This one is something of a cheat, because I'm advising people on something I WANT them to do, not actually what's necessarily best for them, simply because I want to browbeat them into doing it.
But if you're trying to sell something, TELL PEOPLE WHAT IT IS.
That's not actually true. If you're trying to sell a hunk of crap, it may well be more effective to sell it to people on spurious grounds. It may be more effective to:
* bundle mobile phones with mobile phone contracts and lie to people about which is which
* make a mediocre product and advertise the heck out of it because it's "fun" without specifying what's good about it
* claim something is a "necessity" for modern life without saying what it does
But I wish:
* Film posters are many square meters large (A-2 or something); they should devote a sentence somewhere, even in small print, to telling you what the film is about. If it's small enough, surely all the people who want to see it because it has a cool name and a famous actor in will not be put off, but people who say "wow, that sounds cool" will be enticed?
* Shaving foam, shampoo, non-rechargeable batteries, etc had "shaving foam", "shampoo", "non-rechargeable battery" written on them somewhere.
* Mobile phone sellers had a table of the options you might want, and their cost, rather than collating them into arbitrary bundles with stupid names, and
But if you're trying to sell something, TELL PEOPLE WHAT IT IS.
That's not actually true. If you're trying to sell a hunk of crap, it may well be more effective to sell it to people on spurious grounds. It may be more effective to:
* bundle mobile phones with mobile phone contracts and lie to people about which is which
* make a mediocre product and advertise the heck out of it because it's "fun" without specifying what's good about it
* claim something is a "necessity" for modern life without saying what it does
But I wish:
* Film posters are many square meters large (A-2 or something); they should devote a sentence somewhere, even in small print, to telling you what the film is about. If it's small enough, surely all the people who want to see it because it has a cool name and a famous actor in will not be put off, but people who say "wow, that sounds cool" will be enticed?
* Shaving foam, shampoo, non-rechargeable batteries, etc had "shaving foam", "shampoo", "non-rechargeable battery" written on them somewhere.
* Mobile phone sellers had a table of the options you might want, and their cost, rather than collating them into arbitrary bundles with stupid names, and