Nancy rightly challenged us to write an ad we approved of. Susan's comment that it is a "simple" ad has made me decide to go for it. I thought it was interesting that the ad, written at a Flesch Kincaid grade level of 4.6 (according to my Word program, substituting a familiar word for the brand name), can't be interpreted uniformly by breastfeeding professionals. To me that means it isn't simple.
I took out the brand name and then did my best to reduce the ad to the clearest possible grammar and vocabulary. I substituted "your baby" for "what matters most," on the assumption that that would be the majority interpretation. And I made the assumption that "That's" at the beginning of the third sentence refers to the fact that being a mother takes time that her baby needs. It seemed to follow grammatically. I substituted "therefore" for "so", because it seemed a little clearer to me, and tried to clarify further what the "therefore" seemed to refer to. And I took the process called "breastfeeding" to be a simple version of "meeting their breastfeeding goals"
Here's what I got - first the original (brand removed) and then my best attempt at a reduction:
EXPRESS YOUR LOVE. You love being a mother. But
being a mother takes time. Quality time your baby needs. That's why busy
moms rely on X breast pumps to help them meet their breastfeeding
goals. So when your life is moving in many directions at once, you'll
always have time for the one thing that matters most. Express your love
with X.
SHOW YOUR LOVE. You love being a mother. Because being a mother takes time that your baby needs, busy mothers rely on our breast pumps to help them breastfeed. Therefore, when you are busy and have our breast pump, you have time for your baby. Show your love by using our breast pump.
I'd be interested to hear other people's reductions, but *mine* doesn't make any sense at all. I think it can be made to fit those special-needs mothers who must pump in the presence of the baby, but not every mother who pumps. I just couldn't find any way to maintain the basic sentences and make it really clear.
So I'd say a first step toward my ideal ad would be to decide exactly what the intended message is to be, and then state it clearly. But I think that's where the real problem lies. Take this ad by Company Y, prominent in JHL these days:
"Recommended by MORE experts, MORE hospitals, and MORE mothers. What MORE can we say?" The small print says it "mimics a baby's instinctive sucking pattern so mothers can get more milk in less time." As far as I know, there's no research to say that it actually gets more total milk than its previous iterations, or more milk than its competitors, so maybe they mean it elicits a milk release faster than its predecessor, so that there's more milk in the first couple minutes but not necessarily overall? I don't know. Again, the words may be simple but it doesn't really say. I did ask the company this summer if they had any research comparing milk yield with the older model, and the 2 salespeople with whom I spoke couldn't give me any. When I asked again today, I still didn't get a clear answer. Could it be that these ads - and the answer I sought from company Y - are kept deliberately fuzzy?
In my experience mothers would go with a pump that stuck a pin into them every 30 seconds, that was noisy and dung brown, *if research showed* that it gave them more total milk per session than other pumps. Speed would come in second to volume in importance. So here's an ad that I would consider nice and clear, though of course it would require that some research be done:
"Brand Z. More milk in less time for most women. Period."
The fine print could explain that it had been demonstrated to give more milk than its earlier, less expensive models, and did so faster than its competition. Or whatever. Heck, it could even get cute:
"The fastest milk in the West. Or East. Or North. Or South." With the same fine print explaining exactly what comparisons were made in the research. And it would have a caution attached that I've given up trying to write.
What do you think?
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC Ithaca, NY USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com
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