I was annoyed to recently receive a bland piece of direct mail from an unamed charity that is undergoing a rebrand.

Their normal warm and friendly tone approach has been replaced by dull, insipid copy that appears to have been written by committee.

They deal with some serious issues but have done everything in their power not to use the words that describe exactly what they do.  Instead they've decided to use flowery, wishy-washy and vague language instead.

The result: boredom, lack of emotion and a letter that went straight in the bin.

After I had a rant to my girlfriend, I forgot about it until I re-read this quote from Roy H. Williams in his Wizard of Ads series of books:

"The price of clarity is the risk of insult."

Now I'm not advocating that you go out your way to upset people, but if you are going to get a response then you need to write in a way that people can connect to, and engage with, on an emotional level.

This means that every now and again you're going to upset someone.  For example, the subject might be too close to a supporter's personal experience and so brings back bad memories.

However, when this happens there should be a little part of you that is secretly, though slightly ashamed to be, pleased.  It shows that your words have created an emotional impact and that others will also have been moved to think and act.

I always remember a bereavement counsellor I worked with at a hospice.  She used to get really annoyed when people avoided saying 'dead' or 'died'.  She taught me (though others may disagree) that using euphemisms like 'passed away', 'called home'  and 'departed' could prolong the grieving process by allowing people to avoid facing up to their loss.

So next time you are worried that your copy might upset someone take a second and consider whether that is a bad thing?  The wizard suggests that it ain't necessarily so...