Modern moment

John Butler on sales campaigns in which words are not enough

John Butleron sales campaigns in which words are not enough

There's an interesting statistic somewhere about the number of words the average adult is forced to read in the course of his or her daily life in the Western world. I have to hold my hand up and confess that I don't have the exact figure to hand, but, apparently, something like 78 per cent of statistics are made up on the spot. If I were to offer you an exact figure, the chances are I'd be making it up. Suffice it to say that the number in question is high.

We absorb so much ambient literature about deals, offers and warnings, on every available surface every day, that if you were to spend 24 hours locked in a flotation tank you would probably find some instructions to read on the inside of your protective goggles. It's unavoidable, from the moment you come to life scanning the ingredients of your cereal box (niacin, riboflavin) to the nightly sign-off with one last glance at the TV page (Friends, CSI: Miami, Friends, CSI: Orlando, Friends).

However, I noticed a sign on a motorway recently that seemed to mark a new low point in the war to grab our attention - a sign so large yet bearing a slogan so utterly devoid of meaning as almost to cause a pile-up, with me at the front. It had been posted to advertise a development. The message was borne along in a loopy aristocratic font. And the line chosen to sell the block of apartments was "the Spirit of Gracious Living". (Not unlike the ads for the Belmayne housing estate critiqued in a recent Weekend Review.)

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I chewed it over, then read it again. It was written in English, no doubt. I could definitely understand nearly all the words, and the printers hadn't made a mistake with the order in which they were laid out. To a blind man on a galloping horse it would look exactly like an actual sentence. But I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it meant.

I mean, what is the spirit of gracious living? What is being sold? What are you buying? Once you move into "the spirit of gracious living" apartment block, do you find yourself cleaning your neighbour's car for free? Do you cook dinner for the whole estate, then modestly deflect compliments on the quality of the food? Do the children playing with the ball out front wear black-tie? Are they, too, full of grace?

I feel that these are all possibilities, but it's impossible to say for sure, and I think this is the very quality considered most valuable by those who have a professional interest in the sign. The sign says nothing; therefore it says nothing offensive. It says nothing, so it says nothing that anyone else might have said before. It says nothing, therefore it doesn't have to say anything specific about the development, anything that might turn people off it.

It says nothing, yet it exudes a faint aroma of genteel exclusivity, which hints at the kind of lifestyle you might attain if you live there. But it doesn't come out and say that the development is for the upwardly mobile, the rich, the posh. The words themselves say nothing for fear of saying too much - in which case, why use words at all? I think they should have commissioned someone to embroider the world's largest doily and then hung that on the billboard. Or sprayed passers-by with perfume.

It makes me wonder exactly what causes the anti-graffiti lobby to get so hot. You might not agree with the aesthetic value of graffiti, but at least it offers a concrete message by someone to someone. Anyway, it has a little artistic purity, because it isn't trying to sell you anything, unlike the legal vandalism you read thousands of times every day in the name of the sale. It's a word overused by teenagers, but graffiti rarely bears a slogan quite as pretentious as "the Spirit of Gracious Living".

There is a uniquely Irish type of graffiti, one that simply lists a group of friends in a vertical row, in simple black marker. You find it mostly on park benches and lamp posts in the city centre. The names read like a team sheet of majorettes and football players, and the writing is spiral and vaguely Celtic.

Donna
Angel
Steo
Angie
Gary

It's like the roll-call of a gang, and what's not to love about that?

But the best graffiti of all is the sort that adds commentary to an approved and legal piece of corporate vandalism. Nobody has yet defaced the property sign to which I have referred (and it would be truly dreadful if they did), but one election poster has been amended in such a way as to make it a joy to behold.

The candidate is an unloveable stiff, extremely dour and conservative, yet his stern mugshot has been rendered impotent by the slogan scrawled right across his forehead: "I am erotic."

Of course, most Irish graffiti has quite some way to go before it packs the political punch and humour of Banksy, whose book of graffiti, Wall and Piece, is now on sale. Banksy is famous for (among other things) stencilling arresting anti-state graffiti on the walls of London.

But it is for his subversive humour, more than for his politics, that he has gained deserved fame and notoriety.

The following publicity quote is emblazoned across the the back cover of Wall and Piece: "'There's no way you are going to get a quote from us to use on your cover' - The London Metropolitan Police."

Actually, I think that might be the spirit of gracious living.

John Butler blogs at http://lozenge.wordpress.com