My, My, My
by Andrew Smith on 27/03/09 at 5:18 pm
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While sitting in Cape Town traffic this morning I spotted this loyal ANC member doing his bit for the party:
Something bothered me about it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Then it hit me – it appears that Jacob Zuma is saying “My ANC, My Vision, My Future”, which I was subconsciously interpreting as “Jacob Zuma’s ANC, Jacob Zuma’s Vision, Jacob Zuma’s Future”. Not exactly the message they’re trying to send (no matter how true it really is).
I remembered the “We We Calculator” on the FutureNow website. You type in your website address and it calculates how customer-focused or self-centred your copy is. There’s another article on ClickZ that describes the problem:
Have you ever been cornered at a party by someone who only talks about himself? Pretty annoying, isn’t it? Do you respect that person? Are you comfortable around him? Do you feel such people care about you or what’s important to you? Do you even want be there? If you saw that person again, would you be eager to spend even more time with him, or would you look for the nearest plant to hide behind?
So let’s take a look at the words on your Web site. Are you talking about all the wonderful ways your visitors can benefit from your products or services, or are you talking about all the great features of your products, services, or company? In other words, are you speaking the language of “you,” or are you caught up in the language of “we”? As our friend Roy Williams asks, “Are you wewe-ing all over yourself?”
I realise that the ANC is not really talking about Jacob Zuma when they use the word “My”, but sometimes our best intentions in marketing fail without proper testing. Apply the We We test to your website, brochures, advertising, and even the next sales e-mail you send out, and make sure you’re not falling into the same trap.
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
Tags: advertising
