Adjectives Are the Kryptonite of Advertising.

I always try to avoid adjectives in my work.

Verbs. Verbs I like.

Advertising has planted big wet kisses on adjectives since the first heyday of this business in the 1920s. Ad giants like Albert Lasker figured out that by using adjectives in copy, products became more seductive. More distinctive.

More desirable.

Lasker understood desire. And he was right – products flew off the shelves. But along the way, adjectives were tossed out too casually and too often. Like Sinatra throwing around twenties in nightclubs. Bigger, brighter, faster, cheaper, tastier, smoother, longer and all the other flashier and sexier verbiage began to lose its power. Every product claimed them, whether it was true or not. Soon, those words no longer moved the public. They had been overexposed. Overcome. Overloaded. And that happened a long, long time ago.

To me, the great copywriters find ways to imply adjectives. Great writing makes you feel a product benefit without ever having to resort to the cliché. So instead of saying “this battery lasts LONGER” a more interesting writer might say, “The next time you have to change this battery, the Leafs will be watching the playoffs from their living rooms.” If you get into the habit of never using adjectives, your copy will immediately get more interesting, your ads become more persusasive, and your writing skills take a quantum leap.

Great copywriting should be surprising, interesting and more engaging than what a really good magazine writer could do. If you’ve peppered your copy with adjectives, you weaken the persuasion one more click with each one.

As the Cluetrain Manifesto put it so beautifully: Adjectives are like the blank tiles in Scrabble. You can use them anywhere, but they have no value.