Marketers love a long word. This tendency is gently mocked in the marketing glossary from the brilliant How Brands Blow by Ryan Wallman (@Dr_Draper) and @Giles_Edwards. It's a witty take-down but behind it there's a serious point. Marketers often believe that the way to impress others is through unnecessarily verbose language. But it tends to backfire. There's a wonderful 2006 study by Daniel Oppenheimer from Princeton that proves the point. He gave people one of two versions of a dissertation abstract. Version 1 was full of technical jargon and complex wording. In Version 2, the complex terminology was swapped for simpler alternatives. Participants who read the simplified version rated the author as 13% more intelligent than those who read the more complex one (4.8 vs 4.26). Oppenheimer titled his paper, in a rare flash of academic humour, "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly". So next time you feel the urge to write something superfluous like "customer-centric marketing" or use other complex wording in your comms - remember that verbosity backfires (or, that the utilisation of elevated linguistic complexity diminishes communicative effectiveness). *** If you're interested in learning about more behavioural science insights, sign up to my newsletter, AstroHacks. Each fortnight I look at one bias and explain how you can apply it to business or marketing challenges. You can sign up here: astroten.us19.list-manage.co…