A plug for useful marketing, especially useful when you’re trying very hard to be informative (or when it is very important to be). 

Say you’re trying to sell a camera, assuming that it is actually a good camera. (Because you could be selling a crappy one). You know that your 10 megapixel camera is really, really good precisely because it has 10 megapixels and you want to communicate that. Take the following sentence.

This is a 10 megapixel camera. 

Raise your hand now if you know what a megapixel is. Raise it again if your mom knows what a megapixel is. Now raise your hand if you can qualify how much better a 10 megapixel camera is compared to a 9 megapixel camera. (You can’t). Not terribly useful. 

Next.

This camera takes clearer pictures than that one does.

Now you know what megapixels are for. But how much better? Still not good enough.

Next.

*Side by side comparison of 2 pictures, one taken with a 10 megapixel camera, and one taken with a not-10 megapixel camera*

So now, if your 10 megapixel camera is actually better than the 9 megapixel camera, the buyer should know immediately that yours is better and by how much. In this case, it’s much more useful to just show the difference and qualify it, rather than sticking with very detailed 10 megapixels (which is actually a whole 1 megapixel more than the 9, and does mean has more clarity, etc. etc.). 

Now consider reality. Maybe your 10 megapixel camera is actually not that much better than the 9 megapixel camera, but you know that people will automatically assume that because 10 > 9, then 10 must be better than 9, so they buy the 10. But they really don’t know wth they’re paying for (which is actually not that much better). Still successful marketing, if your metric is sales. So is this deliberate? I think so…….

If you’re the 9 megapixel guy - you’ll want to go with the 10-megapixel-is-really-almost-the-same-as-9-megapixel route. 

I started off with a very (and in this case overly) detailed statement. But, the same goes for overly un-detailed sentences.

I.E. In just a few minutes such and such dangerous thing could happen. What exactly is a few minutes? Consider your context and your audience’s context. A few might quite literally mean 3 minutes, but it could also mean 10, or 15. Just a few. Drastically different messages will be received if you say ‘just a few’. 

Okay im done. =)

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Props to my awesome coworker at Google - who strongly believes in real and effective communication (not just in the workplace, i mean communication like good stories and stuff).