Why? Because if you don’t, people will ask you what you actually mean, and then you’ll have to explain yourself the way you should have done first time around. Which can be embarrassing and time-consuming.
Of course, that’s assuming they’re at all bothered. The reality is, most will just glaze over and move along, because you’ve wasted their time by dressing something simple up in silly words. You’ve lost another potential customer for no good reason.
Why? Are you ashamed of what you do – as Tesco appears to be in this example? Note how they’ve said something utterly meaningless in big letters on the side of the van, and then got a little bit closer to the point in the smaller print on the bottom of the van’s rear door, with ‘Trolley Collection Service’.
Why didn’t they cut to the chase and not bother with ‘Aquatic Retrieval Unit’?
Were they embarrassed to admit that the driver of this vehicle spends much of his or her time dragging shopping trolleys out of canals? And if so, why write anything at all?
Do people really need to know? Well, there’s another issue entirely…
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