In an ideas notebook I keep, there is a line from an elevator ad. A home designer is on camera explaining his philosophy: he wants interiors to offer more “possibilities for adventure.” It is a sentence with a beginning and no end, the kind of nonsense that leaves plenty of room for the imagination.
What counts as a possibility for adventure? A child leaping from one sofa to another? A hidden door behind the wardrobe where a lover can hide and escape? The second at least sounds more adventurous.
I once came close to stumbling into real estate, but my copywriting was not good enough. Real-estate copy is no easier than those circle-the-answer questions on civil-service exams. A development that sat unfinished for three years before construction resumed becomes a “finale.” A mosquito-ridden ditch dug over a summer becomes a “waterside mansion.” A disastrous floor plan becomes “breaking with tradition.”
You have to let your brain go around twice before you reach the meaning behind the slogan. Step outside the slogan’s frame and look at the whole picture, and the problem becomes visible: the plain descriptions point to what actually exists, while the flowery slogans usually cover up a fact.
Go back to “possibilities for adventure.” If we treat the entire renovation process as an adventure—contract, design, construction, handover—then every stage is risky. That would be exhausting.
Of course, the person who wrote the line may not intend that result. But it works as a pre-emptive clause: if there is a clash of expectations, that itself can be counted as an “adventure,” and the customer should try a style they have never tried before.
What if the customer does not accept the adventure from the start? Say they ask for Scandinavian and get a chilly, minimalist loft. Now “possibilities for adventure” can do its job: renovation is an adventure. You thought you were traditional by nature, but deep down you needed a bed without a nightstand. It is not inconvenience; life needs subtraction, a way to keep trivia from disturbing a good dream. The adventure is supposed to take you toward your own impossible, away from tradition, back to a space that belongs to you.
Hand the “possibilities for adventure” to the consumer and let them supply the meaning. Even a squat toilet replacing a sitting one can become meaningful: Chinese people should squat, and should not forget the health wisdom left by their ancestors.
If letting consumers assign meaning is the result, then the slogan is a spell. The wet toilet paper beside me says, “Clean people all use DeYu wet toilet paper.” That is the spell; the meaning it assigns is “I was a clean person all along.”
Some slogans follow the same logic as the squat toilet. A dumpling shop’s slogan is “Chinese fresh dumplings.” There are many courses that teach people how to write these spells, but they often overlook the crucial step: how a spell gets people to assign meaning themselves. Besides defining the consumer as “clean,” I have noticed several other moves:
- Define the consumer. This often uses rhetorical questions: “Do you really understand your child?” Parents feel a jolt. No matter how much they think they understand, once a child reaches adolescence, they cannot escape not understanding.
- Put down competitors. This includes discrimination, disparagement, and comparison. “More” is a common separator: fresher handmade tea; a promise not to use pre-made dishes; wrapped and baked on site...
- Put down other consumers. “Clean people all use...” also hides a logic of putting down other consumers—does that mean people who use ordinary toilet paper do not love cleanliness? At this point, it is the consumer who supplies the meaning of putting others down.
- Substitution. Turn a weakness into a strength. Real-estate slogans are full of this.
At this point the knife comes out: this is not really a lesson in how to write slogans. It is a lesson in how to brainwash consumers into assigning meaning to their own purchase. After all, only through comparison and putting others down can you prove that others are wrong and that your choice is right.