We all speak English. I just happen to do it for a living.

Bernbach’s Law and Family Ties

Posted: November 12th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: copywriting tips, editing, interactive marketing, management | No Comments »

Go read this first. Or just read my blockquote below:

At my company Fight, we call this “the 80% rule.” It goes like this:

When you convey a difficult concept, you’re better off being 80% right and simple, than 100% right and complex.

Put another way, Apple includes “Multitasking” as a key feature of iOS on their website but it was only at their developers conference that Job’s explained the concept of “fast app switching” or as John Gruber put it:

“Apps don’t run in windows, they run on the full screen. So when you leave one app and switch to another in iPhone OS 4, the GUI — the visual interface — is not going to continue updating in the background. What will happen, if the app is updated to support the new OS 4 APIs (which, I expect, all actively-maintained apps will be), is that the app will stay in memory but stop processing. Switch back and it’ll start processing again, right where it left off.”

Yo dawg, we heard you like multitasking.

My sister and I started IM’ing about it, and she pulled out the Bernbach quote:

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

Steph: “I am busily blowing it up in poster size.”

Thom: “Me, too.”

Steph: “Is yours going in a Constitution Layout under the heading “Bernbach’s Law”? Because that would be creepy evidence that we share the same brain.”

Thom: “I might photoshop it as a tattoo on a half naked model, then blow it up in a close-up window.”

Steph: “Okay, NOT the same brain.”

I wish I could work with my sister. She rocks.



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