Are You Using Too Much Hype?

Hmmm... tone is important, perhaps.

Tone is like... the underlying implicit messages, perhaps.

Hmmm... tone is important, perhaps.

Tone is like... the underlying implicit messages, perhaps.

In my opinion, there is definately too much hype in ad copy. Obviously we need to list features and benefits, but I think we can give the hype a rest.

Anything I've ever responded to was from real people telling it like it is, and wanting to help.

Lori P.

I like to think of hype as hyper+hope mixed together.

Customers are people with persisting problems they wish to solve. It might be a pressing need, it might be just a want to play a role (eg. to "showcase", to "impress", to "roleplay"...)

We have a pretty powerful role to play here. We give them hope for a cure to their problems... And "hype" occurs.

Is it a bad thing? I don't necessarily think so. Hope presses people on to do things that they won't normally do. Hope drives depressed people to live on. Hope lights up the lives of millions of people worldwide like lights on a universal Christmas tree.

Hype is normally associated with the feeling of adrenaline. Of need. Of urgency. Of the burning desire and hope that they can finally resolve their headache, those nightmares that wake them up at night, those pressure steam-cookers that boil their heads throughout the day...

IF you're able to give someone hope, and carry on delivering that promise with an exceptionally great product... Why not? Is that not the reason why there are motivational speakers that lift the weight of painful daily sufferings? Is that not why religions fill the hearts of people with hope? Is that not why science brings a powerful expectation for the "future" of humanity?

Of course, if you're promoting a bad product... Scrape it off the board completely.
Why give a person false hope?

I really hope marketers and copywriters alike stop from delivering promises that they fail to keep. It's a social conditioning - a chaos. These small initial changes can create a huge impact and slippery slope in the long-run. It's just like the flap of a butterfly's wings... making a hurricane in a place somewhere far away.

Buyer's remorse. You can demolish a person's confidence to believe - that in itself is something extremely unethical imho, because what makes someone have a purpose in life is that very thing - hope.

It all depends on authenticity. ALL copy contains "hype" to an extent... in fact, here's the definition of hype from dictionary.com:

verb (used with object)
1. to stimulate, excite, or agitate (usually followed by up ): She was hyped up at the thought of owning her own car.
2. to create interest in by flamboyant or dramatic methods; promote or publicize showily: a promoter who knows how to hype a prizefight.
3. to intensify (advertising, promotion, or publicity) by ingenious or questionable claims, methods, etc. (usually followed by up ).
4. to trick; gull.

...the difference in good hype from bad is that bad hype is either:

1. a complete lie, therefor falls under definition 4

or 2. not hype at all but rather an obnoxious over-exaggeration created by a poor writer.

Good hype stimulates, excites, and as Mark above pointed out stirs up EMOTION.

So rather than trying to look at hype as something to avoid, try to induce hype in the correct manner.

Make "hype" the GOAL of your copy, only ensure that you aren't committing one of the two "bad hype" pitfalls above!

My "real job" is managing sales people... and a thought I had reviewing last week's sales might be applicable to this topic - with sales people and their stated goals, often there is a difference between what they say, and what they do.

I agree with Chris -- authenticity is the key. Over the last decade or so, people's BS meters have become much more finely calibrated. And they tend to error on the side of being quick to label a piece of marketing "spam," "scam," or just plain "too good to be true."

This is largely the reason for the emergence of content marketing -- people see traditional advertising as generally being not credible. So before they even start to read a particular ad, they're looking for the cracks, the BS, the letdown.

Overblown statements that seem like 'hype' only trigger that sensitivity even more.

People are increasingly seeking what they consider 'authentic' as the antidote to that.

All that said, advertising still has to try to persuade. And it still has to excite people. So it's a fine line -- and copywriters are bound to fall at least a little on the wrong side of it from time to time.

Copy is only hype when it does not resonate with your target audience.

As we all know, most copywriters don't do enough homework. When you do your homework and truly understand your target audience, you can write compelling copy that resonates with your audience.

If your copy does not resonate with your audience, then your copy is called
"hype".