nothing to Tweet home about.
3. Exceedingly rare exceptions pack a cerebral wallop in relatively few characters. They’re like Zen gardens in the form of words: every element carefully chosen, carefully placed, working together to create deep meaning.
4. Does that really add up to perfection? We’ll allow that perfection is subjective, and perhaps objectively unobtainable. Nevertheless we think there are uses of language that come as close to perfection as humanly possible. We know them when we see them; we admire them no matter who created them, or why. And they always inspire us to seek the same.